Bonn, Germany - Mar 28, 2008 - Every two years, the Digital Radio Mondiale consortium holds elections to decide the members of its steering board. After 10 years as chairman of DRM, Peter Senger retired from both DRM and his position as Deutsche Welle's director DRM. His successor comes from the BBC World Service in London. Ruxandra Obreja, controller business development, BBC World Service has been unanimously elected as the new chairman of the DRM Consortium and DRM Association.

The voting took place in Bonn at Deutsche Welle offices. Peter Senger, who served as chairman of the Consortium for the past ten years, was recognized for his contributions to the development of the DRM standard.

Obreja introduced her vision to the members, saying "DRM is on the threshold of a new era. Thanks to the brilliant work of our technical colleagues over the past ten years, the DRM standard is now mature. The challenge for all of us is to ensure that in the next few years the DRM standard is taken up on a mass scale. I see this as both the biggest challenge for the consortium and me personally."

With he change in leaderships, the DRM Project Office will relocate to the BBC offices in London.

The DRM also elected two vice chairmen: Jochen Huber of Transradio Sender Systeme Berlin, and Giuseppe Allamano of RAI Way. Michel Penneroux of TDF was re-elected as commercial committee chairman. Lindsay Cornell of the BBC was re-elected as technical committee chairman.

DRM's treasurer and EB chairman, Albert Heuberger of Fraunhofer Institut, stepped down from his DRM role. Alexander Zink of Fraunhofer IIS was elected as treasurer and vice chairman of the DRM Association. Jochen Huber of Transradio Sender Systeme Berlin is now the executive board chairman.

DRM elected five new companies to its steering board: Analog Devices, Dolby Laboratories, RAI Way, SWR Suedwestrundfunk and TDP. They join the re-elected steering board members BBC, Continental Electronics, Deutsche Welle, Fraunhofer IIS, Hitachi Kokusai Electric, Robert Bosch, RIZ Transmitters, TDF, Thomson Broadcast and Multimedia, Transradio Sender Systeme Berlin, VT Communications and WRN.