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On July 4th, television will celebrate 10 years since the shutdown of analogue broadcasts and the definitive transition to digital terrestrial. "Now radio operators and dads like me are happy because the time has come to leave something neat for our children," says Eduardo Montefusco, founder of RDS (5 million average daily listeners), president of the DAB Italia consortium and Cavaliere del Lavoro. "DAB is an ongoing plan and the sector, after years of fragmentation, is starting to be more structured."

Panjab Radio has confirmed that it has launched across Newcastle Upon Tyne and Gateshead area in north-east England on DAB. The station will simulcast its London output with a mixture of music, news and speech programming mainly in Panjabi and English. Richard Finch from the Newcastle/Gateshead multiplex operators Tyneside Community Digital said, “It’s great to have Panjab Radio on our mux. Week by week we are adding to the number of stations available on Tyneside. Extending the choice and diversity of what’s currently available on DAB is an important part of our role.”

The first radio station of the Ukrainian Broadcasting Corporation, Ukrajinske Radio-1, has recently been broadcast via DAB+ in Bad Kreuznach in Rhineland-Palatinate. “Due to the war, the broadcaster's web streams often fail or are heavily overloaded. In order to enable Ukrainians and those interested in the country low-threshold access to the station, we are converting the satellite feed on Astra 4.9°E from Kyiv to digital radio,” explains Milling Broadcast, the platform operator of the Bad Kreuznacher multiplex on its Facebook page.

The latest small-scale DAB multiplex has launched with 20 radio stations signed up to broadcast via DAB+ in Edinburgh. The stations are Edge Radio, 45 Radio, Abacus Radio, Awaz FM, Celtic Music Radio, Chief Radio, ehfm, Gorgeous Radio, Heartsong Live, Like One, London One Radio, Mix 1 Radio, Nation 70s, Nation 80s, Nation 90s, Radio Sangam, Sunoh, TD1 Radio, Timeless Radio and Voice of Islam Radio. Edinburgh is the sixth permanent small-scale DAB service to launch, following Cambridge, Birmingham North, Newcastle & Gateshead, Tynemouth and Salisbury.

Paris-based transmission services provider, TDF has added eight Digidia FlexiDAB multiplexers and more than 50 encoders to its digital transmission headend. According to Digidia, this brings the total number of multiplexers to over 30 with more than 150 encoders in place.

ROCK ANTENNNE starts on August 1st via DAB+ in Zurich. Channel 9D reaches 1.3 million people in the metropolitan area. The leading rock radio network in Germany and Austria is expanding its DAB+ transmission area into Switzerland for the first time. For ROCK ANTENNE Managing Director Guy Fränkel, the Swiss are an important part of the rock community: "The community wanted more, we deliver: crystal-clear and free DAB+ reception throughout the Zurich metropolitan region. We are significantly expanding our range with the new digital radio standard.”

Flemish Minister of Media Benjamin Dalle expects that the final shutdown of the FM frequencies, the so-called 'switch off', will take place between 2028 and 2031. According to him, the VRT must be a forerunner in the digitisation of the radio landscape. For example, if the 'switch off' does not come on January 1, 2028, it may be an option, according to Dalle, to fully digitise one of the VRT channels.

Südwestrundfunk (SWR) is expanding its transmitter network for DAB+ digital radio reception in Baden-Württemberg. The commissioning of the Konstanz site on July 6 2022 will improve DAB+ coverage in Konstanz and along the B33 between Konstanz and Radolfzell, Bodanrück, and along the B31 between Meersburg and Ludwigshafen in frequency block (channel) 8A.

The Tyneside Community Digital multiplex has launched with three local radio stations on board from the start. Pride Radio, Spice FM and Radio Tyneside are all now broadcasting on small-scale DAB in the local area. Richard Finch, operator of the DAB service, said; “This project is the culmination of years of hard work. We’d like to thank all those who have supported us and made this possible. “We know that more and more listeners are choosing to listen to radio via DAB, so this is a welcome move for community broadcasters and the many other stations who will be on the platform very soon creating a truly diverse set of stations that cater to many tastes in the north east.”

DAB+ launched last week in the southwest of France bringing more choice and better sound quality to radio listeners. The emergence of less well known stations such as Capsao, Swigg and Crooner Radio is also one of the advantages of DAB+, particularly given that FM frequencies are saturated.