Throughout 2023, network operator TDF worked to deploy 100 new DAB+ transmitters at 70 sties across mainland France. Through this effort, more than 55% of French citizens have access to DAB+ digital radio signals and more than 550 radio stations broadcast using the technology in the country.
“2023 marks an essential milestone for DAB+, with more than one in two French people now able to listen to the radio thanks to this technology,” stated Karim El Naggar, General Director of Audiovisual and Networks at TDF. “I congratulate … the TDF teams, who, through their expertise and professionalism, enabled the deployment of a very large number of transmitters in a very short time.”
TDF is currently focused on the second phase of deploying the M1 and M2 national multiplexes, which carry 13 services. Since October, TDF has brought online 44 DAB+ transmitters in alignment with the ARCOM deployment plan. This second phase, which brings DAB+ reception to new motorways across the county, is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2024.
Speaking at the Paris Radio Show in early February, ARCOM President Roch-Olivier Maistre noted that 110 DAB+ multiplexes are not authorized in mainland France. In overseas France, experimental service are on air in Martinique and 20 stations in Réunion have requested the start of a DAB+ experimental service.
“No less than 555 services are authorized and more than 60% of the metropolitan population should be covered by this broadcast standard at the end of March,” he said.
