News

Heart is adding to its splinter brands with the launch of Heart 00s on the national Digital One DAB multiplex in the UK. Heart 00s joins Heart 70s, Heart 80s, Heart 90s and Heart Dance. The news comes as Global reports massive growth for Heart’s decades stations (Heart 70s, 80s, 90s and Heart Dance), all seeing huge audience gains.

The community broadcasting sector’s hard work during the federal election campaign now has Labor, the Greens and the Nationals expressing support for future funding. “This commitment to funding for our sector protects our stations’ base funding, and maintains critical sector-wide projects, like DAB+ community radio,” Jon Bisset said, chief executive of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia. “This means we can enhance listeners’ choice and media diversity.”

Michael Hill, Managing Director of Radioplayer, speaks to Wayne Stamm from radioinfo at Radiodays Europe following the session on "Driving radio into the future: Can it still be the star in the car." Hill says: "We found that 90% of the people we talked to said that there has to be a broadcast radio, as standard in all cars, and 80% of people said they would never consider buying a car without a radio... So we’re still number one in the car. That’s a big survey of 6000 people across many markets. It’s a very robust data, but we can’t take our place in the car for granted. We need to work really hard to maintain it."

Cars, cooperation, and a confidence about radio and audio were key themes of the Radiodays Europe 2022 conference. WorldDAB's Communications Manager, Will Jackson, looks back at the event from Malmö, Sweden.

Radio Orient has added Tours to the list of cities across France where the station is now broadcast via DAB+. The company continues to develop its network at a sustained pace and this new deployment brings the number of areas covered by Radio Orient on DAB+ to 33 sectors and 11 on FM. Radio Orient is one of the largest networks currently broadcasting on DAB+ in France. Other new areas will be added in June 2022.

New audience research from the United Kingdom shows digital platforms now account for 72% of all commercial radio listening and 65% of all BBC radio listening. Listening via DAB remains the most popular platform for radio listening, accounting for 41% of all listening and 60% of digital listening, while listening via DTV accounts for 4.5% of all listening and 7% of digital listening. Listening via analogue platforms now accounts for under a third (32%) of all radio listening. Digital listening in home increased to 72%, up from 69% quarter on quarter, and digital listening in car increased to 54%, up from 51% quarter on quarter.

On 1 June, representatives of the public broadcaster Czech Radio, commercial radio stations, the Association of Private Broadcasting Operators (APSV), DAB+ digital radio network operators and analogue FM transmitters and the market regulator, the Czech Telecommunication Office will meet in the Czech Television Congress Hall in Prague's Kavčíhory Mountains. They will discuss the introduction of terrestrial digital radio broadcasting in the DAB + standard, and other radio issues such as measuring listening.

The Czech Telecommunication Office is ready to allocate frequencies for the operation of regular DAB+ commercial networks in 2023, after consultations with interested parties. The inspection body stated this in the current Monthly Monitoring Report. The date is associated with the 100th anniversary of radio broadcasting in what was then Czechoslovakia, which falls on May 18, 2023.

NDR radio stations - including digital-only services NDR Schlager, NDR Blue and NDR Info Spezial - can now be received even better around Nienburg/Weser via DAB+ digital radio. NDR is putting another DAB+ transmitter into operation near Linsburg, which supplies the region between Hodenhagen, Schwarmstedt, Wunstorf, Uchte, Sulingen and Bruchhausen-Vilsen. The last reception holes on the B6 road between Hanover and Bremen will be closed at the same time.

Compromís senator Carles Mulet announced that the Valencian coalition has tabled an amendment to the General Telecommunications Law to include the implementation of digital terrestrial radio DAB+ saying, "we are far behind in not digitising radio as in other countries around us". He recalled that in Europe all new vehicles are required to incorporate digital terrestrial broadcast receivers.