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Owner’s of the Amazon Alexa smart speaker can now play any of nearly 300 Australian FM, AM and DAB+ digital stations at the sound of their voice.

Owner’s of the Amazon Alexa smart speaker can now play any of nearly 300 Australian FM, AM and DAB+ digital stations at the sound of their voice.

In large parts of Europe, DAB+ is well on the way to becoming the new leading standard for radio in the long term. Throughout the European continent, more than 1,500 radio stations can now be heard digitally via the air, and that number is growing by the day.

The commercial radio industry has announced the launch of the RadioApp skill for Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa. The new skill is designed to make radio listening simpler and more convenient for Aussies, who can now ask Alexa to play any of the country’s 300 AM, FM and DAB+ digital stations by name or frequency.

Commercial Radio Australia have launched the RadioApp skill for Alexa, which makes it simple and convenient for listeners to ask Alexa to play any of nearly 300 Australian AM, FM and DAB+ digital radio stations. Speaking at Radio Alive, CRA’s CEO Joan Warner says “listening to radio is one of the most popular uses for smart speakers, so the Australian radio industry has created a voice experience that works easily and seamlessly across all Alexa-enabled devices.”

The Slovenian media regulator will conduct a public consultation on 21 November on expanding the country’s DAB networks. Interested parties must confirm their participation by Tuesday 20 November.

A DAB+ radio is an inclusion in the new Norwegian safety campaign: "You are part of Norway's preparedness". The brochure is by Norway's Directorate for Social Security and Preparedness, and has been launched in the event of extreme weather that could cause a loss in critical infrastructure, such as power, water and mobile networks.

The transmitter network for DAB+ is more robust than the old FM network, both in terms of signal feed and power supply. NRK has a broadcast-based digital broadcasting network that offers far more opportunities to alert the population with both text and sound in all channels simultaneously. The network is available all over the country, along roads and tunnels.

At the end of last year, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (EZK) announced that a special task force had been set up to optimise the frequency allocation for DAB+. Earlier it had already come to the fore that two scenarios had been developed for a more efficient division of the digital frequency space (DAB+).

“The transition to DAB has had a democratising and inclusive effect,” states Jan M. Moberg, CEO of Norwegian engineering magazine Teknisk Ukeblad (TU). In a column, Mr Moberg states that DAB and mobile networks that represent radio’s future in Norway, and that current difficulties facing the new DAB network will be rectified, at the expense of FM.