In a rare alliance, the U.S. Record and Radio industries have banded together to lobby their government to force all manufacturers of smart phones and handheld music devices, such as BlackBerries and iPods, to include FM radio receivers in their products. If approved by congress, terrestrial free to air FM radio would be at the fingertips of anyone who carries one of these ubiquitous devices. Which, at the risk of tautology, means just about everyone, almost all of the time. The benefit for Radio is obvious.
The Record industry is publicly saying that they will also benefit from more Radio listening because Radio is still a major force in driving new music sales. But another reason that they are supporting Radio is that it is part of the deal for U.S. stations to start paying broadcast royalties for artists.
Unsurprisingly the manufacturers of mobile devices who care not a fig for record sales or radio ratings are less than enamored with the prospect of being hauled into this deal to benefit third parties.
Only in America? Why not Australia?
If the U.S. Radio and Record industries can push this through congress, Australia could get FM tuners in all handheld devices by default as it will be cheaper for manufacturers to include them for this relatively tiny market than exclude them.
And why FM? Why not digital?
I suppose FM analogue technology is cheapest to install in small portable electronic devices. It will be a boon for FM broadcasters. One has to wonder what impact it will have on the declining AM radio landscape. I suspect you will see more emergency services appearing on FM radio, knowing that people can be reached everywhere they are in a time of crisis.
Actually the situation is quite different from that noted above. There is no agreement between the record industry and the radio industry and definitely no "joint lobbying" on this issue. The idea of an FM chip in mobile phones has been raised by the record industry as well as an offer of a 1% cap to try to persudae the radio industry to move forward on broadcast fees to record labels. The record industry lost the recent numbers game in Congress on radio paying broadcast fees to them. There is no joint lobbying going on and the radio industry is still to finalise its united postion on the offer after receiving input from members. FM chips are already in the majority of mobiles in Australia and the Australian industry is now looking to work with telcos and mobile manufacturers to get DAB+ chips into mobiles here. I think you'll find this issue in the US has a long way to go and is far from resolution or any "joint" lobbying