Recognizing the importance of in-car radio in times of emergency, Chinese regulators have begun drafting a national standard and plan for a mandatory, national vehicle-mounted wireless broadcast reception system.
The project is being led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Radio and TV Administration. The State Administration for Market Regulation will support the project’s implementation.
In its statement, NRTA’s Science and Technology Department compared the effort to rules in the European Union, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates requiring new vehicles to be fitted with receivers capable of tuning analog and digital wavebands and standards used in regions. The “AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act” in the United States was mentioned as a similar effort.
Following the announcement, the Electronics and Electromagnetic Compatibility Technical Committee of the Chinese National Technical Committee of Automobile Standardization issued a call for experts and participants to aid in the effort.
In August 2023, Chinese authorities announced the beginning of the project, noting that while smart vehicles and internet-based entertainment systems were increasingly popular, the need remained to ensure that broadcast-based systems remain in place in vehicles.
“Wireless broadcasting is an important part of my country’s basic public services. It is public welfare, emergency and universal,” the statement reads. “It is an important transmission method for conveying the voice of the central government, ensuring the smooth flow of national policies and ideological security, and an important infrastructure for ensuring that the public can quickly and effectively receive authoritative emergency information in emergency situations.”
With this project, China is looking to ensure vehicles have radio receivers that support DRM digital broadcasts in the AM band, as well as the China-developed Convergent Digital Radio standard for digital radio in the FM band. The rollout of broadcast infrastructure necessary for DRM and CDR broadcasting are also to be accelerated.
The DRM Consortium noted that this effort will allow Chinese broadcasters to take full advantage of DRM’s Emergency Warning Functionality, which allows receivers to switch automatically to a channel providing emergency information. It also uses DRM Journaline feature to provide text-based multilingual information simultaneously on a digital display.
The project is expected to run through October 2025.
