A US consumer survey released by Xperi has found that for nearly half of vehicle owners (47%), their personal vehicle is more important than ever to them today versus pre-COVID.
Main reasons include a discomfort with public transportation or ride-sharing (28%) and a perception that their vehicle is a place of refuge during these challenging times (27%).
The feeling that their personal vehicle is more important than ever is most prevalent among Millennials (61%) and Gen Z (59%) and having children in the household enhances the vehicles importance.
The importance of radio in the dashboard in heavily underlined with 91% believe it is an important addition and 72% saying it is indispensable or very important, as having access to local news during the pandemic is more crucial.
Dashboard entertainment/ information is more important to vehicle owners, and the top reason attributed to the higher importance is the ability to listen to music as an anxiety reliever (25%).
Among generations, Gen Z (64%) and Millennials (61%) are far more inclined than Gen X (47%) and Baby Boomers (33%) to view dashboard entertainment/information with greater importance today, versus pre-COVID.
For Gen Z in particular (38%), listening to music in their vehicle serves as an anxiety reliever.
More than half (52%) of vehicle owners say the kind of content they listen to in their vehicle has changed versus pre-pandemic with some respondents listening to much more news on the radio (16%), some to less news and more music stations (15%).
Fewer state they are listening to more podcast content (7%).
Free versus subscription appears to be the key with roughly four in five vehicle owners (79%) saying they feel it is very important that listening choices in their vehicle are free.
60% agree that radio is great when they run out of things to listen to in their media library, and 58% mainly listen to their pre-programmed radio stations.
The report represents the findings of an online CARAVAN survey conducted by ENGINE Insights to assess car owner attitudes about in-vehicle infotainment during the COVID ‘new normal’.
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Two critical points and one remark.
(1) I don't see how this report applies to Australia because subscription satellite radio is part of the listening mix in the US. However what may apply to Australia is that 80% of US listeners would prefer to listen to FTA broadcasts. This may suggest that entrepreneurs wishing to set up subscription radio in Australia may have difficulty in getting us to part with cash.
(2) The line beginning with "Dashboard entertainment/ information..." particularly the latter term "information" is vague. If the word "information" refers to the spoken word content such as news, talk, entertainment, that's fine.
At the same time, "...dashboard...information..." as depicted by the article's photo of an infotainment unit's dashboard display could also mean additional information on display on the infotainment's from digital services such as DAB+, DRM+ or IP.
Drivers should concentrate on the road instead of paying attention to informational distractions. Think of the reason why infotainment units with DVD capability will not operate the DVD while the car is ready (as in "Toyota's hybrid 'ready'").Therefore drivers must concentrate on the road at all times.
Final remark: The phrase "Fewer state they are listening to more podcast content (7%)..." is vague. It does not mention the whether the proportion of people listening to podcast content has increased or decreased. It also does not mention the magnitude of the "fewer" of those 7%.
It would have been more informative if the survey indicated the proportion of consumers listening to podcast in comparison to other audio content sourced from broadcast and IP streams.
Thank you,
Anthony of critical Belfield
Anthony,
Sirius is not only satellite but also streams for your subscription. This is because you cannot receive the satellite indoors. Satellite broadcasting is expensive and our small population cannot justify it. In addition most people like local content. The USA does not have government funded competition where as Canada, Australia and Europe does. Public radio is funded from philanthropic companies.
The Dashboard entertainment information is what xperi is pushing as part of hybrid radio. xperi owns HD radio which has very little data capacity so they want the radio to use mobile internet to obtain station logos and program related data such as song titles. They also push hyperlinking so you can push a button on the screen and that purchases that song from itunes! DAB+ and DRM do not need hybrid radio because the transmission power is much higher than the digital signal in HD radio.
The information displayed is not changing unless you change the station and the part which does change is text.
As for statistics on listening and receiver sales it is common to say that it has increased by ### but this can be off a tiny base. It needs to be as a proportion of the total listenership or all receiver sales regardless of type.
Dear Mr St. John,
Thank you for elaborating on XPeri services pushing consumers to use 4G/5G based IP streams to the vehicle's infotainment system requires a data plan. Why pay for "through-the-ether" reception of broadcasts when it is FTA.
Again, I don't want to have to push too many buttons or tap on hyperlinks while one is driving. Hyperlinks are a distraction to the main task, concentrating on the road.
I fully concur with you,
Thank you for elaborating
Anthony of satisfied Belfield