The European Union has mandated that all new cars sold within the bloc will be required to have digital radios. The directive, ratified just before Christmas last year, gives car manufacturers two years to comply.
The EU vehicle directive states that all new car radios sold must be capable of receiving digital terrestrial radio, as well as any FM or AM functionality that manufacturers may wish to include.
The European Electronic Communications Code also grants individual member states the power to bring in legislation making it compulsory for consumer radios to have digital capability. Nations will have two years to implement their own legislation to being auto industries in line with the new directive.
European Commission flags
Photo: Sébastien Bertrand / Flickr Licence: CC BY
The key section of the code is Article 113, Annex XI, which states:
“Any car radio receiver integrated in a new vehicle of category M which is made available on the market for sale or rent in the Union from … [two years after the date of entry into force of this Directive] shall comprise a receiver capable of receiving and reproducing at least radio services provided via digital terrestrial radio broadcasting. Receivers which are in accordance with harmonized standards the references of which have been published in the Official Journal of the European Union or with parts thereof shall be considered to comply with that requirement covered by those standards or parts thereof.”
After being adopted by the European Council, the new directive was published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) and came into force on 20 December 2018.
In France, meanwhile, the penetration of digital radio has already reached the level where it triggered a new law that required all new consumer radios to include DAB+ by the end of 2019.
The country now finds itself as the European vanguard as far as the DAB+ rollout is concerned. It is estimated that 70% of the country will have DAB+ signal coverage by 2020
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