Czech Radio Supports the Foundation of the European Digital Radio Alliance (EDRA)
Leading European broadcasters founded the European Digital Radio Alliance (EDRA) in Paris on Monday. One of the members of this new organisation is Czech Radio. The goal of the Alliance is to become a unified platform using a comprehensible language to talk to the producers of cars or electronics as well as to government authorities and regulators.
“Czech Radio has been supporting digitization in the long term. DAB is one of the radio broadcasting platforms and its development belongs among our priorities. We expect the EDRA to serve its purpose and be a negotiator as well as educator in relation to the area of business as well as legislation. That is why we supported the foundation of this alliance.“ says Czech Radio’s Director General, René Zavoral.
On the occasion of the annual Radiodays Europe meeting in Paris all of the EDRA founding members, i.e. representatives of both commercial and public service media, met so as to accept their status and roles as alliance members. The BBC Radio Director, Helen Boaden, became its first President and the steering committee was elected including Bauer Group Media’s representative Steve Parkinson, Bavarian Radio’s Helwin Lesch, Norwegian Radio Director Marius Lillelien and Belgian RTBF Director Francis Goffin. The main targets now consist in increasing the number of members and beginning discussions with the EU and multinational regulators. The discussions about digitization in Europe will be commenced by the President and the steering committee in the next few weeks.
During the meeting the Alliance members expressed their intention to use DAB as the main means of radio broadcast distribution within the areas of their activity, i.e. in approximately ten countries. Their ambition is to make the DAB platform “a natural choice” for listeners and spread digital broadcasting all over Europe. It is necessary for manufacturers to offer digital radio sets for reasonable prices as an alternative to analogue broadcasting, especially in the case of cars.
Czech Radio has been making efforts in this respect for a long time and is now ready for digitization. Last year it introduced its concept of the development of digital radio broadcasting. In August 2015 Czech Radio launched an experimental, though full-scale, broadcast of its DAB multiplex, Praha, using the Žižkov transmitter. This multiplex includes all of Czech Radio’s national as well as special stations.
Jiří Hošna
Spokesman
Telephone: 725 793 397
E-mail: jiri.hosna@rozhlas.cz