THE DAYS of analogue radio could finally be numbered, at least if you believe the report published by Ofcom last week.

After years of tip-toeing around the subject, the regulator gave the strongest sign yet that it would switch off the FM and medium wave signals and make old radios obsolete.

With plans to review medium wave and FM in 2009 and 2012 respectively, medium wave could go in the latter year and FM is unlikely to be around beyond the end of that decade.

This will be possible because by that time, Ofcom believes, digital radio will finally have come of age. It expects about half of all radio listening to be digital by 2012 and about 90% by 2017.

These numbers had many radio observers swallowing hard. While Freeview took off like a rocket on the back of cheap set-top boxes promising attractive new television channels, digital radio is still a minority interest.

According to Ofcom's numbers it now makes up 20% of radio listening through a combination of digital radio, television and the internet, compared to 16% late last summer.

And while this compares woefully with the over four-fifths of households that have digital television, figures by radio measurement body Rajar suggest the real number might be even lower.

Rajar believes digital radio listening made up 12.5% by the end of last year, and may have stalled slightly given that it was 11% the year before and 6% in 2004. Whatever the truth, it clearly still has a steep mountain to climb to become an essential accessory in the majority of homes. Patrick Hannon, a manager at Spectrum Strategy Consultants, says: "The numbers do seem high. You would probably need to have switched off medium wave and announced that FM is going to be switched off to get to 90% digital radio listening by 2017."

Ken Garner, a radio expert from Glasgow Caledonian University, is more unequivocal. "The forecasts are totally delusional and probably driven by wishful thinking by the government about what it would like to do with the analogue frequencies. The numbers are based on hoped-for take up and not on evidence."

The FM frequencies are certainly appealing in these days of spectrum auctioning, even if Ofcom was careful to stress last week that switching off the signals is just one of various options on the table.

Just as with digital television, if the government could turn all the FM stations into more bandwidth-efficient digital services it could sell the extra space for uses like mobile television.

The only additional use for medium wave, on the other hand, is to upgrade stations to a format called digital radio mondiales (DRM). But this still has the attraction that it could cope with more stations than the current format.

While this potential pay-day has been on the government's horizon for some years, radio consumers have stubbornly refused to go digital in large numbers.

For one thing, digital radio sets have never become cheap enough. You will still be hard pushed to find one for less than about £30, which is more than the starting price for Freeview boxes.

Ofcom will have been encouraged that they made up about a quarter of radio sales at Christmas, easily their greatest spike so far, but their price is probably still holding them back.

Car manufacturers have been slow to put digital radios in their products. With digital radio even slower to take off in Europe, many manufacturers have taken the view that it was not worth catering for the UK alone.

FOR those with second-hand cars, meanwhile, upgrading to digital radio has meant getting sets specially fitted and in some cases has not been possible at all.

Another issue has been quality. As Mark Mulligan, a vice-president of Jupiter Research, says: "The sound quality is significantly inferior to that of FM. For example, Radio 3 listeners have complained vociferously about it You are never going to attract the audio buffs."

Not everyone agrees that quality is a problem, but it is harder to argue with complaints about weak signals. This does not just lead to the background noise of FM radio, but means that the station cuts out altogether. There are also those that point out that the UK's digital audio broadcast (DAB) standard of digital radio has been overlooked in many countries in favour of more recent formats, and that buyers risk being saddled with outdated technology.

Then there is a debate about whether the stations have been enticing enough. While the likes of BBC6 Music and OneWord, which includes a show with newsreader Jon Snow, have attracted their followers, there has arguably been nothing to compare with Freeview's Film Four or E4 as essential extras.

Ken Garner says: "There are very few totally new formats. Most of the stations offered around the country are just imports of successful brands already operating in FM."

Beyond this there has clearly been a problem with marketing. The Digital Radio Development Bureau (DRDB), which markets on behalf of all digital broadcasters, only spends £2 million a year, which is a fraction of what a blue-chip company would spend on a major marketing campaign.

Peter Davies, the director of radio and convergence media at Ofcom, concedes this point. "There hasn't been much marketing effort. Listeners know about DAB digital audio broadcasting but don't know who the stations are," he says.

Having said that, Davies strongly denies that Ofcom's projections are unrealistic.

Among his reasons for optimism are the fact that sets have become cheaper, national commercial platform Digital One is extending coverage to 90% and the signal is being strengthened.

He points to the continuing rise in digital TV and broadband penetration as positive signs, since they account for almost half of all digital radio listening.

Meanwhile, more car manufacturers are now either incorporating digital radio sets into their vehicles or at least offering them as an optional extra now that countries like France, Italy and Germany are waking up to the new technology. At the same time, there will soon be adapters that will make it easier to convert second-hand car radios to digital; and digital radio is gradually finding its way on to devices such as mobile phones and MP3 players.

The thing that Ofcom is really banking on, however, is the second national commercial platform. Digital Two is set to be awarded in July, with Channel 4 and National Grid Wireless (NGW) the two bidders. Channel 4's 10-station proposal would include three of its own stations plus a Disney-backed children's station and Sky News Radio. NGW is offering 12 stations including Radio Luxembourg, Premier Christian Radio and the BBC's Asian Network.

With their bids to be judged on whether they extend what is available to consumers, Davies says: "I was heavily involved with the launch of Freeview when I was at the BBC as controller of corporate strategy. We are potentially almost at a Freeview moment with digital radio with the second multiplex."

He points to the fact that both bidders have promised to market the platform heavily if they succeed.

Observers are far from convinced it will be plain sailing, however. As Ken Garner says: "The people who run Digital One are actually pretty smart. My feeling is that if they haven't been able to make it work, I am not sure Channel 4 will be able to."

All the same, he says that digital radio will eventually become the main format because everyone from the manufacturers to Ofcom have invested too much to let it fail. As Mark Mulligan says: "Ofcom's forecast is as much a statement of intent as anything."

If that is true, the real question is what it will have to do to get the public to accept the digital future. Whatever the rhetoric about the public being allowed to decide, many believe the government and Ofcom will be hoping that Digital Two does the trick.

If not, some suggest they might start pushing internet radio or another digital radio format as an alternative way forward. The only thing that seems clear at this point is that the future of radio is still anything but assured.