The future is being written for listening to the radio in cars
By 1922, commercial radio was starting to catch on, and several inventors were keen to install receivers in cars. An amateur named George Frost showed off a radio that he MacGyvered in a Ford Model T. Others followed: the Airtone 3D in 1925 and the Philco Transitone of 1927. Nice, but impractical. They were very bulky, ran on very fragile vacuum tubes and were very expensive. A Transitone cost $150 (about $2,300 in today's money) when you could buy a whole car for under $700. Electrical interference from the car's ignition system was also a major problem.
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The big breakthrough came in 1930 when the owner of a radio supply business, William R. Lear (yes, the Learjet guy and the first promoter of the 8-track player) worked with Elmer Wavering (one of his employees and the inventor of the car alternator) met up with Paul and Joseph Galvin, owners of an electronics manufacturer.
Together, they built a radio for Paul's Studebaker. It was big and bulky – all the controls were mounted on the steering column – but it worked and sounded good. Galvin then drove it to a radio manufacturers convention in Chicago, parked it outside, cranked it up, and the orders flooded in for his 'Motorola.' (Yes, the same people who are now in the mobile phone business.) It was still expensive – $110 — but it was the first useful and practical car radio.
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As the technology improved — solid state circuits replaced vacuum tubes in the 1950s, the introduction of in-dash FM radios in 1952 — it was unimaginable for any vehicle to be without a radio for entertainment, news, companionship and keeping one awake on long, late-night drives. It's free, it's local and when done right, it feels like the person on the other side of the speaker is riding along with you. Even today, about 80 per cent of in-car listening is radio.
Today, infotainment systems are deeply integrated into automobile systems and offer all kinds of listening options and connectivity. Radio is still there, but it has to compete against many other options and functions.
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When I travel, I like to rent vehicles from different manufacturers to see what they're doing infotainment-wise. On more than one occasion, I've become frustrated when it comes to finding the radio functions. Why would anyone bury a radio, something that's been part of the driving experience for almost 100 years, so deep in the interface that you can't use it?
The good news is that there's plenty of pushback. At the WorldDAB Automotive 2025 Conference in Madrid, public and private broadcasters — some 200 senior executives — from all over the world got together to deliver this message: Broadcast radio must remain prominent in vehicles. If not, motorists will miss out on a lot — and radio itself could fatally suffer from underexposure.
While AM radio is under siege — it looks like it will take an act of Congress to keep it alive in cars (Spoiler: AM radio is still necessary) — FM radio is still going strong. Other countries have adopted DAB (digital audio broadcasting) radios — a format shunned by the U.S., killing its chances in North America — which also have large audiences. Norway, Switzerland and a few other nations either have dumped FM radio entirely or are in the process of going all-in with DAB. Then, of course, there's satellite radio. Although pretty much just a North American thing, it has tens of millions of listeners.
Here's a comment from Edita Kudláčová, head of radio for the European Broadcasting Union: 'Radio has always been there for us in our cars, a much loved and greatly trusted companion. I can't imagine what could fill the gap if it were ever to disappear from the dashboard. We must continue to innovate – together! – to ensure that radio distribution is fit for our increasingly connected world.'
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And then there's this from Stefan Möller, president of the Association of European Radios: 'We need to work together as an industry and collaborate with the car industry to maintain radio in the car; this is also important from a safety point of view.'
These broadcasters, including the BBC, Radio France, NRJ (France), Global (U.K.), Bauer (U.K.), RTL (Luxembourg), Radio Hamburg (Germany), and Australia's Commercial Radio and Audio as well as the country's RCA Engineering group, are behind a new international initiative called Radio Ready that will see radio stay in cars even as vehicles become more connected. There are three pillars: 1) Radio must remain prominent and convenient with the dashboard, 2) radio-related apps must be easy to find, and 3) voice assistants must be able to offer access to radio content. Anything less risks making traditional broadcast radio too hard to find and use.
The more international pressure is placed on manufacturers (as well as software suppliers such as Canada's QNX as well as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto), the more radio will be protected within infotainment systems. Other broadcasters are invited to join the movement.
This is from Tobias Nielsen from Britain's Bauer Media Group: 'It is essential for democracy and public safety in times of emergency, as well as the cultural value that radio offers, that it remains accessible, prominent, and easily discoverable in connected cars in the future.'
No argument from me. And let me add in one more thing: Broadcast radio is free. No subscription required. As entertainment media goes, it's about as frictionless as it gets.
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Let's hope this turns into a worldwide movement.
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