Steve Ahern reports on connected cars from RadioDays Europe.
The next chapter in connected cars is developing across the world.
Various RadioDays presentations pointed out how inconsistent the car dashboard experience is at the moment.
After experimenting with iPhone and Android connection platforms, some car companies are now re-evaluating how they connect to media services.
There are a range of factors that broadcasters, car makers and service providers are working through as the car dashboard evolves again.
Until now, the assumption has been that every car would come with a built-in radio, as they have done for decades, and in addition there would be a tethered link to driver’s phone to connect other services. But is that the best way forward?
Many cars now have their own connectivity built in, allowing them to untether from phone companies and develop their own connected dashboards, but auto manufacturers don’t always have expertise in that area.
Tesla and other Electric Vehicle manufacturers started rethinking the dashboard when they reimagined the whole car as one device. Tesla initially made a big mistake by removing analog radio receivers, but the company has now corrected it in later models by putting back analog receivers, however, scrolling through the Tesla menu system to find AM stations is still not easy.
The failure to achieve seamless one-click connectivity to broadcast receivers has prompted some jurisdictions to enact ‘prominence’ legislation to ensure that radio receivers are not buried under multiple clicks and that they remain viable, visible and prominent in the next generation of cars. The UK enacted prominence legisations for tv and radio in an Act of Parliament last year, which included smart tvs, smart speakers and cars. The EU is also working on prominence legisation for radio. Australia’s recently enacted television prominence legislation does not include radio.
As with all technology, it evolves as its creators and its users learn from each other how the tech will work to best advantage for all stakeholders. We are at that stage now.
Once a technology is in a car, its life is at least ten years, due to the production process and the life of a new, then used car. Automobile manufacturers think in decades not months.
The experiment of phone connectivity has worked, but has left both sides a little unfulfilled. The next shake out is coming.
To solve the problem, car manufacturers are exploring dashboard technology that they can own or licence, that will allow them to have control of the installation and upgrade process. Too many times auto companies have faced the ire of customers saying ‘it’s broken,’ when their phones were upgraded and dashboard compatibility elements no longer worked properly. The older the car, the bigger the problem.
Another element in the mix is the movement between radio broadcast receivers and connected devices. Smart phone manufacturers don’t care about free to air radio, it doesn’t make them any money because it doesn’t use data, so they have not successfully solved the movement between their tethered apps interface and the built-in car radio receiver.
Radio drains phone batteries and requires an internal antenna, which takes up real estate in the phone, so smartphone manufacturers don’t like broadcast radio. But consumers do.
So do governments, who can use the broadcast airwaves for emergency messages.
So do listeners, who know that broadcast transmission is more robust than phone transmission in many cases.
In Europe, where they remember the cold war surveillance state more than Australians do, they also value the fact that broadcast radio can’t be tracked and is harder to censor than IP delivered content.
Plenty of studies have shown that consumers still value live broadcast radio in their cars. They also now want podcasts, which any radio dashboard player must be able to pull within its ecosystem
Technology is evolving again and some of the main players are envisioning a better car dashboard. The interface between the car entertainment centre and smart phones, smart tv and smart speakers is also crucial in this mix, so that listeners are able to go from one system to the other for seamless listening when they exit the car. Being able to control the interface by voice as well as touch is also an important factor.
There are two main players in this space, RadioPlayer and Xperi.
RadioPlayer is a non-profit partnership between the BBC and commercial radio groups Bauer and Global. It licences to other radio companies around the world. RadioPlayer is integrated into 4 million cars. At RadioDays the company showed its prototype which has an expended range of capabilities. RadioPlayer charges radio companies a fee to be part of its platform. The RDE demo highlighted the interconnectivity between RadioPlayer and other smart devices (see below).
Xperi is an American company listed on the New York stock exchange with a market capitalisation of $364 million, it provides consumer and entertainment technology assets. Xperi provides DTS Autostage as its car dash product. The company charges car makers a fee to licence the software but does not charge radio stations to be on its platform. Xperi is well represented in America and has agreements with all US car makers as well as a large number of Asian car makers. There are 10 million cars with Xperi enabled dashboards. One of Xperi’s subsidiary companies, All In Media (AIM) has created apps for the commercial, national and community radio sectors in Australia.
Both companies provide full usage data to broadcasters, which the smartphone interfaces and aggregator apps such as TuneIn do not. Both companies aim to drive radio in the car forward as the auto industry reimagines its future. There were detailed discussions about each system, plus the big picture of radio in the cars of the future at RadioDays Europe this year.
Below are two summaries of RadioPlayer and DTS Autostage, followed by two RadioDays sessions where the future of radio in the car was discussed.
RadioPlayer demo of prototype features
Xperi interview explaining the AutoStage DTS system
Excerpts from two RDE25 sessions about radio in the car.
Related reports: RDE25
From our coverage of RDE24
About the Author:
Steve Ahern is the founding editor of radioinfo and is a leader in radio and connected car technology.
He is currently on foreign correspondent assignment, reporting from RadioDays Europe, RadioDays Ireland and NAB Las Vegas.