News

Speaking at the European Radio Show, CSA president Nicolas Curien highlighted that financial stability and diversity offering will be taken into account when it comes to selecting the 24 private broadcasters to be granted national DAB+ licenses at the end of February.

According to Philippe Zahno, President of the Radios Régionales Romandes - the main association representing private radios in the French-speaking region of Switzerland - the switch-off date will be announced as part of the SwissRadio Day event taking place in Zurich on 29 August.

All in Media (AIM), part of Xperi’s family of companies, has announced that its Rapid software solution has been selected by towerCast to power DAB+ visual services in France. Rapid will manage DAB’s Dynamic Label Segment (scrolling text), slideshow, and Electric Program Guide (EPG) services on towerCast multiplexes in Lyon.

Virgin Radio and Radio Monte Carlo (RMC) are now nationally broadcasted by the national DAB service provider EuroDABItalia, which covers 75% of Italian population. With the 3 national multiplexes on air - Rai Way, DAB Italia and Eurodab - all public and commercial national broadcasters are now on air in DAB+.

Ofcom has published a consultation proposing changes to the technical rules that DAB broadcasters need to follow, including a proposal to remove the 30% limit on DAB+ stations on the SDL multiplex. At the moment, the multiplex must have at least 70% of its services in original standard DAB.

Following major developments in the field of DAB+ in France in recent months, DAB+ was at the heart of the European Radio Show held in Paris at the end of January. This article highlights the important role DAB+ played at the show, as well as taking a closer look at the latest DAB+ updates in France, and what we can expect to see in the near future.

According to the latest report released by GfK, 116.000 DAB+ receivers - excluding automotive receivers - were sold in France in 2018. This amounts to a 25.8% increase compared to 2017. 3.7 million consumer receivers were sold across the 11 countries covered by the GfK report.

Car manufacturers have two years to comply with the new directive, that was ratified just before Christmas. In France, digital radio penetration has increased substantially - as a result, a law requiring all new consumer radios to include DAB+ by the end of 2019 has been triggered.

Taking into account the high number of news and updates related to DAB+ in Europe in recent months, and the continuous development of DAB+ throughout Europe and beyond, dutch online publication Radio Visie has launched a weekly DAB+ news report to bring all DAB+ related news to its audience in a bundled form.

In December 2018, the French regulator, the CSA, announced that over 20% of the French population was now covered by DAB+ digital radio broadcasts. This announcement triggered a law requiring, by the end of 2019, all new consumer radios to include DAB+. The law also applies to automotive receivers which have 18 months to comply.