News

The French union of independent radio stations SIRTI has welcomed the appointment of Franck Riester as Minister of Culture, and calls on him to continue recent efforts to accelerate DAB+ in the country.

NENT Nordic Entertainment Group will start broadcasting via DAB+ digital radio in Sweden on January 1, 2019. In total, 15 digital stations will broadcast on DAB+ from January. According to Swedish Press, Radio and Television Authority’s license conditions, which run from 2014 to Sept. 20, 2022, the new digital network must reach 35 percent of the population by April 2019, 50 percent by 2020 and 70 percent the following year.

Factum Radioscape have signed a multi-year support agreement with Commercial Radio Australia to assist in the broadcasting of DAB+ services in Australia's major capital cities. Factum Radioscape managing director Thomas Durkin said: "DAB is an ever-evolving market and we are keen to stay at the forefront of this industry. Having partners like CRA is crucial to increasing awareness of our company, and how we can assist digital radio going forward."

The decision of the local media regulator, which granted the corresponding license to the Nordic Entertainment group (NENT), plans to launch a new 15-channel network in Sweden as early as January 1 2019, with a few other commercial players.

The latest listening figures from Norway’s Radio Listening Authority show that national radio listening is stable. Meanwhile listening figures from the third quarter of 2018 show that the niche channels have consolidated their position vis-a-vis the main channels.

In the new measures announced at the end of last week, the UK government wants to facilitate the broadcasting of community radio stations and smaller commercial radio stations on small-scale digital radio multiplexes which broadcast today only FM.

Ofcom will be creating a new category of licence for community radio stations – the C-DSP, (Community – Digital Sound Programme) which will help them go live on a SSDAB multiplex. Companies who win an SSDAB licence in the upcoming rounds will have to make a certain proportion of capacity available to C-DSP licence holders.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media, Sport (DCMS) has announced that there will be a new category of small-scale DAB multiplex licence for community radio stations - the C-DSP (Community - Digital Sound Programme) licence - this will work on the same non-commercial terms as a community radio station's FM licence.

Overall there was strong support from respondents for the government’s proposals for allowing Ofcom to reserve capacity on small scale multiplexes to guarantee access for community radio stations, creating a new C-DSP category of digital sound programme licence for community stations broadcasting on digital, and allowing both commercial and not for profit entities to hold a small scale multiplex licence. The government now intends to move forward with specific proposals as set out in the response document and develop the detailed secondary legislation.

In new measures announced today, the Government will make it easier for smaller community and commercial radio stations to broadcast on small scale digital radio multiplexes. With more than 50% of all radio listening in the UK now on digital, the new lighter touch licensing regime means these small stations won’t be left behind by the growing shift from FM and AM to digital radio and will give more choice to millions of radio listeners across the UK.