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Industry body Commercial Radio & Audio has called for immediate action to ensure free, easy, and reliable access to Australian radio on smart devices like speakers and cars. In a submission to the Senate inquiry on the Prominence and Anti-siphoning Bill, which is aimed at ensuring easy free-to-air television access on smart TVs, CRA said the Bill needs to include radio. “It is essential to both the radio industry and Australian communities that there is always free, easy, and universal access to Australian radio on smart speakers and in cars,” said CRA chief executive officer Ford Ennals. “If Australians cannot easily access local radio during emergencies such as bushfires, storms, floods, or traffic incidents, it can be an issue of community safety,” Mr Ennals said.

Digital radio use has grown steadily since 2015: radio use via IP has increased from 26% in 2015 to 39% in 2023, while use via DAB+ has almost doubled in this period (2015: 23%, 2023: 41%). In German-speaking Switzerland, DAB+ is the most frequently used reception channel at 43%, while IP is ahead in French-speaking Switzerland at 41%. Half of radio listeners, or 45% of the population, only use digital reception channels, compared to 10% of the population who only listen to radio via FM. Around 31% use both. The proportion of people who do not use radio at all is 12%. This means that digital radio use has stabilised at a high level. As new cars are equipped with DAB+ as standard, in-car use will also become increasingly digital.

NPO Blend is launching presented programmes on the new experimental channel for the first time, featuring One'sy Muller, Howard Komproe, Niels Hoogland, Shay Kreuger, among others. The first programme, the afternoon show 'Bridge The Gap' can be heard from Monday (12 February). The other programmes will start only on 4 March on NPO Blend. The new radio station, which can be listened to via DAB+ and the internet, features many lesser-known names alongside well-known ones.

Under the slogan "Karneval hoch Vier", Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) is launching a special carnival programme that can be heard digitally terrestrially via DAB+ and on the Internet. The station will broadcast the cheerful programme with carnival music live on the WDR Event channel every day from 6 a.m. from Old Wives' Day (8 February) to Violet Tuesday (13 February).

The public training station for audio talent will be called NPO Campus Radio from 12:00 on Monday 29 January. In doing so, the public broadcaster says goodbye to the KX Radio brand. On NPO Campus Radio, to be received via DAB+ and the NPO Listen app, listeners will hear new programme makers who can thus develop into professional DJs, presenters or producers. These talents take part in the NPO Campus training programme. "Public broadcasting continuously invests in the creators of tomorrow," says Jurre Bosman, director NPO Audio. With the name change to NPO Campus Radio, it is clear what the aim of the station is: to give new talent the chance to make a lot of flying hours and develop their own form. This is how we give the new generation of radio makers the best possible start to their careers."

Classic FM and LBC are now available for first time on DAB Digital Radio across the Channel Islands. The two stations have gone live to an additional 160,000 potential listeners across Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm broadcasting in DAB+. It’s the first time either has been broadcast terrestrially in the Channel Islands. Both stations are owned by Global, the Media & Entertainment Group, which already broadcasts Heart, Smooth and Capital on DAB+ to the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands DAB multiplex is operated by Tindle Radio - owners of Channel 103 in Jersey and Guernsey’s Island FM - through its Bailiwick Broadcasting subsidiary. The addition of Classic FM and LBC brings the total number of stations broadcasting in DAB+ to the Channel Islands to 22. According to industry listening figures from RAJAR more than half of all islanders in Jersey and Guernsey tune into DAB radio each week.

As audience habits are transformed with significant growth in streaming and digital radio listening, BBC Radio looks to launch four distinctive music stations on DAB+, giving people more choice and value from the licence fee and building on the BBC’s wide-ranging support for British music. The new extensions for BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 3, which will also be available on BBC Sounds, look to delve deeper into specific genres and periods of music with context, curation and storytelling done in a way only the BBC can do. The proposed music extensions will be streamlined, curating on-demand music programmes available on BBC Sounds, with archive material and some new commissions, some simulcasting, and a small amount of new live content. They are a cost-effective way to reach audiences on DAB+ where listening is growing as people move over from FM. As DAB+ is much more spectrum efficient, the extensions can be launched by using the BBC’s existing DAB allocation.

We reproduce in full the opening speech given by Roch-Olivier Maistre, Chairman of Arcom, on Tuesday morning at 11am at La Bellevilloise in Paris on the first day of the Paris Radio Show. "Another technological innovation is opening up new prospects for the sector we share: I'm talking, of course, about the roll-out of digital terrestrial radio, or DAB+. We all know the advantages of DAB+: improved listening comfort, a revitalised radio landscape (since radio is a supply medium), a lower environmental impact than FM or Internet listening, and no risk of disintermediation for the players."

The longest continuously broadcasting digital radio network operator in the Czech Republic has ambitious plans. It wants to launch new multiplexes before the telecommunications authority asks for them. Teleko Digital, a company from Příbram, will proceed with the construction of networks for digital radios significantly faster than required by the conditions of the frequency auction organized by the Czech Telecommunications Office (CTU). The company, which has been promoting and piloting DAB broadcasts for almost 20 years and is one of the biggest proponents of digital radio in the country, has managed to auction two regional networks covering the whole of Moravia, eastern Bohemia, Vysočina and the Liberec region.

"Another technological innovation is opening up new prospects for the sector we share: I'm talking, of course, about the roll-out of digital terrestrial radio, or DAB+. No fewer than 555 services have been authorised, and more than 60% of the population of mainland France should be covered by this broadcasting standard by the end of March. The increase in coverage is accompanied by a growing awareness of DAB+, including among public authorities, thanks to the work of the promotional association and an active communications campaign. We can finally hear people talking about DAB+ on social networks, in the corridors of the Paris metro and in several major French cities! We should be delighted about this and continue our collective efforts to go further, faster and stronger with the general public and opinion leaders, including distributors and equipment manufacturers."