The author is founder of StrategiaNow. This commentary appeared in the Radio World ebook “Global Digital Radio.”
Big screens are coming to dashboards in Europe, North America, China and just about everywhere else in the world. Bigger screens with higher resolutions are the rule, reflecting the onset of video in the dash as well as the desire to dazzle drivers and passengers.
[Related: “Can Radio Keep Its Home Between the Pillars?]
I am more than a little skeptical of this trend, given the sorry, sordid history of distracted driving and the annual toll of 1.2 million highway fatalities. The good news, though, is that that real estate represents a huge opportunity for the least distracting form of media in the car: radio.
Radio has always represented the distraction-mitigated solution for driver and passenger engagement. With the onset of digital radio, the opportunity to convert the lean-back, audio-only experience to a visual event is transformative.
Digital radio in all its forms is creating precisely the kind of customer engagement experiences that carmakers are seeking. Carmakers are looking to enable new advertising and marketing experiences; turn on in-vehicle and from-vehicle commerce and transactions; and integrate generative AI for content management and safety applications.
Digital radio brings metadata to audio, converting it into a visual medium. Digital technology also enables the creation of search and recommendation engines driven by voice or cloud-based or even on-board algorithms.
Even more essential, digital radio sets the stage for advertising conversion and attribution. Xperi has demonstrated from its own anonymized data collection how listening can be localized geographically and by daypart. No doubt advertising, too, can be evaluated and correlated to destination data.
With more in-dash real estate to manage, in-car digital radios are expanding the process of discovery — from content to stations. The technology is also setting the stage for delivering song lyrics, local concert and artist information, and even ticket ordering.
Just as auto makers are introducing so-called pillar-to-pillar displays, advertisers are taking note of the potential of digital radio to enable a synchronized in-dash graphic display of broadcast advertising content. Already demonstrated at trade shows and in proofs of concept by Xperi — mainly with streaming text — advertisers are envisioning full-screen, full-color ads.
A study recently released by Cumulus Westwood One’s Audioactive Group, based on an annual survey of 300 marketers and media agencies, found a steadily increasing awareness and interest in visually enhanced and synchronized radio ads. Those same respondents further indicated a willingness to pay, on average, a 16% premium for the privilege of placing such ads, up from 12% in 2021.
Notably, the study did not ask about interest in interactive radio ads such as those that might include QR codes or similar devices. This technology, too, is enabled by digital radio.
The arrival of digital radio is helping to introduce vital connective tissue between streaming audio and broadcast content sources. The stage has been set for fully integrated in-car content management systems capable of blending advertising opportunities.
This renaissance for radio arrives just in time, as video in all its forms is filtering into cars all over the world. Carmakers such as Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz have shown or already introduced cars that support front seat video consumption — normally associated with killing time which charging an electric vehicle.
It is clear, though, that these automakers have introduced or will introduce front-seat video game play, streaming video, video conferencing and social media access. Carmakers will be looking to the broadcast industry to raise its level of competitiveness with new digital tools to enhance and expand the presence of radio in the car.
The recent WorldDAB event in Prague, Checkia, was roiled by word of two low-end electric vehicles — one from Renault/Dacia and one from Stellantis — with no radios, offering app-based access to broadcast sources. Both carmakers had evaded the E.U. digital radio mandate (i.e. all car radios must be digital) by eliminating the radio altogether.
Carmakers at the WorldDAB event shared the concerns of broadcasters that the transmission of emergency broadcasts would be compromised. The recent flooding in Germany was cited by several as a powerful justification for a radio in every dashboard.
These sentiments were further reflected in the legislative backlash unfolding in the United States. Bipartisan legislation is moving through the Congress to mandate the integration of AM radio mainly for its emergency broadcast value proposition. A representative of the National Association of Broadcasters attending WorldDAB indicated that the legislation was moving forward with a better-than-50/50 chance of passage.
Researchers presenting at WorldDAB, including Jacobs Media and Edison Research, noted the essential role that in-vehicle listening plays in both the U.S. and E.U. All agree that radio is a critical link to emergency communications.
The task for the broadcast industry is to give carmakers the tools to deliver the radio industry into a future defined by visually enhanced in-car listening with interactive and geographically tagged advertising experiences. In the end, digital radio in the car has the potential to enable a new world of once-unimagined advertising attribution.
