Las Vegas - Apr 10, 2011 - NRSC-4-B, United States RBDS Standard -- Specification of the Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS), was adopted by the Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS) Subcommittee at the April 9, 2011, meeting of the group, held in conjunction with the 2011 NAB Show. This latest version of the Standard was developed by the subcommittee's RDS Usage Working Group (RUWG). Also providing input was the RDS Forum, an industry-sponsored organization based in Europe responsible for maintaining the RDS Standard (designated IEC 62106).

NRSC-4-B includes only those sections that differ from the European version of the Standard, IEC 62106, Specification of the Radio Data System (RDS) for VHF/FM sound broadcasting in the frequency range from 87.5 to 108.0MHz. This is a departure from previous versions of the NRSC Standard (NRSC-4-B is the fourth NRSC version), which included nearly all of the text from the IEC version except for a few, important modifications specific to the U.S. version. This new approach will simplify design and development of compatible devices by transmission equipment and receiver manufacturers since it will now be much easier to see what the differences are between the U.S. and European versions. Since manufacturers of RDS-enabled devices typically serve both markets, this is expected to be a welcome change.

Some of the most important changes in the NRSC-4-B Standard include the following: