GENEVA — Vehicles are a key place to listen to the radio. According to the European Broadcasting Union, on average, more than 25% of radio listening time in Europe takes place in vehicles. This figure increases to over 40% in certain markets, such as Bulgaria and French-speaking Belgium. Additionally, radio’s reach increases as vehicles are the only radio touchpoint for many listeners.
Furthermore, research by Edison Research and Fifty5Blue for WorldDAB confirms that radio remains an integral part of the in-car infotainment experience. Additionally, broadcast radio offers an added layer of safety by enabling the prompt alerting and informing of drivers and passengers in the event of crises and accidents.
However, some carmakers are already bringing new cars to market without a radio tuner, as with some entry-level Teslas. In other cases, not all new vehicles are equipped with digital radio tuners, even in markets where digital radio is progressing swiftly. This puts digital terrestrial radio at a competitive disadvantage and removes an additional layer of protection for drivers and passengers in emergencies.
To ensure the availability of radio and its associated safety features in vehicles, governments can require the inclusion of broadcast radio tuners. There are several examples worldwide that demonstrate the growing popularity of this public policy intervention. Since the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) took effect in 2020, all passenger cars, including buses, sold in the European Union have been required to include a digital terrestrial radio tuner. Additionally, FM radio is mandatory in all vehicles in Italy and in passenger cars in Finland.
The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have similar regulations in the Middle East, which have been extended to the other four members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar). In the U.S., there is bipartisan support for the proposed AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act.
The impact
The EECC illustrates how impactful this kind of regulation can be. When the regulation was approved in 2018, only 20.6% of all new cars sold in the six markets tracked by JATO Dynamics on behalf of WorldDAB were equipped with DAB+. In 2021, the first full year the EECC was applied, that figure increased to 91.9% of all cars sold in an expanded pool of 12 markets. The most recent figures, from 2025, show that 97.2% of cars in 19 markets had DAB+, translating to 12 million cars across the EU. Fewer than 1% of new cars lacked DAB+, while it was optional or unknown for the rest.
Between 2019 and 2025, 60 million new cars equipped with DAB+ were sold in the 27 EU countries. I estimate that between 24.3 and 30.2 million of those cars can be attributed directly to the EECC.
Despite the EECC applying only to passenger cars, it had a spillover effect on light commercial vehicles, which the same carmakers mostly manufacture. From 2019 to 2025, 10.5 million LCVs were sold in the EU, 5.4 million of which were equipped with DAB+ tuners. By 2024, 72.2% of all new LCVs had DAB+ tuners, which is around 25 percentage points lower than the percentage of cars with DAB+ tuners.
The EECC was responsible for more than half of the LCVs sold with DAB+, up to 2.9 million. The missed opportunity cost of excluding LCVs from the regulation was 3.2 million units that would have otherwise been sold with DAB+.
Beyond the direct impact of the EECC, there has also been a significant unintended consequence. Because automakers are global companies for which Europe is a single market, the regulation has introduced millions of DAB+ receivers into markets with no DAB+ broadcasts, including non-EU markets. These receivers have become one of the main drivers of DAB+ momentum across Europe, as evidenced by recent launches in Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Western Balkans and the Baltics.
The cost of this success has been the accelerated adoption of tuners and antennas, which are a minimal expense relative to the total cost of a vehicle. This proportionality has prompted EU-based radio stakeholders to call for an expanded radio mandate, including FM and DAB+, in all vehicles in the upcoming Digital Networks Act, which will replace the EECC. This could serve as a blueprint for other markets, particularly those planning to launch DAB+ in the near future.
However, keep in mind that a mandate only ensures that vehicles have the necessary hardware. If access is hidden in menus and submenus, the mandate will be ineffective. That is why mandates need to be supported by prominent policies.
The author is a co-founder and research director at South 180.
This story originally appeared in the July/August 2026 edition of RedTech Magazine. You can read or download that edition for free here.
You can access all past RedTech publications, also for free, here.
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