Media: Would You Pay 115 Euro Per Year for Radio?

Stockholm by night. CC licensed photo by linkahwai. 

Sweden is one of the countries that is now planning for an FM switch-off. Because FM is way passed its due date. But also because the internet cannot and will not deliver radio to everyone.

Says who? Says Teracom, the main network provider in Sweden.

They have released calculations that show that all radio listening in Sweden would amount to 190,000 Terabyte per year if it were to be streamed, which means distributed via the internet. That is more data than what was carried across all four mobile networks in Sweden in 2012 (they carried 176,000 Terabyte between them last year).

The cost? The networks would not be able to deliver this, but let's talk hypothetically.

All radio listening in Sweden would cost 7.6 billion SEK (880 million Euro) per year. Given a price of 40SEK (4.6 EUR) per Gigabyte. 

How much is that in common language? That means approximately 1,000 SEK (115 EUR) per average listener per year. To listen to the radio, which is currently free. Would you pay that much for radio? 

A typical Swedein 2012 listened to the radio for almost 200 minutes per day. That is a slight increase from 190 the previous year, according to SR.

Do you need more reasons or background information? 

Why remaining on FM is more expensive than building DAB from scratch.

Broadcasting 7 times greener than streaming. 

DAB vs FM coverage. 

The real cost of DAB.

The FM bets are on.