The aim of this Master's Thesis is to map out, what new and emerging technological advances are made in radio in Europe, what options are there, whether and how it is going to evolve and if this evolution may affect the listening experience and if it will, how. In addition to the technology itself, the technological process is an issue of both politics and economics. From the technological point of view, the study focuses in a limited set of the main new forms of radio in Europe: the digital radios, radio on the Internet and the hybrid radio formats. The predominant debate related to radio's technological process in Europe concerns the radio digitalisation project and whether digital radio format DAB (Digital audio broadcasting) will replace the analogue FM radio network.
The theoretical framework of this study lies in the historical context of new mass media technologies and their diffusion to the society. The future of the radio as a broadcasting technology can be mirrored to its own history but also to several other broadcasting technologies and the socio-economical and political impacts of their introduction and diffusion to the mass media consumption. Also, recent studies and news articles concerning the current state of radio's technological process are an important part of creating a thorough image of how radio is evolving in each of the focus countries.
The methodology of this study is a simplified version of the Delphi method commonly associated to the future studies: The study includes interviews with six experts from different European countries from specific different areas in order to cover all the necessary aspects radio's current state and possible futures. The focus countries represented in the study are the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, all with very different paths when it comes to the evolution of the radio.
The findings of the study suggest that out of the six focus countries, five are all on their path to radio digitalisation. Norway is the first one to complete the shutdown of its FM network by the end of 2017. The Norwegian process is observed with anticipation by the countries still in earlier stages of the digitalisation. Finland is the only country within the group that has no plans when it comes to digital radio.
The future of the radio in Europe is believed to be digital but also hybrid as internet- related services and features are introduced in various forms to the radio audiences. The Internet offers an additional service platform but, according to the experts interviewed, is not going to replace the traditional forms of radio. Whether the analogue radio will be completely replaced by the digital radio is still uncertain. It will however not happen before the 2030s
