News

The Media Council of the Saxony Media Authority (SLM) yesterday decided on the tendering of remaining transmission capacities in the local DAB+ multiplexes in Chemnitz, Dresden and Freiberg. The decision was preceded by expressions of interest from commercial radio broadcasters who want to broadcast their programmes via local DAB+.

The DAB multiplex covering the Channel Islands has been acquired by Tindle CI Broadcasting from Nation Broadcasting. Tindle CI Broadcasting Pan-island Managing Director James Keen said: “In less than a year, DAB’s reach in the Channel Islands has grown by more than a third with one in three people now using the platform every week. “Nation Broadcasting has delivered a large and diverse selection of radio stations to people in Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney and we look forward to building on their early success in years to come.”

The new DAB+ transmitter in Zwickau, which was already planned for 2022, is soon to go online with the first, national DAB+ multiplex. "The construction work at the Zwickau site is currently still underway, and the switch-on is expected to take place in the 2nd quarter of 2023," the press spokesman for network operator Media Broadcast, Manfred Hermann, told SatelliFax. In addition, further locations are planned for 2023.

The cost of keeping AM services running has surged since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent global energy prices soaring. Climbing electricity costs have forced some stations to reassess whether they really need AM channels anymore. Around three-quarters of energy use in the UK radio industry comes from power-hungry analogue broadcasts, despite the fact that the majority of listening is digital. Radio expert James Cridland says TalkSport’s AM transmission in London uses 100 times more energy than that of Capital FM, for example. Estimations of how much transmitters cost to run vary, but Absolute is thought to be saving at least £1m a year by shutting down its AM service.

maRadio.be, the cooperative in charge of the digital transition of Belgian French-speaking radio stations, recently presented the results of its fifth annual IPSOS study on the consumption of digital radio in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. Faced with an ultra-competitive audiovisual offering, radio consumption remains very positive. Nevertheless, it is necessary to qualify this: the 'traditional' consumption of the medium via FM is gradually diminishing, to the benefit of the digital technologies that have been developing in recent years. DAB+ and streaming have the wind in their sails and continue to progress in the French-speaking Belgian landscape.

The private music station ZUN has added the RadioDNS service to its signal on the DAB+ digital radio network. Players that support the technology can switch from DAB+ to an internet stream if required. The RadioDNS hybrid radio technology enriches the player with web links, traffic information, camera footage or even sports scores. Information about programmes, station names, logos and format descriptions are also displayed. Additional data is transmitted via LTE or 5G mobile network. In Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche or BMW cars, the car radio switches to the internet stream as soon as the car leaves the DAB+ coverage area.

Wendelstein is to enable reception of the second nationwide DAB+ multiplex in large parts of Upper and Lower Bavaria for the first time this year. According to a list from the Federal Network Agency, the site is to receive more power for this purpose. Previously planned with a power of only 2 kW, as with Bundesmux 1, an increase to 5 kW is now being coordinated.

Austria is to have a second national DAB+ digital radio multiplex. The media authority KommAustria is working on a tender before the end of this year, as Roman Gerner, new chairman of the Digital Radio Austria Association and managing director of radio klassik Stephansdom, announced in an interview in "magazin KLASSIK". "An expansion of the digital transmitter network in both the private and the public radio sector corresponds to the signs of the times," says Gerner. "You can also see that when you look across the borders, where DAB+ is already THE transmission path for all radio programmes in almost all European countries. That is the way of the future. Anything else would be anachronistic".

The popular radio station for senior citizens, with a studio on Linkeroever, could be heard on 98 FM and via streaming on their website. From Saturday, DAB+ (Digital Audio Broadcasting, a digital alternative to analogue radio signals) will be added. After all, why did Radio Minerva invest - it had to buy a lot of new equipment - in DAB+? "We really had no other choice. The FM band is out of date and will eventually disappear. No, together with streaming, DAB+ is the future of radio."

The Bayerische Rundfunk now also broadcasts its radio stations in DAB+ from the Hersbruck/Pommelsbrunn site. The new DAB+ transmitter will provide the town of Hersbruck in Central Franconia and the surrounding area with the BR's digital service. In addition to better sound quality, DAB+ offers a significantly greater variety of stations than FM. Among other things, the folk and brass music wave BR Heimat is available via DAB+ in excellent audio quality. The other digital radio stations such as BR Schlager or PULS, BR's young programme, the event channel BR24live, BR Verkehr and the well-known radio waves Bayern 1, Bayern 2, Bayern 3, BR-Klassik, BR24 as well as many regional stations can also be received in excellent digital quality via DAB+.