Radio once ruled the car. Now, digital dashboards, smartphone interfaces, and new “infotainment” systems are disrupting the car-listening experience … for broadcasters and car-buyers.
Is HD Radio evolutionary, revolutionary, or neither? That depends on who you ask. The digital transmission technology is expanding its footprint — again, either slowly or quickly depending on who you’re talking to. We spoke to Bob Struble, President and CEO of iBiquity, the developer and owner of HD Radio technology. Continue Reading
A new, 120-page report has been released by iGR, a mobile market consultancy, titled “U.S. Connected Car Market Forecast, 2012-2017: Infotainment on Four Wheels.” The study predicts a compound annual growth rate of 142 percent for connected cars. For the… Continue Reading
Seeking insight to how new-car owners are coping with modern infotainment systems built into digital dashboards, Edison Research has produced video interviews with recent buyers. (Watch the videos here.) Unlike the eye-opening videos of prospective buyers trying to turn on… Continue Reading
Jacobs Media presented the second and final day of DASH, The Connected Car AudioTainment Conference yesterday in Detroit. (See Day 1 coverage here.) Day 2 added a new dimension to the previous day’s industry discussions about the future of radio… Continue Reading
In what Fred Jacobs calls the first radio-oriented trade conference in the motor city, several industries are intersecting this week to examine connected cars. Jacobs and his company, Jacobs Media, are hosting DASH, The Connected Car AudioTainment Conference. Top execs… Continue Reading
The 2014 Mazda3 (which we must say, although we are not in the automotive reporting business, is the most drop-dead beautiful economy car around) has entered showrooms as the first Mazda model equipped with Clear Channel’s Total Traffic HD Network… Continue Reading
What’s your pleasure, a dashboard that allows you to plug in your personal devices with their data plans for streaming music on the road? Or a self-contained connected dash with its own Internet connectivity and embedded apps? In the first… Continue Reading
The connected car, built with a digital dashboard and Internet-delivered audio, is an increasingly vital touchstone for both broadcast radio and Internet radio. With that in mind, research and consulting firm Jacobs Media is hosting DASH: The Connected Car AudioTainment(™)… Continue Reading
The ability to pivot, moving in a new direction from the same vantage, is crucial in basketball and business. Livio, whose acquisition by Ford has lit up the connected-car niche, pivoted adroitly from making internet radio devices to writing car… Continue Reading
In-car infotainment platform Aha by Harman announced that the new 2014 Mazda3 (for American and Japanese markets, as well as select other North American and Asian countries) will offer access to Aha’s free service of more than 40,000 audio and… Continue Reading
It is an oft-repeated platitude that AM/FM will never be outcast from digitally empowered cars of the future. That might be true, given broadcast’s stalwart advantages of locality, simplicity, and ubiquity. Even accepting that premise, though, doesn’t address questions of… Continue Reading
BY BRAD HILL Marketplace demand is growing for digital interactivity in the car. This trend has longer legs in the navigation/traffic category, but the headlines now are turning to the infotainment section of automobile control, driven largely by the penetration… Continue Reading