News

A new consortium has been created by Edinburgh community station SAM Radio, radio executive Chris Hurst and digital radio operator Niocast Digital. Edinburgh DAB plans to apply for the upcoming Small Scale DAB licence for the capital, allowing more radio stations to broadcast digitally. Mazhar Khan, director of SAM Radio and long-time advocate of small-scale DAB said: “The digital platform will open up so many new opportunities which will allow other ethnic groups and communities of interest to benefit from their own dedicated radio services”.

Francis Goffin received the WorldDAB Award for Oustanding Service as part of the General Assembly. A champion of DAB+, since 2011, Francis has dedicated his efforts to help bring together Belgium’s French-speaking radio industry and facilitate a digital distribution of radio, with DAB+ at the heart of a multiplatform hybrid strategy.

Switzerland has confirmed its plans to switch off analogue radio services starting in 18 months from now. Public broadcaster SRG SSR will go first in summer 2022, followed by private stations by January 2023.

The development of DAB+ in France continues to progress, with DAB+ launches taking place in the southern cities and wider regions of Toulouse and Bordeaux on 5 and 6 November respectively.

Initially scheduled to take place in Prague, this year’s WorldDAB General Assembly reshaped itself as a virtual gathering. The main topics of the 2020 edition included how to build an audience through digital radio, reaching the listener on DAB+, digital radio in the car, as well as an update on the latest DAB+ developments from around the world.

The 2020 WorldDAB General Assembly took place yesterday, marking the first time the event dedicated to DAB digital radio was held virtually. The conference featured over 50 speakers delivering the latest news and developments on DAB+ from around the globe. Here are some of the key highlights.

The deployment of DAB+ services continues in France, with launches taking place in Toulouse and Bordeaux this Thursday and Friday respectively. DAB+ services will cover 30% of the country following these launches. National DAB+ is set to be rolled out in France in 2021.

In order to facilitate the switch to DAB+, the Swiss media regulator OFCOM has announced the financial support offered to broadcasters switching to DAB+ will higher than originally outlined.

DTS, the wholly owned subsidiary of Xperi, hasannounced the launch of DTS Connected Radio in the Daimler MB User Experience, currently coming to market in the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Available in 48 countries, DTS Connected Radio’s content is sourced from 48+ thousand radio stations, 40+ million tracks, 4+ million albums, 1+ million artist bios, and more.

The study considered energy use across all available platforms — AM, FM, DAB, digital television and internet streaming — to discover which ones had the largest footprints. DAB had the smallest footprint, at 9 watt-hour per device per hour.