News

The Minister of Communications, Mrs. Ursula Owusu Ekuful, has launched the trial phase of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), in Ghana. The trial phase of the DAB service will be deployed in Accra and Kumasi for a period of six months with eighteen existing FM stations in the two regions, following which the full deployment will be done nationwide. GBC’s Uniiq FM is the first among 18 stations selected for the trial phase.

Chris Leonard, president of the Hawaii Association of Broadcasters: "All of the (cellular) infrastructure was gone the night of the fires. I'm sitting in my house in Hilo yelling at my television at 11 at night as I'm watching a communications staffer from Maui County talk about the fact that all the the Internet is down, cell service is down, phone service is down, cable is down. I called almost all of the major radio groups on Maui the following morning. “Hey, are you guys all on? How late did you stay on last night? Are you aware of anybody else on the island that's off? And they said, “No, we were on we were on live until late in the evening.”

Amber Radio is a local radio station for Norwich and Norfolk launching in early September. The new station will be available on DAB via the Norfolk local digital multiplex and will include a line-up featuring familiar names from the county’s former commercial station, Radio Broadland. The idea for the station, which will run as a not-for-profit venture, was developed during lockdown by Mike Stewart, the original Programme Controller of Radio Broadland and later MD of the former SGR fm in Ipswich and Colchester. Mike Stewart said: “Our aim at Amber Radio is to bring back real local independent radio to Norwich and Norfolk."

Victory Radio is now broadcasting on a second multiplex, this time in Winchester. The station is the latest to join the Winchester multiplex, which is owned and operated by UK DAB Networks. Victory Radio began broadcasting in 2021 as an online station, then joined the Portsmouth multiplex in April last year. Bob Bruce, Victory Radio’s owner and Managing Director said: “The future of the radio landscape is constantly evolving and at Victory we want to play our part in that."

Happy Radio UK is to further expand its coverage on DAB across the north-west of England later this month. The station, which is currently on DAB in Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside, North Wales and Blackpool, will be available on the new DAB small-scale multiplexes for Stockport, Preston, Warrington and mid Cheshire. Co-founders Darren Proctor and Max Eden said: “We are focused on getting uninterrupted DAB coverage of Happy Radio throughout the north-west."

In about ten days' time, the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy will publish the DAB notices (for expressions of interest in obtaining available usage rights) for Lombardy, Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta, Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria, Campania and Sicily. It is very likely that in some critical areas, such as Lombardy, the expression of interest procedure will be followed by a competitive one, given that the rights of use envisaged by the (provisional) National Frequency Allocation Plan approved by Agcom are fewer than the consortia that will request them.

"With great satisfaction, on 19 August we officially start Radio Serie A with RDS with the new football league season, I thank the Lega Serie A for choosing us as a partner in this very important industrial project," RDS General Manager Massimiliano Montefusco says on LinkedIn. The broadcaster - with three locations in Milan, Florence and Rome - will make its debut at 7 a.m. with broadcasting on the DAB Italia mux.

This year, VMG Medien and its strongest brand radio SAW are taking significant steps to position themselves even better digitally. "Among other things, we are investing extensively in the technical infrastructure of the DAB+ network," explains Harold Grönke, managing director and programme director at the Saxony-Anhalt media company headquartered in Magdeburg. "And we are doing so both in Saxony-Anhalt and in our broadcasting area in eastern Lower Saxony. By the end of the year, about 500,000 listeners will be able to receive our programmes either better or for the first time via DAB+."

A tender is underway for the broadcasting and coverage expansion of the Polish Radio DAB+ multiplex. The public broadcaster has decided that broadcasting in Katowice, Łódź and Opole will be carried out by Emitel. The scope of the contract includes 'signal backhaul services to broadcast stations and the dissemination of a multiplex signal in the DAB+ standard, together with the extension of broadcast coverage'. This work will be carried out from 1 October 2023. In some of the areas covered by the contracts, the extension of coverage may take place this autumn, in others from 1 January 2024.

Some of the original team behind BRMB in Birmingham is bringing the radio station name back to the city. Ofcom has approved a name change for Big City Radio to BRMB which will broadcast on 89.1 FM and DAB on the north and south DAB small-scale local multiplexes. Big City Radio will move to online only, to make way for the new service. On Monday 4th September at 11:52am, Les Ross MBE will officially relaunch BRMB on FM and DAB across Birmingham along with the West Midlands Mayor Andy Street.