Germany - Emergency Broadcasting - History
09.01.2014
The public ARD broadcasters are currently investigating the possibility of improving their emergency broadcasts. For the time being traffic announcements are supported by all ARD broadcasters to inform their in-car listeners about traffic jams and to provide road safety information. But this functionality is currently limited to in-car radios only and can be disabled by the listener.
Therefore the ARD is currently investigating the possibility of supporting emergency warning announcements (EWS) to improve the provision of safety relevant information for its whole listenership. Safety relevant information in this case would relate to acute situations of danger for in-car listeners such as fire incidents in the local industrial plant or warnings of severe weather.
Refining the announcement provision will help to emphasise the benefits of digital radio compared with analogue radio.