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Radio France CEO Sibyle Veil and CSA Board Member Hervé Godechot shared their views on the DAB+ deployment in France at the WorldDAB Summit in November. “DAB+ is a broadcast mode that is ecologically interesting. The transmitters are more powerful and can broadcast more radio stations on the same frequency. These are important issues for us in the future.” Two new national multiplexes have been launched, covering the major motorway corridors of Paris-Lyon-Marseille and carrying 25 DAB+ stations including six national public services from Radio France. In the next 12 months, DAB+ will switch on in a further 26 areas, with a total of 465 stations carried on the new multiplexes.

According to Dr Tobias Schmid, Director of the State Media Authority for North Rhine-Westphalia: "Protection of diversity - that is one of our central tasks and especially in the audio sector in NRW. The allocation of DAB+ capacities has a positive effect on journalistic diversity in NRW. The additional offers strengthen the audio sector and secures citizens." The 2021 "On Track - Studies on Audio and Mobility" research project, carried out by NRW in cooperation with VAUNET, examined infotainment systems of various types of cars. The results show that mobile audio is booming, especially radio, with in-car listening as much as 90 percent.

Kathrein Digital Systems, specialist in digital satellite reception technology and signal distribution, is now a member of Digitalradio Deutschland. With the know-how it has gained over decades and its commitment to the distribution of digital radio and the active sale of DAB+ end devices, Kathrein DS now also wants to support the various Digitalradio Deutschland initiatives.

10 years after its introduction, DAB+ digital radio is more successful today than ever. The number of radio receivers for the car and home has increased by around 30 percent compared to the previous year. Around 20 percent of all radio listeners regularly switch to DAB+ programs. The driving force behind the current DAB+ dynamism is the commitment of many private broadcasters who broadcast their new target group programmes nationally, and increasingly also regionally, via DAB+ digital radio.

In November 2021, the first phase of the DAB+ network construction was completed, with more than 90% of the population now within reach of a digital radio signal, while motorway coverage is 76%. In the second phase of network construction planned for November 2022, the planned population coverage will increase to 96.3%, and highway coverage will increase to 93%. A survey by OIV in cooperation with the Croatian Vehicle Centre of over 9,000 vehicles revealed that over 42% of the vehicles surveyed already have a DAB+ receiver.

The transmission capacities advertised by the Saxon State Authority for Private Broadcasting and New Media (SLM) for nationwide, regional and local DAB+ coverage to supply the Free State of Saxony met with great interest with 37 applications. Nine private radio broadcasters with a total of nine programmes applied for the state-wide DAB+ licences.

Digitalradio Deutschland is holding a competition in which participants have the opportunity to win different DAB+ radios, once a day, over 24 days. Every day between 1 December and 24 December 2021, all participants will be entered into a raffle for the DAB+ digital radio that is hidden behind the clickable advent calendar door.

The Arqiva DAB multiplexing platform runs 60 multiplexes across the UK. Having launched the first DAB multiplexing platform in 1999, it has now come time to re-engineer the platform. In working with all the DAB multiplexing vendors Arqiva have selected Paneda and 2WCOM. 2WCOM will provide the technology to bring audio from the studios into the multiplexing centres and will provide the technology on the edge of the transmitter distribution network to support EDI to ETI standards conversion. Paneda will provide the DAB audio encoding and multiplexing systems in the multiplexing centres on a virtualised compute platform.

The DAB+ transmitter network for the private radio multiplex in Baden-Württemberg (Channel 11B) will be expanded further in 2022, the transmitter network operator On Air Support announced on its website.

Following a consultation on amending the National Frequency Plan, nine of the 22 local DAB+ networks – the so-called layer 6 – will switch frequency blocks next summer. The switch is necessary because the regional broadcasters will then switch to the new network format on DAB+. The regional public and non-national commercial radio stations – layer 4 in the frequency plan – will leave the five existing DAB+ allotments next summer for seven new allotments. The new layout will be more in line with provincial boundaries.