News

"An important step for an innovative radio future in Austria has been done today", Wolfgang Struber, deputy chairman of the association Digitalradio Austria, said welcoming the publication of regulation to enable DAB+ by the media authority KommAustria.

On Tuesday, 31 January at 11:00 am during the European Radio Show, WorldDAB will present an overview of the growth of digital radio in the United Kingdom and Europe. Prestigious speakers will present the advances of DAB+ in their country and then a panel focusing on three countries will take place for a questions and answers session.

Updates on the growth of DAB+ across Italy, UK and Austria.

Digital audio broadcasting (DAB) provides a more stable signal compared to FM. DAB is the cheaper service, however, and the move will reportedly save Norway £21 million per year (around $25 million) and allow them to sell its FM bandwidth to someone else.

From France, J-E Valli, president of Les Indés Radios, and Jean-Marc Dubreuil of WorldDAB will be featured in the session; the U.K. has Jimmy Buckland from Wireless Group and Jonathan Arendt from Jazz FM as its reps; Jørn Jensen of NRK will be on hand from Norway; Marcel Regnotto, Ofcom, comes from Switzerland; Carsten Zorger, Digitalradio Büro Deutschland, hails from Germany; and Jacqueline Bierhorst is coming from Digital Radio Netherlands.

Latvia has been testing DAB + since 15 December 2016. In the capital Riga, a test Mux with programmes of the Latvian Rundfunk will take place for one year.

In the last year, on average 33,100 searches per month were made in Germany using the term " DAB radio ". Looking at the average searches for the same period in 2015, this can be seen to be an increase of 82.9%. From January to December 2015 "Radio DAB" was used as a key word in searches more than 18,100 times.

Italy has ambitious plans to continue the roll out of DAB+ in 2017 and by the end of the year DAB Italia aims to cover 95% of the Italian provinces. DAB Italia has also launched a TPEG live traffic information service, providing drivers with real time traffic information via their DAB+ radio in the car.

In 2016 EuroDAB Italia, which aims to promote and implement digital radio DAB+ service throughout Italy, has reviewed ways to optimize improving reception on motorways. EuroDAB's plans for 2017 include providing coverage of the areas of Tuscany, Western Piedmont and Sardinia .

More than 80% of the 2,692,786 new cars sold in the UK last year featured the latest digital radios, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has revealed. SMMT CEO Mike Hawes says the number of newly registered cars factory-fitted with digital radio has increased more than fourfold over the past five years, thanks to major investments by manufacturers.