News

Radio France will soon expand its distribution in France in Lyon, Lille and Strasbourg, as they have asked the Ministry of Culture and Communication for applications fro digital radio in the three cities.

The report reveals that digital radio accounted for 45.5% of total listening hours in Q3 2016. This is a year-on-year increase of 3.6 percentage points in digital radio’s share of total listening hours. 85% of newly-registered cars are now fitted with DAB as standard. This represents a year-on-year increase of 12 percentage points. 

The local radio station 1FM in Molde Norway will soon start its first DAB transmissions and has ordered a complete head-end system from Paneda. The system contains multiplexers and encoders and will use the Paneda 1U all-in-one solution.

Multi-award winning British audio brand VQ is launching their radio range of digital radios in Australia ready for Christmas. VQ is working in partnership with TONI&GUY to offer a luxury hair and beauty gift package worth over $100 with the purchase of any Retro Mini from MyVQ.com.au or national retailers in December.

The second of three podcasts from the WorldDAB General Assembly is now available for people to hear. Led by Sam Bonham, this vehicle industry podcast focuses on DAB adoption in cars and the evolution of in-car entertainment and features Andreas Gorsak from JVCKenwood, Roger Lanctot from Strategy Analytics, and Ron Schiffelers from NXP Semiconductors.

The radio has a retro look with the large speaker and single control on the front. Don’t worry, there are more on the top. Beyond the looks, the functionality includes DAB and FM reception, 10 presets for each and the option to use as an alarm, either with the radio or as a buzzer. An LCD display too, along with snooze and sleep functions.

In January 2017, Norway becomes the first country to start switching off FM transmissions in favor of terrestrial digital broadcasting via DAB+. Any switchoff of FM transmissions needs to consider all radio users, even those in fishing boats off the coast. So, throughout the Norwegian summer, three NRK engineers packed a variety of radio monitoring equipment, a few portable DAB+ sets and took to the waves.

Myanmar Radio and TV (MRTV) will start a DAB trial, following a public tender which was won by Hong Kong based system integrator BTL. Paneda will provide DAB Head-End Equipment and support.

The VQ Hepburn and Retro Mk II devices offer a comfortable and easy upgrade for radio lovers, allowing owners to experiment with the world of streaming without losing the radio programmmes they enjoy. 

Industry body Commercial Radio Australia has released some new data about radio in the car. Unsurprisingly for radio, it’s good news: radio accounts for 80% of all audio listened-to in the car. Pandora, Spotify and Apple Music total just 3% of time spent listening, and “other audio”, which contains podcasting and internet radio, is 5%