DAB / DAB+ (Digital Audio Broadcasting)

DAB is Europe's digital terrestrial radio standard, which transmits multiple stations simultaneously within a single multiplex using MPEG audio coding. The upgraded DAB+ variant replaced the original MP2 codec with more efficient HE-AAC v2, roughly doubling the number of stations that fit in a given spectrum allocation. DAB and DAB+ are now the default terrestrial-radio standard across most of Europe, with significant penetration in Asia-Pacific and gradual rollouts elsewhere.

For advertisers, DAB's strategic importance is the richer metadata it carries: station logos, real-time now-playing information, scrolling text, and Programme Type (PTY) identifiers all travel alongside the audio. That metadata fuels receiver-side experiences: automatic station seeking by genre, visual display of ad sponsors, dashboard integration in modern cars: that analog FM simply cannot support.