Global growth of DAB+ highlighted at Radiodays Europe 2025

13.03.2025 by Will Jackson

Radiodays Europe 2025 in Athens fully reflected the global growth of DAB+. In the opening session, Greek public broadcaster ERT announced the nationwide rollout of DAB+ by the end of this year. The organisation’s President, Yannis Papadopoulos, said: “Currently DAB+ operates only in Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras. But by the end of 2025, ERT plans to extend it across the country. This transmission will allow citizens to enjoy even better sound quality and of course a greater variety of stations everywhere.”

Later in the day, Gary Stein, Director of Audio for Bauer Media Audio UK also announced the launch on national DAB+ of Greatest Hits Radio 70s, Greatest Hits Radio 80s, Hits Radio 90s and Hits Radio 00s on 31 March. “We’re really excited to launch these four new stations and provide even more personalised, passion driven content for our music-loving audiences, while increasing opportunities for our advertising partners to target highly engaged, specific audiences,” he said.

WorldDAB President Jaqueline Bierhorst spoke alongside Nicola Bomio, Head of Radio at CH Media and President of the Association of Swiss Commercial Radio Stations, in a session on DAB+ around the world. Bierhorst emphasised how “broadcast is for broadcasters,” and welcomed the new expansions, alongside recent developments in Turkey, Ireland, Portugal and Luxembourg.

Bomio noted that in Switzerland, the switch-off of FM by SRG SSR had gone “surprisingly smoothly” with not much listener feedback, and that around 50% of commercial stations in Switzerland also reduced their FM transmission at the same time. He set out that early audience data suggested there had been some churn in listening, “but the key question now is when and how quickly the public broadcaster’s reach will recover - we hope it will be quick like we saw in Norway.”

Other sessions saw strong support for the access to niche audiences that DAB+ can offer through more specialised formats. Andy Everett, Global's Managing Editor for Scotland, explored the success of annual pop-up DAB+ service Heart Xmas, and the strong seasonal boost it brought to the Heart Network’s audiences, saying “a flying Santa floats all sleighs.”

Meanwhile, Cilla Benkö, CEO and Director General Swedish Radio, Vice-President European Broadcasting Union said that radio needed to remember its origins, noting the “irreplaceable charm” of the medium. “Linear radio is here to stay,” she said. “We have to nurture it. It’s not the same linear radio that we historically had, it has to be developed, and it has to go more live, because live is our spine.”

The importance of radio’s prominence in cars was also reflected across multiple sessions, including the welcome in the opening session from the Deputy Prime Minister of Greece, Pavlos Marinakis. "I must tell you that I look forward with great interest to the results of the discussions on the protection of Radio Access in Car Systems and sustainability in transmission. Issues that are of great value and may well shape the future of radio," he said. Alongside this, Stefan Möller, President of AER - Association of European Radios, said his priority was to keep radio in the car. “Content is king, but distribution is King Kong,” he noted.

Tomas Granryd from Swedish Radio opened a session on in-car audio and connected dashboards by saying “50% of all radio consumption is in the car, 50% of your salary is in the car.” This was echoed by Gwendolin Niehues of ARD calling for radio broadcasters to invest time and resources into the car spaces, as the car industry is listening to the radio industry right now.

WorldDAB members Xperi and Radioplayer each hosted their own sessions. Joe D’Angelo, Joe D'Angelo, Senior Vice President of Broadcast Radio and Digital Audio at Xperi, asked about the impact of hybrid radio. Christian Schalt, Chief Digital Officer, RTL Radio Deutschland said “we’ve seen quite a lot of growth through DAB+ in Germany, national DAB+ is quite new - it naturally brings listening to new offerings.”

In the Radioplayer session, CEO Yann Legarson called for “one message, because we all want the same – we all want the prominence of the radio button… In the car you need to keep the single access to information, to entertainment, to all the benefits of radio. We don’t want to be in the middle somewhere of all the different apps.” Asked to give a brief vision for the in-car future in 2030, Stefan Möller replied: “If you open the door, it says: welcome to your radio on wheels.”

Radiodays Asia 2025 will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia from 1-3 September; while Radiodays Europe 2026 will be held in Riga, Latvia, from 22-24 March 2026.