News

Virgin Radio, "THE rock station", is coming to France on FM and DAB+. Launched by Espace Group, a major player in media and digital audio, Virgin Radio will be on air on Monday 15 April at 4pm, with a special live broadcast featuring its entire team. Virgin Radio is taking over the FM and DAB+ broadcasts of Virage Radio, an Espace Group station already firmly established with a rock programme in more than 30 French cities. Virgin Radio will broadcast its programmes on DAB+ in France's main cities (Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Nice, Lille, Strasbourg, etc.) "Virgin Radio promises to broadcast the best in rock music in France's biggest cities on FM and DAB+, while remaining close to its listeners through the rock concerts it will offer them," Julien Fregonara, Managing Director of Espace Group, told La Lettre Pro de la Radio.

The Děvín water tower will be used in the future by Fiera Touch to distribute its radio multiplex, which will operate on channel 5C. From the same location, the company of entrepreneur Pavel Hajek plans to launch the television multiplex Regional Network 11 within a few weeks. "We are just about to complete the TV transmitter. We are waiting for the technology to be installed, the connectivity and the connection to electricity," Pavel Hájek, who is behind pHmedia, the operator of i-Vysočina.cz and KladNO.1, and Fiera Touch, one of the successful bidders for the future private DAB+ network, told the Digital Radio portal. For the territory of the capital city, the operator acquired channel 5C, on which the DR Deutschland network has been broadcasting in Germany for 13 years.

This has nothing to do with the most famous film festival in the world. We are counting down the days to the launch of our very own DAB+ transmitter in Cannes ! In just a few days, listeners in Cannes will be able to listen to 13 community radio stations licensed in the Nice area on DAB+ Radio, thanks to a new extension to the West of the region. The additional transmitter, purchased by World Radio Paris thanks (in part) to our listeners’ generous donations in 2023, was just installed in the hills above the city of Cannes. When powered on, it will allow full coverage of the Côte d’Azur, in addition to the existing transmitter located in Nice. The two devices will operate on the same frequency, allowing seemless reception in the car all along the coast, from St Tropez to Monaco.

A new, second digital radio transmitter in Prague was launched this week by Teleko digital. It is located at the City Tower building in Pankrác and uses the infrastructure of Digital Broadcasting. "We applied for this site at a time when it was not known whether there would be any auction of frequencies for DAB+ networks intended for commercial radio and we obtained it before the auction was announced," Tomáš Řapek, managing director of Teleko digital said. Teleko's DAB+ network broadcasts from the City Tower building on channel 11A with a power of 200 W, i.e. the same and on the same channel as Teleko's original transmitter in Strahov. With this, City Tower forms a single-frequency network and the Teleko DAB+ multiplex has thus significantly improved the coverage of the capital.

SPIE Belgium, a subsidiary of the SPIE group, the independent European leader in multi-technical services in the areas of energy and communications, is extending its partnership with JACOPS NV to modernise and optimise DAB+ radio communications in all tunnels in Flanders. In the long term, this initiative will make it possible to increase the efficiency of radio communications in all Flemish tunnels, which is a significant step forward in terms of safety. Norman Kabir, Business Development Manager at SPIE Belgium explains: "In addition to optimising the sound and radio frequency range, DAB+ will bring tangible improvements in road safety thanks to targeted emergency notifications in tunnels."

The Voice in north Devon has launched a second radio station on DAB called The Voice 2. The extra service plays music from the 60s, 70s and 80s and includes local news, travel and presenters. It started at 7am today, Tuesday 9th April, covering the same area as The Voice. Managing Director Jim Trevelyan said: “Local radio has evolved, and as such opportunities arise, we have then risen to that challenge to provide a new service. The two stations complement each other very well and mean North Devon has two truly local radio stations. Rescan your DAB radio.”

Carbon emissions in broadcasting radio services have been significantly reduced, AZERTAC reports, based on the information released by the Radio Television Broadcasting and Satellite Communication. "The introduction of DAB+ digital radio, will allow the reduction of energy consumption, and as a result, carbon emissions halve from 1.3 thousand tons to 0.6 thousand tons - along with an increase in the quality and number of programmes.” So, for the first time in Azerbaijan, on August 26, 2019, a DAB+ digital transmitter with a power of 1 KW was installed in the Baku TV Tower Complex, and now a test broadcast of 11 local digital radio stations in one package on the 11B frequency channel is being carried out in the city of Baku and the Absheron Peninsula, it says.

Bayerischer Rundfunk will also be broadcasting its DAB+ service from the Balderschwang transmitter from 11 April. The Bavaria-wide DAB+ transmitter network will thus grow to 88 locations. The community in the Allgäu will thus have its own radio coverage with all digital BR programmes from Bayerischer Rundfunk as well as other private programmes.

Community station Radio Newark has extended its coverage towards Nottingham by joining the new small-scale DAB multiplex in the area. Radio Newark says its current FM footprint has a reach of around 60,000, and the DAB service will cover an area of over 750,000 people. Radio Newark Director of Operations Phil Johnson told RadioToday: “It’s a massive, massive difference in our potential reach, but we have to remember that we are still Radio Newark – we are not here to take on Nottingham. This is about making Radio Newark more available to Newark people, or to people who see themselves as having some connection to Newark.”

The local DAB+ pilot project Bad Kreuznach/Bingen (channel 12A) is now broadcasting with twice the range. On Saturday, 6 April, network and platform operator Milling Broadcast put the second transmitter site into operation. From the Fichtenkopf in Niederwald near Rüdesheim, Rheinhessen between Bacharach and Mainz and the Rheingau between Lorch and Wiesbaden are covered with a power of 500 watts. Previously, the ensemble was broadcast from Kuhberg near Bad Kreuznach, also with an output of 500 watts. The bouquet currently includes 11 programmes and a warning channel. The project is investigating more cost-effective ways of broadcasting digital terrestrial radio programmes using alternative technical approaches with open source software. The trial is limited until 2026.