[A-DX] Fw: [bdxc-news] Germany - Up to 10 million people could be hit by threatened radio shut down

[Wolfgang Bueschel]

diese schwedische Firma "the local"
ist mir in den 14 Jahren noch nie untergekommen,
wie können die überleben, mit ihrer digitalen Plattform:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Local



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Terry via Groups.Io" Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2018 11:34 AM
Subject: [bdxc-news]

Germany - Up to 10 million people could be hit by threatened radio shut down


DPA/The Local

@thelocalgermany
6 April 2018

The airwaves across many parts of Germany could fall silent next week due to 
a financial dispute between radio stations and an FM broadcasting provider.

The company Media Broadcast announced on Friday that it would cut off FM 
broadcasters for several radio stations if they did not immediately fulfil 
certain payment demands.

“Up to 10 million radio listeners could be affected by their FM broadcaster 
being cut off from Wednesday onwards,” company head Wolfgang Breuer told Die 
Welt.

Major public service broadcasters such as MDR, NDR and Deutschlandfunk are 
among those who could be cut off, the newspaper reported.

The dispute began when Media Broadcast, formerly a subsidiary of Deutsche 
Telekom, decided to move focus away from FM radio and onto digital platforms 
last year.

The shift meant that broadcasting antennae across Germany, for which Media 
Broadcast had previously been responsible, were sold to private investors.

Broadcasters and their network operators were then left furious when many of 
the new owners raised prices for the use of their antennae, leading to a 
stalemate in business negotiations.

Hessian broadcaster FFH told dpa that a 50 percent rise in the cost of 
antennae use had left them with a “massive problem”.
In order to break the stalemate, Media Broadcast recently agreed to continue 
operating all antennae until the end of June, so as to provide more time for 
negotiations. Yet such an arrangement would still require the stations to 
contract the company during that period.


Media Broadcast now claims that around 75 percent of stations have not done 
this, and has threatened to cut these stations off if they do not officially 
contract the company by Monday.

Though digital and online streaming radio will still be available, the mass 
cut-off of FM radio broadcasts would affect a huge proportion of the 
population.
According to Bild, around 92.7 percent of Germans said they still preferred 
listening to radio on an analogue device in a poll last year.

Up to 10 million people could be hit by threatened radio shut down

https://www.thelocal.de/20180406/up-to-10-million-people-could-be-hit-by-threatened-radio-shut-down