Sennheiser Spectera sits at center of NEP Australia’s audio overhaul
Consumers have more content choices than ever before. Xperi’s SVP of Broadcast Radio and Digital Audio Joe D’Angelo’s job is to keep them listening to radio.
RedTech: What inspires Xperi to innovate?
Joe D’Angelo: Two years ago I was asked this same question, and the answer is still largely the same: The opportunity to create technologies that drive better user experiences around media and entertainment. While the landscape has changed since June 2022, the opportunities to innovate around content delivery, discovery, recommendation and engagement are exploding. In today’s crowded media landscape, consumers are bombarded with choice. Xperi is dedicated to helping content producers find their audience while ensuring consumers are presented with a wide array of choices that delight them. In deploying our technology and services in home, mobile and automotive, Xperi is creating ecosystems that optimize content delivery, audience engagement and create new business models to ensure content producers are appropriately compensated for their creativity. Every day, our services impact hundreds of millions of consumers and households around the world (over 100 million in-car with radio alone). Managing solutions of that scale requires commitment to operational excellence and continued innovation. At Xperi we take our customers’ belief in our services extremely seriously and that drives our commitment to them and to innovating our technology portfolio.
RedTech: What current technologies used in radio and audio will be obsolete by 2030?
D’Angelo: The horizon of 2030 is too short to predict obsolescence of any particular radio broadcast technology. While it’s true that the pace of innovation and technological change is increasing — and new solutions are crowding out the old — broadcast radio, in its current form, is so widely deployed around the world that certain markets and stations will be relying on this tried-and-true technology for years to come. Billions of people around the world still listen to legacy analog AM and FM radio in cars, at home, on portable receivers and even on cellphones. Over the next 25 years, we will see the gradual and managed shift from legacy technologies to new digital services, both broadcast and IP-based, but they will pace with local markets’ ability to access new receiver platforms. In some markets, we’ve seen significant government intervention and support to accelerate this transition, but it is by no means global. Because broadcast radio has a responsibility to its audience and community, it must be wary of racing the transition to new technology that could leave audiences disconnected from critical information and entertainment services. As it embraces new technologies for production and distribution, radio will have a renaissance, but it must continue to support the needs of all its listeners.
RedTech: How do your products make radio and audio relevant and sustainable in today’s hyper-competitive business environment?
D’Angelo: At Xperi, we’ve taken learnings from our varied media platforms and extended them across home, mobile and automotive. This cross-platform integration of our technology and services has redefined the media experience for customers, and the in-car radio experience will never be the same. It enables all radio stations — large and small, commercial, and public service, analog and digital — to benefit from enhanced discovery, rich engagement, deep descriptive metadata and convenient links to on-demand audio programming in over 140 countries around the world. Our automotive media platform, DTS AutoStage, is integrated in over 6.5 million vehicles from 12 major automakers and continues to grow exponentially. And, it was recently extended to support video — that’s right, in-car video — in the dashboard with BMW. Radio broadcasters can now offer video services, alongside their audio programming, to be enjoyed in the car (while stopped, parked or charging). All those in-studio cameras will now be available away from the desk and traditional TV platforms. DTS AutoStage not only redefines the in-car radio experience, but measures consumption, engagement and programming impact and shares all these valuable insights with broadcasters — at no cost. Xperi is a true sustainable ally of the radio industry.
RedTech: What would you invent for radio and audio if money was no object and you had limitless resources?
D’Angelo: Precise Predictive Personalization. In this world of ever-increasing content and expanding consumer interests, connecting audiences with relevant and engaging content has become a tremendous challenge. Connecting voices and ears at just the right time, to just the right content, would be revolutionary for radio broadcasters, audio content producers and audiences. This concept goes beyond today’s simple recommendation and content suggestions to include all audio content, real-time and recorded, requiring a deep understanding of the target listener, their environment, stimulus, disposition, location, mood and predictive response. A platform with these capabilities would ensure that the most valuable asset we have in life, time, is spent engaging with audio content that is meaningful, educational, impactful, informative, relevant and, most importantly, enjoyable — enriching the listener who has committed to giving you their attention and time.
This Q&A was published in the 2024 edition of The Innovators.
Info: https://dts.com/autostage
