The DRM Consortium was present at a lot of the ABU sessions notably the Technical Committee and Radio Group discussions. The recent DRM developments were high on the Agenda of the ABU Technical Committee and Radio Group meetings. The ABU event offered an extremely good opportunity to showcase the recent developments in the key DRM market, India. Such meetings provide an excellent opportunity to catch up with all the latest in broadcasting and to network with other participants. During the meetings it was pleasing to notice the growing interest in DRM being shown by other countries besides India, e.g. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.
The challenges faced by Digital Radio in general, was one of the recurring themes throughout the Technical Committee meeting. Lindsay Cornell, DRM/WorldDMB, Technical Committee Chair, highlighted the successes and many challenges faced by the major digital radio standards (DRM and DAB/DAB+/DMB) in his special presentation.
During the Technical Committee it was also the first time that the DRM Chair, (Ruxandra Obreja) and WorldDMB Chair, (Jorn Jensen), had co-chaired a session. This session had a simple conclusion: digital audio broadcasting is coming and broadcasters need to lobby their governments on how they are going to manage the transition from analogue audio to digital broadcasting.