Hardly anyone listens to Danish DAB channels

5th June 2006

Denmark is the only country other than the UK where DAB sales have taken off, but despite DAB sales taking off in Denmark due to huge marketing campaigns by the national pubcaster DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation) as well as continuous in-store marketing, less than one percent of radio listening in Denmark is taking place on the DAB channels.

Around 10 percent of the population have access to at least one DAB-receiver. Ratings from Gallup covering the time from April onwards reveals that the four major DAB channels in Denmark, DR, DR Soft, DR Rock, DR Boogie and DR X collectively attract a share of just 0.7 percent. And this figure also includes listening to the four DAB-channels via streaming on the internet.

The recently launched and strongly hyped channel DR X station attracts a mere 0.1 percent of listening, with a daily reach of only 9,000 listeners and a weekly reach of 31,000.

According to Gallup, the other major DAB channels achieved the following share in April along with the figures from March in brackets: DR Soft: 0.5 %. (0.9 %), DR Boogie: 0.1 pct. (0.2 %) and DR Rock: 0.0 % (0.2 %) -- listening is going down sharply!

While there was a slight increase of DAB listening in January, February and March 2006 compared to 2005 (presumably following the sale of DAB receivers at Christmas) the percentage share fell to 0.7 percent in April, which should be compared with the share in all of 2005 when DAB listening accounted for a rather stable 0.4 - 0.7 percent each month.

DR is trying to hide the fact that DAB listening is so limited. In a press release from DR from May 30 it claimed that the DAB channels are "gaining ground among the listeners" and that the new channels "have a good grip on the listeners" (sic). The reality is that listening is going down and these new stations are clearly unpopular with listeners.

By the end of 2005 It was estimated that 450,000 Danish people lived in a household where there was at least one DAB receiver. This figure is now supposedly 500,000-550,000 out of a total population of 5.4 million in Denmark.