News

The Media Council of the Berlin/Brandenburg Media Authority has approved numerous extensions of licences and allocations for non-commercial broadcasters. These include Freies BürgerRadio Slubfurt e.V.; Radio Netzwerk Berlin e.V.; and Freie Radios Berlin Brandenburg e.V.. Also, DAB+ capacity on channel 7D and the Berlin FM frequency 91.0 MHz will be made available for the open channel ‘ALEX Berlin’ until 31 December 2025.

Global is removing LBC News from 1152 kHz AM in London. Audio running on the frequency says the service will cease on medium wave at the end of October, advising listeners to retune to DAB or online. The promo says: “From later this month the way you listen to LBC News might change. From the end of October LBC News will no longer be available on AM radio across London. To continue listening in this area you might need to retune your radio. You can keep listening on DAB digital radio, on Global Player, or by asking your smart speaker to play LBC News.” LBC News will continue on national DAB via Digital One.

At its meeting on 17 October, the Media Council of the Bavarian Regulatory Authority for New Media (BLM) approved the broadcasting of Absolut Radio AI by Antenne Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG to broadcast the Absolut Radio AI programme. This is the first ever case of approval for a national radio station designed and presented by artificial intelligence (AI). The regional centre is responsible, as Antenne Deutschland is based in Garching near Munich. ‘kAI’, an artificial intelligence, hosts the programme 24 hours a day. Since August 2024, he has been supported by the presenter ‘AIleen’, an AI with a female voice. The slogan ‘Absolut Radio AI - artificial intelligence presents here’ is clearly audibly broadcast. The station has been broadcast regionally via DAB+ in the Braunschweig area since the end of August 2023.

Since 1 October, 13 new radio stations have been broadcasting on DAB+ in Lens and the surrounding area. With the agreement of Arcom, this new transmitter was installed on the initiative of the 13 stations that make up the local multiplex known as ‘BLAD’ (Béthune, Lens, Arras, Douai).

MIMIT has convened, for the next few days, the new public sessions (the second, after those held in September) for the assignment in some regions of the rights of use of frequencies to network operators for the digital terrestrial radio broadcasting service on certain DAB+ digital radio frequencies. These meetings in public session concern cases where there have been several expressions of interest for the same frequency and, as provided for in the calls for tenders, are intended to verify the possibility of reaching an agreement in relation to the choice of the network.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, the largest mutual agreement procedure begins on Tuesday afternoon (15 October), probably not only in the history of the federal state, but nationwide. Applicants for five regional DAB+ multiplexes will meet via video conference, including 41 local radio stations, seven regional and two new state-wide stations, Radio NRW as the framework programme provider for all NRW local radio stations, as well as four applicants for platform operation. Representatives of the local radio stations' operating companies will also have the right to speak, as by law they are responsible for programme distribution in the two-pillar model. 55 applicants must agree on a single solution.

Play.cz, which has so far been active mainly in the field of internet streaming, will launch its own radio network in the DAB+ standard in the first quarter of next year. Jan John, a member of the company's supervisory board, made the announcement at the Media and Technology 2024 conference in Pardubice on Tuesday. The network's programming is currently in the pipeline. The launch in the first quarter of next year means that the operator will launch one transmitter in each of the awarded regions. Play.cz wants to proceed in such a way that by the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, it will have completed the first phase of expansion, which the Czech Telecommunications Authority set for it as one of the winners of the auction.

The regional programmes of Czech Radio for Hradec Králové, North Bohemia and the Karlovy Vary Region will be distributed for at least another year via DAB+ multiplexes of the operators RTI cz and Teleko digital. Karel Zýka, technical director of the public broadcaster, said this at the Media and Technology 2024 industry conference in Pardubice on Tuesday. Further development depends on the construction of commercial networks that will enable regionalisation. Czech Radio Karlovy Vary is currently a part of the DAB+ multiplex network of the West Bohemian company RTI cz, while the Hradec Králové and Sever circuits are part of the Teleko digital programming offer. Future solutions will affect the development of regionalisable radio multiplexes.

2023 was a record year for radio: After a slight decline in daily radio usage in Austria from 2019, 2023 marked a 10-year high in usage: Austrians listened to the radio for 202 minutes last year. The last time radio usage reached this level was in 2008. Private radio stations have increasingly benefited from this in recent years. The introduction of the new DAB+ digital broadcasting standard has led to a veritable explosion of new radio stations: Thanks to DAB+, this summer saw the largest expansion of stations since the start of private radio broadcasting in 1998. There are now almost 60 DAB+ stations in Austria. 83 per cent of Austrians can already receive DAB+, many of them without even knowing it. This is because digital terrestrial radio has been mandatory in cars since December 2020 according to an EU regulation. Since then, more than 700,000 new cars have been registered. Of those listeners, 60 per cent use DAB+ in their cars. In total, more than one million people in Austria already listen to the radio via DAB+ several times a month.

The Pilsen-based company RTI cz is able to retune five more transmitters of its temporary network for digital radios to the final frequencies and has received authorization for two new transmitters. After Karlovy Vary, Klínovec and Třebouňský vrch, RTI cz can also switch its network for digital broadcasting of commercial radios to final frequencies at Domažlice Čerchov, Klatovy Doubrava, Českobudějovice Kluk, Plzeň Sylvan and Javorník u Kašperských horů. The Czech Telecommunications Office (CTU) has issued the operator with a licence for these four transmitters to use the frequencies of the nationwide multiplex C, which RTI cz acquired in an auction at the turn of the year.