Danes next to
close down
the FM band?
Rumours abound among European media commentators that the Danish government will soon suggest closing FM transmitters; they previously said they would once digital radio share reached 50%. This is expected to happen in late 2018. Digital radio share is growing but still only at 33%., a 50% increase in two years over the previopus level of 21%.
Denmark's national DAB+ network operator Teracom has also announced that it will transmit the commercial radio stations Nova FM, Pop FM and Radio 100 with space now becoming available for other stations.
Elsewhere in Denmark, several new community radio stations are about to launch on various AM frequencies with a few hundred watts of power.
A much sought after book about the BBC's Danish Service has been republished and is now available.
British Broadcasting and the Danish Resistance Movement 1940-1945: A Study of the Wartime Broadcasts of the BBC Danish Service
This book tells the story of how the BBC's European Service played a huge role in danish lives during World War II, and immediately aftwards. The book was first published in 1966, almost a generation after the Second World War.
The BBC and its various overseas services played a very important role in many countries, diseminating vital information and messages of moral support. It's unboubted that without this vital life line the war would have been prolonged. The BBC's Danish Service was a particularly effective example.
Most of the transmissions to Denmark came from the giant BBC transmitter at Ottringham in East Yorkshire, which was so powerfuil that it could be heard during the day in Berlin! The power of those transmission can never be over-stated; to the rest of the world, this WAS Britain broadcasting. Quite unlike the world's impressions of the BBC today which sound both in presentation, accent and content not like the UK hardly British at all.
The BBC and its various overseas services played a very important role in many countries, diseminating vital information and messages of moral support. It's unboubted that without this vital life line the war would have been prolonged. The BBC's Danish Service was a particularly effective example.
Most of the transmissions to Denmark came from the giant BBC transmitter at Ottringham in East Yorkshire, which was so powerfuil that it could be heard during the day in Berlin! The power of those transmission can never be over-stated; to the rest of the world, this WAS Britain broadcasting. Quite unlike the world's impressions of the BBC today which sound both in presentation, accent and content not like the UK hardly British at all.
The BBC also broadcast special programmes in the appropriate native language for the Netherlands, Franjce, Poland and Norway. After the end of the war these merged to become the BBC European service, which continued until the 1990s. The BBC's German service was the most listened to of the language streams.
The book's author, Jeremy Bennett, uncovers the relationship between the stance taken by the BBC and the sometimes dramatic effects of the broadcasts in Denmark, particularly their effects on the Danish Resistance. The 288 page softback is available HERE (via Amazon) for £14.99, post free for Prime users. Its a Cambridge University Press publication and is one of the few books about that era of Danish broadcasting.
