MUMBAI: The Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) Consortium, together with Voice of Vietnam (VoV), a Vietnamese public broadcaster, will host the first comprehensive digital radio workshop on 10 March in Hanoi, Vietnam. The workshop is aimed at helping VoV explore energy efficient ways of offering quality broadcasting throughout Vietnam, which has a varied geography that is mostly made up of villages and towns.

Speaking on offering support to VoV, DRM Consortium chairman Ruxandra Obreja said, "We believe that the global, open DRM standard (in both AM and VHF modes) will be able to offer enhanced broadcast services and data, to both urban and remote areas. The comprehensive DRM workshop should ideally be followed by a trial which could be run together with the excellent Vietnamese specialists. This will give them the opportunity to experience the quality and benefits of DRM digital radio broadcasting, while the Consortium will learn more about an important Asian country."

VOV president, Nguyen Dang Tien stated, "VoV is the largest public station in Vietnam covering the entire country with radio programmes in analogue mode. In our radio digitisation process we are looking at the most effective ways to cover both large cities but also regional towns and villages over large and geographically diverse territories. We wish to understand the full potential of DRM and the way it could ensure the full and cost-effective coverage of our large country."

Vietnam is the latest country to look into digitisation of radio, Recently, DRM announced that it will carry out a similar workshop with Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI), which is to be held on 24 March 2015.