MUMBAI: DRM Consortium held its virtual General Assembly on March 25th with the participation of members from all over the world. They had a chance to get updated on the rich variety of activities undertaken in 2019-2020 such as the recent stakeholders’ meeting held by AIR (All India Radio) and the DRM presence at BES Expo in India. A comprehensive presentation on the DRM receiver situation was very well received. This was focused on the over 2 million DRM receivers in Indian cars and the new consumer receiver models (standalone, car solutions and adaptors, SDR) from China, India, Germany, UK, supporting the full DRM feature set with Journaline, EWF (Emergency Warning Functionality) and DRM in the AM and FM bands. It completed the image of a positive year and of the great strides made by DRM in 2019-2020.

The DRM Consortium elections were also successfully held during the GA. The new DRM Steering Board, the leading body of the Consortium, is made up of the representatives of the following companies: Ampegon, BBC World Service Group, Encompass Digital Media, Fraunhofer IIS, Nautel, NXP, RFmondial and RRI Indonesia. The DRM members re-elected Ruxandra Obreja as Chairman of the DRM Consortium and Alexander Zink (Fraunhofer IIS) as Vice-Chairman and Treasurer. Lindsay Cornell (BBC) was re-endorsed as DRM Technical Committee Chairman.

The online meeting also brought the members together in sharing news and ideas, as well as in contributing to the strategic directions for the following months. These are mainly focused on the DRM (in the FM and AM bands) take-up in Asian countries including India, China, Pakistan, Indonesia, and on other continents. A key objective is making the now much greater variety of receiver models and prototypes available to consumers in volumes and at the right locations. The Consortium intends to continue to strengthen the links with the automotive industry and enhance the general communication, virtual and face to face, in new and innovative ways.

During the General Assembly the members were also introduced to DRM’s presence under the new radio domain, www.drm.radio, which is currently equivalent to www.drm.org. In addition, this new radio domain gives convenient and direct access to the most visited pages of the DRM website: handbook.drm.radio, india.drm.radio, schedule.-drm.radio, news.drm.radio, newsletter.drm.radio; and to external DRM services including twitter.drm.radio and youtube.drm.radio.

A special service was also inaugurated for members only: the DRM Monitoring online service. This web-based service lets you experience the audio content and quality as well as the advanced DRM features such as Journaline and EWF, as they are being broadcasted at that moment through DRM transmissions in different parts of the world.

At the end of the meeting Ruxandra Obreja remarked on the high quality of the meeting and of the updates, ideas and comments made by the members “in times without precedent when staying well is the main goal for all.” According to the DRM Chairman: “Radio waves are a powerful, strategic tool that can be deployed and used in the war against the pandemic. Once life  normalizes all over the world, digital radio DRM and it's extraordinary and maybe not enough explored benefits, like offering public signage cheaply and over large areas in various key points, will gain in importance and usage. We must prepare for this and be ready for when radio will be relaunched as an even more wide-ranging, versatile, efficient and powerful platform accessible to everyone.”