News

The radio industry mourns the passing of Fabrizio Guidi, President of Club DAB Italia.

IRC Nordic has produced audio products since 2001 and is among the Danish leading suppliers of DAB radios. Introducing the new product line, new and larger sales channels have paved the way for more important markets, and IRC expects establishment on 9-10 markets and representation in more than 800 shops during 2015.

Absolute Radio 70s has been spotted testing on satellite in a major distribution boost for the offshoot of Absolute Radio.

UTV has also reached an agreement with the Virgin Group to relaunch the Virgin Radio brand on the new network. Which is slightly ironic, as the original Virgin Radio morphed into Absolute Radio after its sale to the Times Of India Group in 2008, and that brand is now owned by Bauer.

Sound Digital, a joint venture between Arqiva, Bauer and UTV, has applied for the national digital radio licence offered by Ofcom last year, under the promise that it will deliver access to 15 "distinctive" national digital radio stations. The application, subject to approval, will see UTV launch three original speech stations - talkRADIO, talkSPORT 2 and talkBusiness - while Bauer will offer a range of music stations, including Magic Mellow, KISSTORY, heat radio, Absolute 80s and Planet Rock. Virgin Radio would also be set to return to UK airwaves under a partnership between the Virgin Group and UTV, which will see Sound Digital offer a non-mainstream music station which Jazz FM has signed an agreement to provide.

Ford Ennals, CEO of Digital Radio UK, says: “We welcome both bids for the second national commercial DAB network – it’s great news for radio and for listeners. The additional capacity on DAB will enable greater innovation, more competition and a wider choice of stations for listeners. We look forward to the launch of new stations in early 2016.”

Sabras Radio has confirmed that it will be one of 18 services that would launch nationally if its bid for a second DAB national multiplex is successful. In plans, which have been made public today, radio group, Orion Media and the UK’s leading engineering support services organisation, Babcock International Group PLC, have teamed up to submit an application for the second national digital radio multiplex. The bid, Listen2Digital, which will be chaired by Orion founder Phil Riley, will significantly broaden radio choice for listeners across the UK. -

Virgin Radio could return to the airwaves as part of one of two rival bids to run the next wave of national digital radio stations. The return of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin brand is part of a bid put forward by Sound Digital, a consortium of TalkSport owner UTV Media, Magic parent Bauer and transmission business Arqiva, to run the second national commercial digital radio multiplex.

Plans announced today for a second national DAB multiplex in the UK include putting Radio 1 on DAB across the country. One of the bids submitted by Listen2Digital, includes 18 national radio services, one of which is Radio 1.

Initiative Digitalradio Deutschland have announced that from the 30th January, the coverage of DAB+ in Saxony-Anhalt will be improved.