Digital radio on a concrete path

chris

Digital radio in France has taken a concrete turn.
French regulatory body CSA launched last week its first call for bids for digital radio frequencies in 19 French cities including Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice. The first phase will thus cover 30% of the population.

First digital radio stations will be able to broadcast from early 2009 in the T-DMB standard. A second call for bids will be launched before the end of 2008 to add 10% to the population coverage. The digital coverage will respect the current repartition between networks but also allow new services to be created. Several stations will be able to coexist on the same multiplex.

Listened to by 83% of the population, France’s radio offering is still limited with around 20 stations available on average on the whole territory. Following the first call, a basic number of 35 to 44 services will be attributed in each zone, while Paris will pass from 54 to 62.

However, contrary to what was decided over digital TV with a compulsory switchoff fixed in 2011, CSA mentioned there will not be any final date for analogue radio switch off. Both analog and digital radio will coexist for a long-time period. French people own about 150 million radio receivers.


Source: Rapid TV News

__________________