News

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.

Klassik Radio remains on a strategic expansion course: the radio station for classical music fans, which was expanded in March 2021 in a first step into German-speaking Switzerland, will also be receivable via DAB+ in the federal capital of Bern, the Bernese Oberland, Biel-Solothurn and Oberwallis. from 10 December 2021.

After the expansion in German-speaking Switzerland in 2020 and 2021, SRG expanded its DAB+ digital radio network in Italian and French-speaking Switzerland. In total, it has put ten new DAB+ transmitter sites into operation and optimised twelve. In the Jura region in particular, SRG ensured better DAB+ reception. The DAB+ network in Italian-speaking Switzerland has been fully expanded since the DAB+ transmitter Cardada went into operation in early 2021.