In-car listening is critically important to radio’s health. Making sure it stays that way was the theme of a sought-after session at the WorldDAB Summit 2025 at DPG Media in Antwerp, Belgium.
The one-day event was hosted by WorldDAB, the global advocacy group for the DAB+ digital radio standard.
The session, “Driving radio forward: metadata on the move,” focused on how stations and media companies are working together to ensure radio stays prominent and accessible in cars and trucks.
Harder to find
The session opened with Tomas Granryd, Swedish Radio’s head of digital partnerships, speaking about the challenges that radio is facing in connected cars. Granryd referenced how simply finding FM and DAB/DAB+ radio in a vehicle’s infotainment system can be dizzying.
“Sometimes, it’s not even present,” he explained.
What he characterized as “strong global actors,” or entities who pay ahead for placement, are getting more prominence in the car, making radio apps all that much harder to find.
Granryd also noted that in-car voice assistants are often unreliable, even “stupid,” he argued, when handling requests to listen to a specific station. “We know that this could be a true deal-breaker when it comes to navigation in the car and it has to become better,” he told the audience.
[Related: “EBU Updates Its Connected Car Playbook”]
It’s part of the reason the “Radio Ready” connected car initiative was created by commercial and public radio broadcasters in the U.S., Australia and Europe. The working group’s study into listener preferences revealed that the audience wants radio to be prominent and convenient to use, according to Granryd.
“The physical button is the gold standard that we are still looking for,” he told the audience.
Other findings Granryd cited as important include ease of access to radio-specific apps, and that voice requests should launch the car’s terrestrial radio receiver, not a streaming service.
Collaborate on tech, compete on content
Laurence Harrison, Radioplayer Worldwide’s chief partnerships officer, followed Granryd, and he talked about the need for broadcasters to collaborate with carmakers. Radioplayer Worldwide is a broadcaster-created platform intended to make radio easier to access on connected devices like cars, smartphones and smart speakers.
Harrison said the platform was founded on the idea of collaboration. Broadcasters should “collaborate on technology and compete on content,” he said.
“The work that we do to partner with the carmakers is to create the best possible experience for radio,” Harrison said. “We think that should be a hybrid experience with DAB+ and FM at its core.”
Radioplayer’s partnership with carmakers — approximately 17 to date — comes with two conditions attached. DAB+ and FM must remain in their models and those transmission modes need to come with a level of prominence in the dashboard, according to Harrison.
He pointed to data citing that 90% of those shopping for cars want DAB+ and FM as an option in their new vehicle.
DAB performs well in AutoStage trial
George Cernat, Xperi’s senior director of automotive connected media, closed the session by talking about DTS AutoStage. It is Xperi’s hybrid radio solution, currently deployed in over 13 million cars. For stations that opt in, DTS Autostage provides analytics on FM/DAB/HD radio listening.
Cernat spoke about a DTS AutoStage trial in Ireland and the listening data collected from the trial. He highlighted that approximately 20% of listening in Ireland through AutoStage is to DAB, which he attributed to a mandate in the country requiring new cars to come equipped with the digital radio mode.
The trial also revealed that where stations broadcast in both FM and DAB, the cars will default to DAB in approximately 90% of those situations.
Of the DAB stations accessed, Cernat said approximately 20% of those were new sign-ons for the purposes of the trial, a benefit to those stations who participated.
Keep up the pressure
The session’s speakers agreed that broadcast radio should not be removed from cars or categorized with non-essential features — like heated seats — to keep car prices down.
Carmakers, for the most part, realize radio’s value, according to Cernat.
But if there was one takeaway from the WorldDAB Summit session, it was this: It’s up to the industry to maintain the pressure to keep radio in vehicles.
