News

Digital radio is on-air again at Geneva Motor Show 2015. Once again the automobile industry is at the heart of DAB+ digital radio in Switzerland. This year the automobile industry will be able to tune in to a variety of DAB+ services from the public broadcast SSR-SRG and from the commercial broadcasters.

After a successful transition from analogue to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting in the whole of Central Europe, a similar process in audio broadcasting is expected in near future, with the aim to co-ordinate this process within the Visgrad Four (V4) countries.

As at the end of 2014, there were 1.9 million digital radios in use in Swiss households and vehicles with some 382,000 DAB+ radios were sold in the last year.

The other 12 workshops will take place during the symposium in parallel with the conference and exhibition. The workshops are being sponsored by, WorldDMB, GatesAir and Rohde & Schwarz.

Ten local and community stations will be invited to participate in the trial, which Ofcom is calling “small-scale DAB”. It will determine how small radio stations can make the jump from FM to digital, following in the footsteps of the fictional North Norfolk Digital, employer of the equally fictional Alan Partridge, above, to free the frequencies for other uses.

Trash Can Radio, the DAB and online service, is changing its name during daytime hours on digital radio.

Ofcom has today announced trials of a new technology that could provide small radio stations across the UK with an affordable way to broadcast on DAB digital radio. If the trials are successful, UK radio listeners could benefit from more local and community radio stations on DAB. Currently, the cost of broadcasting on DAB is beyond the reach of many small radio stations. But a new approach, pioneered by Ofcom engineer Rashid Mustapha, means that small scale radio stations could start broadcasting on DAB radio for a fraction of current costs.

The communications regulator said that, if the trials are successful, it could increase the variety of radio stations available to listeners across the UK by bringing down the cost of DAB broadcasting in the future.

Ofcom has today confirmed plans for up to ten trials of 'small scale DAB' across the UK, to help explore how smaller commercial radio and community radio stations can access DAB digital radio without the need to obtain costly carriage on existing DAB digital radio multiplexes.

A new regional DAB+ network for the southwestern area of the Netherlands is due to come on-the-air next month, according to Radio.nl. The network of transmitters will be heard over channel 9D.