News

Digital Radio UK, together with the Radio Academy Midlands and RadioToday, are to hold a digital radio event in Birmingham. “Doing the DAB: Birmingham” will be similar to recent digital radio events in Manchester and Glasgow and will celebrate the strength of digital radio in Birmingham.

In a three year contract BBC World Service English will be streamed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on digital radio in the Ranstad area, which covers the four largest cities in the Netherlands: Amsterdam, the Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam. BBC World Service English is also available in the country via the internet and Hotbird satellites.

Media and entertainment group Global is launching a brand new radio station in the form of Heart 80s on the Digital One (D1) platform. As its name suggests, the new station will be dedicated to playing ‘classic hits from the ‘80s. It is hoped that the new station will increase the Heart brand’s audience, which currently comprises 9.3 million weekly listeners.

Among the sessions at Radiodays Europe will be “First Shut Down of FM for DAB+. How Did it Go?,” which features Norway’s Marius Lillelien, NRK head of radio, Kenneth Andersen, head of P4/MTGand will focus on the aftermath of Norway’s shutdown of its FM stations in favour of DAB+.

Global is starting a third national Heart station, as Heart 80s joins Heart and Heart extra. The new station will launch on Digital One – where Bauer’s 80s station, Absolute 80s, recently left to join the smaller Sound Digital multiplex.

There are a wide range of digital radios available on the market and many have features that are particularly useful when looking to buy for an elderly relative or friend. Features such as ease of use, large display and large buttons are available on a range of DAB+ digital radios.

Following the digital switchover in Nordland in early January, Digital Radio Norway has released new data showing the impact of the FM switch off on radio listening. DAB is now the most common platform for radio in Nordland. 81 percent of all radio listeners use DAB, before the digital switchover the reach was 57 percent.

Standard kit on even the entry grade HSE models is comprehensive and includes sat-nav, heated front and rear seats, DAB radio, a reversing camera and enough hardware to launch a space rocket.

The radio world has been watching Norway to see if its bold experiment to switch off FM radio and replace it with DAB+ digital radio will be successful. So far so good, according to Jørn Jensen from Norway's national broadcaster NRK who provided an update on the digital switchover at ABU DBS 2017.

The second nationwide digital radio multiplex is to be broadcast as soon as possible. The media institutions have set a tight schedule for this and four applications are currently being considered from Digital Audio Broadcasting Platform DABP GmbH, Absolut Digital GmbH & Co. KG, Media Broadcast Digital Radio GmbH and Radio digital GmbH.