WorldDAB Automotive 2024: President's opening address

13.06.2024 by Jacqueline Bierhorst

Jacqueline Bierhorst: A warm welcome to all of you here in Prague and online… We are so happy to see so many representatives of car brands, associations, broadcasters, chip manufacturers, antenna manufacturers, WorldDAB members, and so many of you working on keeping broadcast radio easily accessible in the car dashboard, with the highest quality of standards possible.

It is fantastic that throughout the years, this event grew to be THE gathering place to exchange the latest updates, growth and importance of digital broadcast radio throughout the globe. We know everything gets connected, but due to the characteristics of the various infrastructures - broadcast & IP - we also know how important it is that broadcast always stays easily accessible, and how the internet linked to digital audio broadcast can optimize the user experience. But for now and the coming decade, it cannot replace digital audio broadcast. We will hear more about why broadcast is irreplaceable in many of the sessions throughout the day.

I have to thank our wonderful host broadcasters, Czech Radio and Karel Zyka. They have worked tirelessly to support and promote DAB+ in this exciting radio market and I am looking forward to hearing more about this in the first session this morning.

I am also looking forward to speaking later at the Digimedia conference – a major local event for media taking place just across the city today, and Karel and I will be joining them for a session on DAB+ this afternoon.

Thank you also to everyone who was able to join us in the shadow of the iconic Žižkov broadcast tower for our reception yesterday evening – I hope you enjoyed some excellent Czech hospitality!

Last time I was here was for Radiodays Europe 2023, when we were celebrating 100 years of Czech Radio.

This anniversary is a great example of what the UK media consultant and DAB operator Matt Deegan called “radio’s relentlessness”. Radio is a PROFESSION – we have many industry professionals in our audience today, who are creating great content every day. We are really good at it, and our stations are strong. And in turn, what this means is that radio reaches 84% of European citizens every week, who listen for over two hours a day - and also three-quarters of the youth population listen each week.

But we can’t be complacent. We can’t rest on our success.

The dashboard is critical to our future. And that’s why we are here – to unite the automotive and broadcast sectors.

A core part of WorldDAB’s work is that we bring everybody together.

We stand UNITED around the world, working with our friends at European Broadcasting Union, the Association of European Radios, the Arab States Broadcasting Union, the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union and the Southern African Digital Broadcasting Association.

And we’re delighted to also have April Carty-Sipp from the National Association of Broadcasters in the United States with us here today.

Here’s Bernie O’Neill, Project Director WorldDAB, at our stand at the ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium in Kuala Lumpur in March this year – she’s talking to Teo Nie Ching, Malaysia’s Deputy Minister of Communications.

And I have to mention our friends from Central and Southeast Europe that I met last month at the MBT Association’s conference in Slovenia.

I want to place on record how much I appreciate all this work – it is SO essential, because broadcast HAS to stay at the heart of the dashboard. And I want to also emphasise the importance of the quality of that experience too. We have to ensure the listener gets the best possible radio experience. We want to make it as easy as possible for our partners to deliver this.

Our amazing Working Groups have been hard at work too – they are a great way of bringing together people from right across all our sectors. To give a couple of examples - they’ve done valuable work on updating User Experience guidelines. And we’ve just published guidance on how best to handle phonemes and aliases – it’s all available on the WorldDAB website.

In the last twelve months, the rapid global growth of DAB+ has continued.

In France, new transmitters have grown coverage to 60% of the population.

In Germany, the second national multiplex added eight new transmitter sites in six federal states at the start of this month. And next month a further site will be added in Bavaria, bringing coverage to over 70% of the population.

Next week, we’re excited that Austria launches a new national multiplex carrying 14 stations, as well as five regional muxes.

And in Spain, in February, I was delighted to attend the launch of DAB+ by the public broadcaster RTVE.

It launched with broadcasts in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Murcia and Bilbao. In a sign of their commitment to DAB+ digital radio, they are adding new cities every month. Last month, a new transmitter was switched on for Tenerife. They’ve chosen this as a strategic location for foreign tourism ahead of the summer season – many rental cars already have DAB+ receivers.

They recognise that digital is the future – and that the EECC directive in 2021 means that DAB+ is now in at least 96% of new cars across Europe. They estimate that this means they already have 3 million receivers on the road across Spain.

By the end of the year RTVE will have 60% of the population covered. We are so pleased to have them in our DAB family.

And it’s not just a European story.

I was pleased to be part of an online seminar with the team at RRI Indonesia last month, working with them as they develop DAB+ following regulations published last August.

Just last week, the regulator in Thailand – NBTC - published a report on the successful DAB+ trial, and is now consulting on a frequency plan and specifications for transmitters and receivers.

And in Australia, the market is well-established. ABC and SBS launched DAB+ coverage on the Gold Coast last month, and audiences are growing - including amongst younger listeners.

The first ratings of 2024 show 4.7 million listening to commercial radio on a DAB+ device - and listeners aged 10-24 were up by 5% to 899 thousand, bucking trends from other analogue-led markets. So DAB+ works.

Across Africa, in the last 12 months, we’ve seen the launch of the trial phase of DAB+ in Ghana, covering Accra and Kumasi; and a pilot project in Uganda, covering Greater Kampala - AND interest from many others.

Just this month, Senegal launched its DAB+ pilot, with 32 stations broadcasting across two multiplexes from Dakar.

And in the Arab States, we also welcomed the Saudi Broadcasting Authority launching DAB+ in Riyadh, Damman and Jeddah, with six stations on air. It's expected that DAB+ will be available in all regions of the Kingdom in the fourth quarter of this year.

And Bahrain officially also launched DAB+ services last August, with ten stations on air.

Over 125 million DAB+ devices have been sold to date. In 2023, cumulative DAB+ receiver sales in the UK broke through the 50 million barrier; Germany is now over 25 million, and Italy over 10 million.

And we know that at least 96% of new cars sold across Europe now come with DAB+ as standard. It is likely to be very close to 100% but there are a small number of makes and models that we don’t hold data for.

So there is now an installed base of cars with DAB+. And there is a wonderfully rich range of radio stations available to listeners in so many countries. Many more than on FM. And that number of countries is increasing.

And we know listeners are using their DAB+ radio in cars, as we will hear from Edison. As one example, the latest audience research from the UK released last month showed that DAB's share of in-car listening has reached a record high of 57.5% - up seven percentage points in just one year.

So we have to make absolutely certain the quality is the best, day in, day out! We will hear much more about achieving this in the sessions across the day.

The launch of DAB+ in Spain in February coincided with World Radio Day, designated by UNESCO. Together with important major organisations as EBU and others, WorldDAB was proud to co-sign a statement aiming to safeguard radio’s future.

I’m delighted that the EBU’s Head of Radio, Edita Kudlácová, who joined them from Czech Radio, is with us today – Edita I’d love you to join me on stage… 

Edita Kudlácová: “… Radio has been always the most trusted information [source] and we believe that fundamentally this matters, and it will probably increasingly matter more and more. And I think this is the shared work we all need to do together, and we were delighted to have WorldDAB join us in the UNESCO statement.

"My colleagues Gwendolin and Tomas will very soon present to you the Connected Car Playbook which is the voice of the broadcasters. It is not a technical standard but it is something we also feel the broadcasters need to be part of and we are bringing that voice round the table. And I think it’s a conversation that we need to have with all of us who are in the room because we can make the impact together… “

Jacqueline Bierhorst: Thank you for being here. It's so valuable the work that the EBU are doing to support radio – that’s what we’re all here for.

Our thoughts are with those affected by the flooding in southern Germany and other parts of Europe, and we will have updates on our work on emergency warnings in the next few weeks.

Talking about cars, we know that drivers LOVE radio.

This is a quote from last year’s Dashboard Dialogue research, conducted for us by Edison Research.

It found:

• Radio is the most listened-to audio platform in the car
• Drivers say radio is an integral part of the in-car experience
• Car buyers expect broadcast radio to be standard in their next new car

I’m looking forward to hearing Edison’s Megan Lazovick talking more about their research on why drivers love listening to broadcast radio.

Many of you know of our “5Cs” that are vital for driving the growth of DAB+ in new and developing markets around the world. I’d like to highlight one this morning: COMMUNICATION.

Communications and marketing are very close to my heart – and I’m really excited to hear from Kathrin later today about the marketing aimed at drivers in Switzerland. She has brought something that I really like – you will meet the “bobbleheads” – you can see one here.

The communication of the benefits of DAB+ to drivers, and to all listeners, is critical for the growth of DAB+. I know many countries are doing great marketing campaigns,  and I can only urge you to keep up that work.

And DAB+ allows cool ideas such as this – in the UK, last week Capital launched a pop-up station dedicated to Taylor Swift. It’s called Capital (Taylor’s Version), to celebrate The Eras Tour coming to the UK. It’s the first time in the UK that a national DAB+ radio station has been dedicated to a single artist. This just isn’t something you can do on a crowded FM band.

So I should also emphasise COLLABORATION: This is a regular theme of ours and I make no apologies for repeating it again today.

We all have to pull together to ensure that DAB+ remains at the heart of the dashboard in the best quality possible.

If we do this, then the radio that listeners love so much – both here in Czechia, and around the globe – will be here for another 100 years!

Thank you for your time and effort to attend this year’s WorldDAB Automotive event and your contribution to the preservation of the radio at the forefront of the dashboard.

I wish you a fantastic event today, where you get inspired by the various presentations, conversations and of course the networking coffee and lunch breaks. Thank you.