Despite previous plans to abandon all analog FM transmission in Switzerland by the end of 2026, the country’s parliament, or Federal Assembly, has decided to reverse course … at least for now.
On Tuesday, one house of Switzerland’s bicameral parliament — the Council of States — narrowly supported a motion that calls on the government to abandon the planned deactivation.
According to RTS, a branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, the government decided in 2023 to remove FM channels after Dec. 31, 2026. The deactivation — which had been planned for more than 10 years — had already been postponed twice, the last time at the request of private regional radio stations. Switzerland is currently migrating to a DAB+ digital radio broadcast infrastructure.
Swiss Broadcasting Corp. led the way by converting entirely to DAB+ at the beginning of 2025. WorldDAB said that a small number of private broadcasters also did so at the time.
Now, a motion by the National Council, the other house in parliament, calls on the government to extend current FM licenses until Jan. 1, 2027, with the deadline for deactivation postponed until at least the end of 2031.
Background
The country’s National Council’s Transport and Telecommunications committee had submitted a proposal on July 1 for the Swiss government to halt its plan to end FM broadcasts. The committee sought to extend current FM licenses and even open a call for new stations.
According to the Swiss newspaper 20 Minutes, the country’s Federal Council rejected the motion. It said that the country’s sunset plan dates back to 2014 and that private broadcasters in Switzerland were originally on board with a migration plan to end FM transmissions by 2024.
In early September, Radio World reported that the Swiss government extended the deactivation deadline to the end of next year. Most of the country’s stations have been simulcasting on FM and DAB for more than 15 years, according to WorldDAB. At the time, the Swiss Federal Council said broadcasters would use that time “to find individual solutions to successfully migrate to digital,” according to 20 Minutes.
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