The purpose of this article is to inform EBU Members of recent progress with Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) – in terms of its market rollout in Europe, its system developments within the WorldDAB Forum, the preparations for the ITU Regional Radio Conference RRC-04/05 and its potential for any future developments.

One of the main messages of the article is that DAB has the potential to transform the traditional audio-based radio medium into a fully-fledged multimedia system, particularly suited to bringing digital information to the general public, anywhere and anytime. It is vital for the success of DAB to work in harmony and synergy with some other systems, particularly those in the communication and Internet sectors.

Sudden differences in loudness between – and even within – radio and television programmes has been well known for a long time. With the more-recent introduction of digital techniques, combined with the parallel transmission of digital and analogue broadcasts, this problem is again becoming highly significant.

This article presents some solutions for avoiding loudness differences in radio and television broadcasting, based on levelling recommendations and a newly-developed loudness algorithm.

After putting out a call for audio watermarking systems, EBU Project Group N/WTM conducted extensive tests between June 2001 and July 2003 on the only two suitable systems that were received – one from Philips, the other from Fraunhofer-IIS. This article reports on the results of these tests.