News

As DAB+ continues to grow across Europe, radio stations across Germany are uniting ahead of IFA Berlin to take part in a DAB+ themed day. As part of the event, broadcasters will be providing information about DAB+, the benefits it presents and the stations on air across the country, as well as organising various Q&As and interviews.

Stakeholders across the German radio industry come together at IFA Berlin on 5 September for a DAB+ themed day, which kicks off a major cross-platform DAB+ promo campaign in the lead up to Christmas. Germany now has more than 260 regional programmes broadcast on DAB+ and almost every second car off the assembly line now comes with DAB+.

The French regulator CSA has launched a new call for tenders for DAB+ licenses across a number of locations in France. Specifically, the call for tenders concerns the cities and regions of Amiens, Angers, Brest, Caen, Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, Le Mans, Metz, Montpellier, Nancy, Nîmes, Perpignan, Reims, Rennes and Troyes. Interested parties should submit their applications to the CSA by 6 November 2019.

The INOmini occupies 1/3-rack, allowing broadcasters to optimize their rack space for audio processing, RDS encoding, and monitoring for DAB+, AM, FM, RDS, HD-Radio.

5G is very much still in its early stages of development, and a free, nationwide distribution of radio over 5G is not an option - at least for the foreseeable future. DAB+ is well established across the continent and while the introduction of 5G may help to complement DAB+, it certainly isn't considered to replace it.

5G broadcast is distributed in the UHF band, where higher transmission powers or more transmitters are required than in Band III, where DAB + is broadcast.

Listening on 51 DAB+ stations across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide to be monitored. "DAB+ is a highly competitive radio market and this new service will give radio, its advertisers and media agencies transparent and independent commercial airplay verification".

Fun Kids has launched its first spin-off *service* for preschoolers and their parents called Fun Kids Junior.

German news publication InfoDigital has published a long overview outlining the rollout status of DAB+ in Germany and Europe. DAB digital radio sales have reached 75 million worldwide, with over 12 million receivers sold in Germany to date.

The DAB + train continues throughout Europe, according to BLM CEO Siegfried Schneider. Those who do not get on board now will find themselves at an analogue dead end. Terrestrial digital radio has been established to the point of no return, and 5G mobile technology is not a panacea for radio for the foreseeable future.