FM Switch off delayed again

Just read that the much-delayed FM switch-off has been put back again for another 10 years.

That’s a shame, I sold my decent tuner earlier this year before it became a glorified door stop.

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Good news my dealer potentially has a Naim tuner coming back in which I have reserved just sorting a FM aerial.

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As I don’t find DAB beneficial, the extension is good!

Otherwise we’d cease to have a radio in any of our cars, the alarm radio giving local news in the morning wouldn’t, and there’d only be the short battery life little radio for anyone wanting anything on the radio.

Which model are you getting? I bought an 05 a couple of years ago for the princely sum of £240 and it’s wonderful. With a simple five element aerial on the roof, live Radio 3 broadcasts are a delight.


Good, my £20 Sansui special can have a reprieve!
On my loft aerial sounds sublime.

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HH it is a 05 no other details as yet hopefully should have an update next week.

Great news, but santa won’t be happy galaxy 14 blocking the chimney

Does this mean we could see the NAT 05 XS go back into production?

Brilliant news

Fantastic news for all those Naim NAT 01\2\3\5 owners :+1:.
Another decade to enjoy one of the best sources available in style. :blush:

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For home use its the 01 tuner for me. My Pioneer (DIN 1) car stereo head unit after 18 loyal years has been retired. I wanted a top quality replacement so stayed with the same company partly because its a relativly easy swap. My main motoring needs are BBC FM R3 and CD. The new unit has no built in DAB but there is provision for an aux feed. It also comes with a ton of features I will probably never use. FM quality is excellent though.
DAB shares the same problem with the TV signal. It either works or not. FM is much more forgiving. If FM keeps going for 10 years I will be 86.
I can live with that.

Reading through the comments for that article there are a couple that make valid points: this delay to switch off doesn’t guarantee that FM has another 10 years, it gives the broadcasters up to 10 years to switch over. For the commercial broadcasters it’s a fairly simple Cost / Benefit question; for the BBC it’s less straightforward but still boils down to how long FM is worth maintaining as an option as listening migrates to other sources.

5G is rolling out, radio via IP, DTV and DAB will continue to eat into the numbers listening and much like the great EU debate those of us of the generation that automatically default to FM will naturally reduce in number. FM may die a natural death well before then.

Fwiw my only FM listening is in the bathroom, and that’s only because there isn’t a DAB radio in there yet. Absolute quality doesn’t matter in the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or car and despite its many opponents I find it more than fine in those environments, and no DAB means no 6 Music and no 5L in anything close to audible. And for every journey I’ve made around and across the UK since having DAB in the car (4 years now?) I can’t recall one dropout. DAB is just fine for what it does.

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