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The future of radio is now much less obvious and clear than it appeared ten years ago. Instead of a transition from analog to digital audio broadcasting (DAB), there is a selection alternative technological options for digital audio delivery.This article studies how 43 people in key positions related to the radio industry in four European countries and Canada view the future of radio and which delivery technologies they consider will be most successful. In addition, it analyses the motives and reasons for why certain technologies are seen as more promising. Finally, it presents different future scenarios for radio media. The Future of Radio is Still Digital 1The development of digital audio broadcasting (DAB) began during the late 1980s in an EU-supported Eureka 147 project, originally intended to give the European electronics industry a competitive advantage through the digitalization of radio (Rudin 2006;Lax 2003).When DAB was first introduced in 1995, there was an optimistic and perhaps even deterministic expectation that the superior new digital radio system would replace analog FM radio in a relatively short and smooth transition from analog to digital audio broadcasting (O'Leary 1993;Kozamernik 1995;Mykkänen 1995). The first set-back came in the 1990s, when the USA and Japan decided to develop separate digital radio systems to protect their own national industries (Ala-Fossi & Stavitsky 2003) and DAB lost the chance of becoming a truly worldwide system for digital radio. However, with the support of the World DAB organization and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), it was widely adopted in Europe and altogether in 28 countries around the world within 10 years of its introduction (World DAB 2005). But even in those countries where DAB was implemented, the adoption rate of the new radio system was low:consumers were not interested in buying new, rather expensive digital receivers as eagerly as expected and the early phase of the classic S-shaped diffusion curve (Rogers 2003) was much less steep than anticipated. Despite the promises of new features, more choice and better (CDquality) sound, the benefits of DAB radio over FM radio were not obvious to everybody (Lax 2003).The basic design of DAB fits better together with large, nationwide broadcasting systems and it has been more successful in countries with strong public service radio organizations (Rudin 1999;Hendy 2000). However, this has not always been the case. According to our studies of the development of digital radio in Europe and Canada, the varied success of DAB has been highly dependent on different policy decisions made by national governments and broadcasters. It seems that where the government and the public service broadcaster have both The Future of Radio is Still Digital 2 been committed to DAB, as in the UK and Denmark, it has been possible also to pull the commercial radio sector in with economic incentives or regulation -or both. Only in these conditions has the consumer interest in DAB radio developed favourably. This is why ...

Media policy schemes around the world are seemingly shifting character. As budgets for direct subsidies are under increasing pressure, the role of indirect tools, such as tax reductions, are growing in relative importance. This article explores the political justifications of value-added tax (VAT) as a media policy tool, and how longitudinal shifts indicate broader changes in the media systems. Based on a document analysis of newspaper VAT development in three countries with similar historical policy models-Finland, Sweden and Norway-the article identifies and describes the dynamics between four major policy positions; transparency, pluralism, harmonisation and financial austerity.

The concept of media welfare state is a combination of the democratic corporatist media system and social democratic welfare state model, describing the distinctiveness of the Nordic countries and their media systems with four basic principles. Media welfare state is based on communication services understood as public goods, freedom from editorial interference, cultural policy and economic support for media pluralism as well as preference for consensual solutions involving cooperation between main stakeholders. However, identifying a joint media welfare state model in recent media and communication policy decisions made in Nordic countries on developing communication infrastructures, media delivery and universal access turns out to be difficult. During the last three decades, none of the four largest Nordic countries has strictly followed all the four principles. In most cases, Finland has ended up with different solutions than its Nordic neighbours and sometimes also in contradiction with the Media Welfare State model. There is evidence that the Nordic media markets have been losing their distinguishability over the years. But the main reason why the present-day Nordic countries do not fit into media welfare state model is that they no longer are welfare states ‐ not at least in the same fashion as they used to be. In Finland, this transition from the welfare state to the competition state has been more rapid and extensive than elsewhere in the Nordic region, partly because of its geopolitical position. The Finnish economy has also been exceptionally dependent on a single mobile technology corporation.

Radio's transition to digital transmission is well underway worldwide, with both terrestrial and satellite-based systems in operation. However, while most of the world

His research interests include community media, public service media, radio history, and the new digital platforms for radio and audio production, distribution and reception.

Academic debates tend focus on attempts to codify and promote communication rights at the global level. This article provides a model to analyse communication rights at a national level by operationalising four rights: access, availability, dialogical rights, and privacy. It highlights specific cases of digitalisation in Finland, a country with an impressive record as a promoter of internet access and digitalised public services. The article shows how national policy decisions may support economic goals rather than communication rights, and how measures to realise rights by digital means may not always translate into desired outcomes, such as inclusive participation in decision-making.

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