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The Federal Council is turning a deaf ear to the National Council's Transport and Telecommunications Committee. On 1 July, the committee submitted a motion asking the government to abandon plans to switch off FM radio on 31 December 2026 and instead extend the current licences or even launch a new call for tenders for 2027. Bern has just responded with a resounding ‘no’. It points out that the industry itself is behind the planned end of FM. " More than ten years ago, private radio stations agreed on a migration plan with the SSR and decided to abandon FM by the end of 2024 at the latest,‘ it points out. It emphasises that it has already extended FM until the end of 2026. ’Between now and then, broadcasters have the opportunity to find individual solutions to successfully migrate to digital."

The Metro Group has launched Power Rock Radio, a new radio station dedicated exclusively to rock music. The station broadcasts around the clock and focuses on rock tracks from the 1990s to the present day. The focus is on well-known bands such as Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Nickelback, Muse, Audioslave, Paramore, Kings of Leon and Green Day. Yvonne Stikbakke, managing director of the Metro Group, explains that Power Rock Radio was created in response to demand for a pure rock station in Norway. The aim is to offer uninterrupted music that focuses exclusively on rock. Power Rock Radio can be received via DAB+ in parts of eastern and southern Norway.

FD Mediagroep will broadcast the radio station BNR Business Beats nationwide via DAB+ from 1 September 2025. This has been confirmed by Marc Adriani, editor-in-chief of BNR. BNR Business Beats has been operating as an online radio station since 5 September 2024 and broadcasts non-stop pop, soul and funk, aimed at listeners at work. Like BNR Nieuwsradio, BNR Business Beats focuses on well-educated working professionals in the B2B, AB1 and HBO+ groups. BNR Business Beats contains advertising and will also broadcast the ANP radio news every hour from 1 September 2025.

In the first of this year's series of short interviews with WorldDAB members exhibiting at IBC2025, Ulrike Lauterbach, Sales Director, AVT Audio Video Technologies GmbH says the company's main focus for the Show is solutions for emergency warnings via DAB+ networks. AVT is a leading manufacturer of professional audio equipment for radio and television broadcasters.

Gold Impuls took the last program slot in České Radiokomunikace's nationwide digital radio network. The fourth radio station of the Londa group began broadcasting on Monday morning as a music format focused on popular hits from the 1950s to the turn of the millennium. The station, which targets listeners aged 40 to 70, is moderated and offers its own news and interesting facts from home and abroad. It is the only radio station of the Londa group that broadcasts exclusively digitally. "Our national DAB+ network is already fully sold out, which testifies to the strong demand and bright future of digital radio," commented Marcel Procházka, director of the CRA's regulation and legal department, on the launch of Gold Impuls.

České Radiokomunikace has begun broadcasting the Gold Impuls program on its nationwide DAB+ digital network. This is a music radio station owned by Londa, which already operates the Impuls, Český Impuls, and RockZone stations. The program is intended for digital distribution only. It broadcasts in stereo on the ČRA network with a bitrate of 48 kbps. It targets listeners aged 40 to 70, offering popular music from the 1950s to the 2000s. There is a minimum of spoken word, with the operator calculating its share in the license application at 4% of total broadcasting time. The planned Gold Impuls project was confirmed by Londa director Jiří Hrabák at the Digimedia conference in May. It received a license from the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting at the beginning of August.

In recent weeks, various local/regional broadcasters have started broadcasting via digital terrestrial television (DAB+). Broadcasters that have applied for a licence to broadcast on DAB+ must have started broadcasting before 1 September. As of this week, RTV Katwijk can be heard via the digital DAB+ network for the Leiden region on channel 9D. This network had already been on air for some time, but RTV Katwijk was still missing. Since Wednesday 20 August, RTV Katwijk can also be heard via DAB+.Regional broadcaster SRC (the regional broadcaster for Buren, Culemborg, Neder-Betuwe, Tiel, Vijfheerenlanden and West Betuwe) has been available since Friday in a large part of the central Netherlands on channel 11B.

Radio station JOE is expanding with a new themed channel, JOE non-stop. Starting 25 August, you can listen to JOE's music 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, non-stop. Following the success of JOE, the radio division of DPG Media is taking another step in expanding its radio portfolio. Jorn Agterberg, Head of Content & Programming at JOE: ‘We are expanding the JOE universe with a non-stop music station. The main channel will remain the place for the Coen & Sander Show, the Singalong, 80s Lunch and the Middagshow with Kai. And now we are offering an extra channel for those who prefer to immerse themselves completely in the greatest classic hits, the familiar sound of JOE.’ JOE non-stop can now be listened to via joe.nl, the JOE app, smart speakers and DAB+.

On 1 September 2025, the new commercial radio station Radio BNT will officially launch. The radio station will be available in North Brabant and Limburg via DAB+. With the launch of Radio BNT, a long-cherished dream of initiator Erik Kreutzer will become reality: his own radio station with a broadcasting licence for the next 10 years. Radio BNT will primarily target listeners aged 35 to 55 with a musical mix of the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and today's hits. The radio station obtained a licence at the auction of digital regional airwave capacity to broadcast via DAB+ in North Brabant and Limburg for the next ten years.

Ostrava-based Radio Čas has become the third operator of DAB+ digital radio broadcasting networks. Following its parent network Broadcast Services and the GG Omikron multiplex, for which Broadcast Services provides technical support for its networks in Prague, Brno, and the Ostrava region, this program has also begun broadcasting on the nationwide network of RTI cz. In practice, this means that in Prague, Brno, and the Ostrava region, for example, Rádio Čas can be tuned in three times on DAB+. While it broadcasts at a data rate of 96 kb/s on the Brodcast Services and GG Omikron networks, it has 64 kb/s on RTI cz and is the eighth program on this nationwide network. "As of today, Ostrava's Radio Čas has been added to the RTI cz multiplex, which listeners can tune in to nationwide in DAB," RTI cz announced on Monday morning.