European Common Specification for Radio’s Digital Future

At the Radiodays Europe Conference in Milan today, a group of major broadcasters from Germany, UK, Netherlands, Italy, and Poland announced support for a common European specification for digital radio receivers, including FM, DAB, DAB+, and agreed levels of receiver sensitivity.
It was confirmed at the conference that major manufacturers including Panasonic, Philips, Roberts Radio and Pure had agreed to build to the common European specification.
The broadcasters at the RadioDays Europe Conference said that pan-European collaboration is essential to support the growth of digital radio and to ensure a genuine single European market for digital radio. The broadcasters will encourage manufacturers to build to the specification, including  FM, DAB and DAB+ and minimum receiver sensitivity criteria to support expanding digital coverage. This clarity will enable car and radio manufacturers to build and supply the European market with confidence and will help drive competition, innovation and lower costs for consumers.
Speaking at the conference Laurence Harrison from Digital Radio UK and Jacqueline Bierhorst, Project Director from Digital Radio+ Netherlands, highlighted digital radio progress by market and spoke of a new era of cross-nation collaboration for consumer and supply chain communications. They announced the launch of a new pan-European web page with a common and consistent European digital radio logo, giving details of the new common specification, digital radio facts and coverage information for each country. The Digital Radio European web page will be launched in June 2015 [image above].
In the session Annika Nyberg Frankenhaeuser, EBU Media Director, confirmed that digital radio is the future for radio broadcasters across Europe.
This announcement comes as digital radio continues to grow across Europe:
• A growing number of markets showing long term commitment to digital radio.
• Over 40% of households in UK, Norway, Switzerland and Denmark have digital radio and there is fast growth in Germany and Italy
• Automotive adoption of DAB/DAB+ accelerating rapidly in UK, Norway, Switzerland and Germany
• In established European markets, digital radio covers over 90% of first level roads
Annika Nyberg Frankenhaeuser, EBU Media Director, said: “A common digital radio specification encourages broadcasters all over Europe to offer more hybrid content to their audience. This ensures that radio stays indispensable in our converging media world. The new standard also fits into the scheme of an EBU experts group working on hybrid radio applications.”
Jacqueline Bierhorst, Project Director of Digital Radio+ Netherlands, said: “We are pleased to support a common specification for digital radios – it’s vital for the whole industry that collaboration takes place among broadcasters.”
Laurence Harrison, Director of Market Development of Digital Radio UK, said: “This is great news for car manufacturers and radio manufacturers as it means their products will be accepted with confidence across the European market – it’s is a major step forward in digital radio’s development across Europe.”
Please find a link to the presentation here.