World Radio Day 2025: Radio and Climate Change

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Paul Jamet, who writes:

Hello Thomas,

This short message to draw your attention on the following:

The theme of World Radio Day on February 13, 2025 is “Radio and Climate Change”:

https://www.unesco.org/en/days/world-radio?hub=66636

https://www.unesco.org/en/days/world-radio/radio-climate-change?hub=66636

I hope this information is helpful to you.

All the best.

Paul JAMET

Thank you so much for sharing this, Paul! I always look forward to World Radio Day!

Spread the radio love

6 thoughts on “World Radio Day 2025: Radio and Climate Change

  1. mangosman

    qwertyamdx. The main point of my post is the huge electricity consumption of both AM & FM broadcasters as well as the internet particularly wireless when streaming when compared to DAB+ and DRM.
    Phone app for android mobile phones using the FM radio chip within the phone or a dongle if not.
    https://www.amazon.de/STARWAVES-GmbH-DRM-SoftRadio/dp/B08X3T8TGV/?language=en_GB
    or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.starwaves.drmsoftradio.drm

    more details https://starwaves.com/softradio-wiki/drm-softradio-top/

    Broadcast is not like other inventions. It needs a large group of receivers and the investment of broadcasters for the period when the sales build. It is the classic ‘Chicken or the egg’ People will not buy a new device if they cannot see or hear the benefits for their money. Good planning is required including a switchoff date. This is how TV converted from analog to digital.
    The telcos wanted the 700 MHz band so in the USA Government case was pushed to subsidise set top boxes. This was only possible using digital only transmission. Similarly for radio but the telcos don’t want this band but to get the environmental benefits, it must be digital only transmission. Simulcasting is the worst of all worlds and analog is no change.
    Norway went all major broadcasters nationally in 2017 and the ratings returned to analog values within 12 months with significant audience to some of the extra program streams. Switzerland’s major broadcaster switched to DAB+ only with the commercials by the end of this year. FM ratings are 10 % because the audience knows there will be no FM and they haven’t had AM for a long time.
    Indian car sales have added another million DRM equipped new cars, making it now 7 million and rapidly rising.

    Reply
    1. qwertyamdx

      > The main point of my post is the huge electricity consumption of both AM & FM broadcasters as well as the internet (…)
      This is not an issue at all as long as the electricity comes from green sources.

      > Phone app for android mobile phones
      So there’s no “a mobile phone” that “has been demonstrated” and can receive “DRM in the VHF band” – it’s just an app? Where does it say that it can use “the FM radio chip within the phone” for DRM+ reception?

      > Broadcast is not like other inventions. It needs a large group of receivers and the investment of broadcasters for the period when the sales build. It is the classic ‘Chicken or the egg’ (…)
      Let’s stick to broadcast then, it’s the same situation. If we recall memories from 60s-70s, I cannot recall a situation when FM broadcasters lobbied for a government ban on AM. Stations launched FM transmitters without even a hint of a promise from the government that at some point it’s going to prohibit their competitors using AM from operating. People just recognized it’s better. And this is something you also admit:

      > People will not buy a new device if they cannot see or hear the benefits for their money.
      – and it’s true. They saw the better quality of FM compared to AM, they saw the benefits that came from replacing a dumbphone with a smartphone, they know that fiber is obviously better than dialup or DSL etc (all of the above without any government intervention). They just do not see or hear any of these these benefits in digital radio.

      > Norway went all major broadcasters nationally in 2017 and the ratings returned to analog values within 12 months with significant audience to some of the extra program streams.
      Please do some proofreading before posting. One can only guess what does “Norway went all major broadcasters nationally in 2017” really mean. I think it can refer to the Norway’s nationwide radio stations switching off FM in 2017.
      It’s no surprise the ratings recovered, after all, the NRK was and remains the most popular broadcaster there. So it’s clear that the people switched to digital listening – because they had no other choice. But when they had, the ratings were completely different. Despite the launch of DAB broadcasting in Norway in 1995, two decades later (in 2015 – 2 years before the shutdown of nationwide VHF radio stations) 55% of households and only 20% of cars were equipped with a digital receiver. (article from The Guardian: “Oslo calling: Norwegians prepare to scrap FM radio”). So it’s clear that digital radio didn’t have a commercial advantage there.

      > Switzerland’s major broadcaster switched to DAB+ only with the commercials by the end of this year.
      Misleading wording – both the switchoff of SRG SSR’s FM transmitters and the upcoming switchoff of commercial FM transmitters at the end of next year are mandated by the government. And this is done without a technical rationale (there is NO OTHER use for the 88-108 band) and despite the resistance from some of the private stations that would like to continue broadcasting on FM. There’s no reason why the government should deny them licenses and refrain from collecting the necessary fees. And this is quite serious, because it means that the government – instead of fighting monopolies – is actually creating one, for the proprietary DAB+ standard.

      > FM ratings are 10 % because the audience knows there will be no FM
      Which proves my point – digital radio cannot stand in free market competition. You always need to ram it through with the government intervention, otherwise the adoption rate will be limited and you’ll end up with mostly 50%-like figures after decades and millions spent on transmission.

      And this is what it’s all about – clearing the inventory of DAB-capable receivers. In some of the European countries, DAB is a thing since 1995 – 3 decades have passed since its introduction. It’s absolutely clear that the sales of receivers have stalled. So the lobbyists have come up with a ‘great’ idea – if the people aren’t buying as many of them as we want, let’s just force them to do so.

      > Indian car sales have added another million DRM equipped new cars, making it now 7 million and rapidly rising.
      In other words, 2% of Indian cars are now equipped with a receiver capable of tuning in to DRM signals, carrying radio programmes encoded with 8 kbps bitrate (not a typo: eight kilobits per second).

      Reply
  2. Ward Elliott

    Mangosman,

    I totally disagree that FM and AM should be banned. That sounds like an authoritarian solution to me. AM & FM need programming creativity. I dont care about the perfection of the broadcast signal, I like trying to connect my equipment in some way that helps me get that signal. That’s radio participation, I enjoy…
    Data over radio is intriguing, however I think it needs it’s own portion of bandspace. Forcing the public to adapt to new receivers would possibly kill off radio forever. Radio would just become a second form of the internet or podcast access and be compromised by the the same corporate interests that might be responsible for much of the problems with AM, FM broadcast radio today? We have a creative programming problem in radio. In my opinion, multy channels on the same broadcast frequency would only make the lack of creative content even more apparent. If you want bandwidth for a digital multi channel idea, go get it elsewhere. I like my AM and Shortwave.
    Ward Elliott 73’s

    Reply
  3. mangosman

    Is this a case of don’t shoot the messenger

    They should be also taking aim at the internet and broadcasting industries.
    The cloud storage, internet service providers, both fixed and particularly mobile two way distribution of data uses lots of power. Australia’s largest telco is one of the largest electricity consumers in the country. Data storage for the majors are build near water bodies to cool the computers. The heat alone is coming from the electricity supply, and where is that coming from?!!!

    As for broadcasters, AM radio which is over 100 years old should be banded. Between 67 – 100 % of the radiated power contains no sound and has to be used because receivers use a semiconducting diode to recover the sound. Without it the sound is unintelligible due to distortion. Not only is the radiated signal wasted, the transmitter has to produce it causing additional electricity consumption keeping the transmitter cool. FM stereo is not much better, being around 70 years old. Both modulation types can only carry one program. DAB+ and now DRM in the VHF band can carry 18 sound programs with additional data, but to do this with FM 18 FM transmitters are required. In addition DRM in that band only requires 10 % of the radiated power of an FM service to cover the same area.
    There was one model of mobile phone which could receive DAB+ and now DRM in the VHF band has been demonstrated in a mobile phone as well.
    As for replacing the AM/FM receivers like the conversion from analog to digital TV it is a one off cost and like mobile phones the old receivers can be recycled to recover the metals etc

    Reply
    1. qwertyamdx

      Again the same “everything I don’t like should be banned” approach. This is actually typical among digital radio lobbyists. They are always pushing for the governments to mandate digital switchover (despite the lack of technical rationale for that), because they know perfectly well that it’s the only way to sell their stuff (radios, transmitters, etc) in a scale that would satisfy their plans.

      Digital radio, be it DAB or DRM, always struggles in free market competition. Typical listeners are perfectly fine with what they have now. Lobbyists’ solution is not to make digital radio more competitive (i.e. by upgrading their standards), but to push the same thing again and again and count on the governments’ help in getting rid of the competition. I for one cannot recall a situation when a smartphone-making company proposed banning the sale of dumbphones? Or a telco company pushing for a government ban on dialup? And how did that end? Could it be that the people just switched, without any gov intervention?? Was it a miracle, or the new things were just better?

      When you have a breakthrough technology that people want to have, you just introduce it and the market is yours. But when you do not, only Daddy Government can help.

      As for the issue of recycling, the claim that “old receivers can be recycled to recover the metals” is pure greenwashing. Digital receivers are more expensive, use more electricity, and it is absolutely clear that using the equipment you already have is more environmentally friendly than producing new devices and shipping the old ones to Third World countries.

      Last year’s report from ITU and UNITAR clearly states that only 22% of electro-waste is properly recycled. Of the entire global demand for rare earth metals (used in electronics manufacturing), recycling provides for merely 1%. It’s next to nothing. There is no reuse of rare earth metals in the electronic industry, that’s a fact.

      International and environmental organizations are unanimously recommending measures to extend the life cycle of various consumer electronics and household appliances as an important part of the fight against the overproduction of electro-waste and its consequences. Digital radio lobbyists do not agree, though: for them, the right thing to do as an “ecological” measure is dumping millions of working receivers into garbage.

      What is the manufacturer and model of the mobile phone that receives DRM+?

      Reply
      1. mangosman

        Any figure of recycling on electro-waste depends on what is being recycled. I would expect that the vast majority is cell phones. I say this because every 8 years a new generation of technology is released and it can only be used for a maximum of 16 years because the telcos switch off the base stations for the oldest technology. For example in Australia, the latest shut down was 3G last year because 4G and 5G are available. The reasons they did this is because governments auction spectrum for high prices so now the spectrum which was used for 3G is now reallocated to the slower version of 5G. The other reason is that the telcos also sell the phones as well.

        In addition how old is the average analog radio and what is the average duration between the sale and the disposal. In newer vehicles the radio nearly all of its hardware is in the infotainment system so the amount to recycle for the radio is tiny.
        The new digital radios have much less hardware because nearly all of the signal processing is inside a few chips because they use Software Designed Radio technology.. The tuning is done with a diode not a mechanical set of rotating plates with dial cord assemblies. There are no IF and oscillator coils with their ferrite cores.

        Lastly the change from analog TV to digital TV caused much more e-waste because it included picture tubes, large power transformers, lots of copper wire, aluminium chassis etc. This also occurred with the demise of the visual display unit for computers too!

        Reply

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