The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) encourages the Flemish government to support the switch-over from FM to digital terrestrial broadcasting

The EBU is encouraging Flemish public broadcaster VRT to push forward on new technology particularly in the field of terrestrial radio. The Flemish parliament is currently holding hearings on VRT’s new management agreement and EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre was one of the first to speak.

“We believe in digital radio or DAB+,” said Ms Deltenre. “There are many more frequencies available, antennas are more cost-effective and they use less power.” Public service radio plays a special role in promoting new technology, she added. “Commercial broadcasters are not pioneers, simply because there are more frequencies, and therefore more competition which they naturally try to avoid.”  The PSM perspective is that there are far more benefits from a prompt switch to digital radio, Ms Deltenre pointed out.

DAB+ is an upgraded version of the DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) standard, first used for broadcast in Europe in 1995. The update arrived in 2007, but DAB+ broadcasts cannot be listened to on DAB receivers. Listeners must upgrade to DAB+ receivers.

Nine stations currently provide DAB broadcasts in Flanders and recently a trial has started with DAB+. Further afield, there are already numerous DAB+ stations in many European countries including Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, UK, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Denmark and Malta.

Talking about how governments could support the switch-over from FM to DAB/DAB+, Ms Deltenre suggested to setting a date for taking FM off the air. “Otherwise the consumer has no motivation to buy the necessary equipment,” she said. Last month, Norway became the first country in the world to officially announce the end of FM, planned for 2017.

Ms Deltenre was full of praise for the Flemish public broadcaster in general. “VRT invests almost its entire budget in local content, and is essential for the plurality and diversity of information,” she told the hearing. “The organisation is a fine example of how to make good programming with little money. We should be sending many other countries to take lessons from Flanders.”