News

The FM transmitter serving the municipality of Les Brenets, in Switzerland's Neuchatel, is set to be replaced with a DAB+ transmitter in January 2020 as Switzerland continues to digitisation.

The National Council of TV and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, at its meeting on 20 December 2019, determined the winners of the competition for 2 digital radio broadcasting programmes in the T-DAB standard in Kyiv. They were Prosto Radio station and Radio Miami station. Two programmes were put up for competition; the volume of broadcasting is 24 hours per day. The broadcast will be made in the 11D frequency block (222.064 MHz frequency). Requirements to the programme concept prohibit retransmission of programmes of other broadcasters. Broadcasting licenses will be valid for a period of 7 years.

A second private multiplex is set to launch in Hamburg in the near future. This follows an announcement made by the media regulator for the state of Schleswig-Holstein expressing plans to expand existing DAB+ services in Germany's northernmost state.

Ofcom has awarded two 12-year licences for new local radio multiplexes for areas in Cumbria and Morecambe Bay. Bauer, which applied for a multiplex to cover North and West Cumbria, and MuxCo, which partnered with Nation Broadcasting to apply for a multiplex to cover Morecambe Bay and South Cumbria, will both start broadcasting in 2020.

Czech Radio has confirmed the budget for its DAB network extension plans in 2020. As part of the public broadcaster's expansion plans, DAB+ coverage is set to go from 80% to 95 % population.

Mandurah is set to become the ninth city in Australia to launch DAB+ digital radio, when the free to air broadcast technology is rolled out to western Australia’s second largest city on December 23. DAB+ was launched in Canberra, Darwin and Hobart earlier this year, and has been available in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth since 2009.

Viva Leisure, the Australian health and fitness club provider, has announced the launch of Club Lime Radio, a radio station available to listeners in Canberra on DAB+. The dedicated radio station has been setup in partnership with Canberra FM Radio, a joint venture between the Australian Radio Network and Southern Cross Austereo..

According to the latest infographic published by WorldDAB, more than 2.3 million DAB+ receivers have been sold in France, while household penetration in the country stands at 13%.

DAB+ has made significant progress in Germany in 2019 - with a growth of up to 34% in certain fields. There are now over 260 DAB+ stations, 65 of which are exclusively digital. In November, a federal law mandating digital radio in cars and certain types of receivers was also approved - it will be effective from the end of 2020. DAB+ receiver sales have also grown by 24% compared to 2018.

The second edition of Digital Radio Week took place on 4–8 November, hosting a number of events and special broadcasts. The now nationwide gathering is designed to promote and inform Belgians about the benefits of DAB+, and digital radio.