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PRAGUE — For some years, a growing number of radio stakeholders have asked broadcasters to unite their voices as the only way to effectively deal with tech giants and car manufacturers. Over the last 12 months, the wakeup calls to shift towards an industry-like position have been increasingly heard. Messaging from the WorldDAB Automotive 2024 conference sounded more like a last call.
On June 13, opening her first WorldDAB Automotive meeting as WorldDAB president, Jacqueline Bierhorst welcomed more than 300 delegates in-person and online, urging a broader and stronger collaboration to ensure broadcast radio’s prominence in cars. In her address, she described radio as “relentless.” She highlighted how, thanks to regulation initiatives, the availability of in-car digital receivers is ensured in the European Union while more and more countries feature widespread digital radio coverage and a comprehensive range of stations.
But that’s not enough. “We all have to pull together to ensure that DAB+ remains at the heart of the dashboard,” Bierhorst added. “The dashboard is critical to our future. And that’s why we are here — to unite the automotive and broadcast sectors.”
More radio, more everything
Bierhorst’s rallying call ran through the whole event. On behalf of the EBU’s connected cars and devices group, Tomas Granryd, head of digital partnerships at Sveriges Radio, and Gwendolin Niehues, head of partner management audio and voice at ARD — the organization representing Germany’s regional public service broadcasters — introduced the “EBU Connected Car Playbook,” a joint roadmap to preserve and fuel the radio experience in connected cars.
The playbook pinpoints radio’s present challenges in modern, connected cars and then considers broadcasters’ shared feeling that they can get “more” from those vehicles. Its next step is to clarify this “more” by assessing broadcasters’ visions, expectations and potential opportunities to clearly define a meaningful and viable set of requests to summarize, express and represent the industry’s needs.
“We used to just say we want more — more prominence, more radio, more everything,” Niehues said. “What does ‘more’ mean? We must define that, always keeping the audience in the center.” The playbook calls on everyone in the radio industry to join forces in an alliance with one voice and a single clear message to effectively deal with car manufacturers and technology powerhouses like Apple and Google.
Radio as a visual experience
Niehues echoed Bierhorst’s call for collaboration. “We want to create one voice for the broadcasters with which we can approach other industry players, such as manufacturers of cars and operating systems, to define clear projects. Where we agree on the fundamentals, we are an attractive partner to the motor industry,” she said.
Connected cars and their increasingly larger screens represent opportunities for the radio industry, provided it can continuously expand its feature offering and entertainment model. Roger Lanctot, CEO of car connectivity consultant Strategia Now, said car manufacturers know their after-sales services incomes drop dramatically with electric-only vehicles, so they are looking for new revenue possibilities. Offering onboard services is part of their future business model, and Lanctot stressed the importance of the in-car high-resolution screens as a revenue opportunity.
Therefore, he urged broadcasters to reimagine radio as a visual medium and leverage digital radio for widescreen, interactive experiences. He called on broadcasters to show car makers what is possible and prove that radio is ready for its digital future.
Where we agree on the fundamentals, we are an attractive partner to the motor industry
Gwendolin Niehues, head of partner management audio and voice at ARD
Voice and metadata
Fred Jacobs, the founder of radio consultancy Jacobs Media, confirmed that broadcast radio currently dominates the dash in the U.S. However, given how connected cars are becoming, radio organizations need an in-vehicle strategy. According to the 2024 in-vehicle visuals report by Quu, Android Auto and Apple Carplay are available in 98% of the top 100 best-selling vehicles in the United States. Gereon Joachim, vice president for automotive sales and strategy EMEA at Xperi, discussed the DTS AutoStage media platform, currently installed in seven and a half million vehicles. “Radio is up for the challenge and needs to be on a par with the streaming services, like Spotify, the various apps and the other content coming into the car,” he said. He mentioned studies showing Gen Z wants content at their fingertips. “They want to have the same experience in the car they have on mobile devices,” Joachim added.
Voice interactivity will play a growing role in future connected cars to reduce drivers diverting their attention from the road to control, say, the heating or the satellite navigation system. Voice is the new control interface in vehicles. While this presents few problems for words and phrases represented by plain text, things can go wrong when drivers ask for radio stations using an “unofficial” name or if a station’s name isn’t pronounced as written.
Nick Piggott, project director for RadioDNS, explained how metadata provides broadcasters with an effective solution. He mentioned two examples: Suppose the official name of a station is “XYZ Radio One,” but drivers call it “One FM,” adding “One FM” to metadata as an alias means voice interactive systems will also recognize the station as such. And when the official displayed name is “ZZZ100,” but it’s pronounced “Triple Zee One Hundred,” adding the correct phoneme “ˈtrɪpl ziː wʌn ˈhʌndrəd” to metadata will enable the voice recognition system to identify the desired station correctly.
In a way, that need for identity summarized the central theme at this year’s WorldDAB Automotive, specifically the need for a clear common voice among broadcasters as to what they need from and, importantly, what they can offer the automotive industry to ensure radio remains critical to the dashboard.
About the author: After receiving a Master of Science in Engineering, Moro worked for Telecom Italia and the Italian public broadcaster RAI, based in Bergamo, Italy. He now works as a broadcast consultant for radio stations and equipment manufacturers, specializing in project management, network design and field measurement.
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