The future of radio in the car cannot just be led by the automobile industry, broadcasters must be central to the planning, according to Matthieu Beauval, the moderator of a session on radio in the car at RDE25.
European broadcasters are working together with European car manufacturers to ensure that the user experience (UX) is fulfilling for drivers and passengers, automobile makers and radio stations.
Three broadcasters talked about their experiences in working together with car manufacturers.
Tomas Granryd, the head of digital partnerships at SR, Swedish Radio made the point that 50% of radio consumption is in the car, but “radio in cars is a mess, there is no standard for radio when it comes to UX and prominence.”
“Radio apps are increasingly hard to find, it’s really, really bad!”
One solution from SR is what they call ‘deep linking’ which gives a prominent radio channel but also weather, graphics and accessible links to apps.
“Voice activation is also needed, currently voice mostly doesn’t find or activate the radio functions that we want. When you ask for radio it should open the radio tuner, when you ask for a podcast it should open the podcast selector.
“Our focus is that radio should be the top service and look good.”
Gwendolin Niehues, head of ARD Partner management for audio and voice in Germany said it is not about what is technologically possible it is about giving audiences a great user experience.
“Radio oorganisations need to invest resources and allocate people in the organisations who feel responsible for good automotive outcomes.
“The car industry IS listening to the radio industry, there are radio lovers in car companies.
“In Germany, radio stations are called ‘love brands’ so find the person in the car company who loves radio and try to make it easy for them to implement better outcomes for radio in the car,” she said.
Jade-Sophia Valtat, product manager, strategic partnerships & distribution at Radio France discussed the Radio France application, which is pre-installed in Renault 4 cars, one of the most important models in the French market. It gves access to 7 channels, 44 local stations, 31 online music stations and 3 million podcasts.
“It’s already in there, you just buy your car and radio is ready to be played.
“This is not just our normal app, we had to develop a new application that would work best in the car. We had to consider the driver experience, the need for one button access and identifying the editorial content in a way that makes it easy for the driver to access without taking their attention away from driving.”
The alliance of European broadcasters dealing with radio in the car has released a Connected Car Playbook. Download it here.