Car Radios of the Future

Morgan Jouber (UX Evangelist, PSA, France), Martin Koch (Head of
Entertainment and Multimedia Development, Audi, Germany), Joe D’Angelo
(Senior Vice President, Broadcast Radio, Xperi, USA), Laurence
Harrison (Market Development Director, Digital Radio UK, UK), Michael
Hill, (Managing Director, Radioplayer, UK) and Jim Receveur (CEO,
Bauer, Denmark) discussed making radio a central part of connected
cars in the future.

They questioned whether radio is under threat by new cars, because
listeners will have so many more choices of what to do and what to
listen to. Radio is currently king in cars, purely because the choices
of listeners are so limited.

Morgan said that there are challenges around putting radio content in
cars effectively. He advised “let the user be the king” and allow them
to listen to content wherever and whenever they want. For example,
allow them to listen at home and to continue listening on their
journey. He also said that radio stations need to be considering the
visual aspect of radio in cars, because it is likely that videos will
be a central part of radio in cars of the future.

Jim discussed trends in Denmark in terms of cars and radio listening.
He said that listeners are spending more and more time in their cars,
and therefore that radio programmers need to do everything they
possibly can to deliver a great experience in that space. He discussed
interactivity of radio advertising – and the possibility that
listeners could purchase from or engage with adverts as they hear and
see them in their car.

And they talked about how important it is that radio secures its
place, thrives and survives on the car dashboard, with a particular
focus on relationships with car manufacturers.