A Linkedin conversation concerned something we all know is coming – the ubiquity of internet service in America’s automobile fleet. It will have almost 100% availability in new GM models next year. And radio better have an answer.
GM will basically turn its models into rolling computers, providing access to all the things the internet has to offer, including audio services which compete with AM and FM radio.
The service isn’t free, of course. But GM research indicates that 98% of new car buyers will sign up for some level of service.
Stuart Novey, who handles business development for US Server Net, got the conversation started, saying all but three of GM’s 2015 offerings will be set up for WiFi and pointing to an article on the topic published earlier in August.
Then came the dirge from Brian Robinson, Managing Principal at Trillium Digital Group. He said, “Much depends on rates of adoption as vehicles are replaced, but this may well be the inflection point for web radio and the goodnight kiss for terrestrial radio as its been known for the last 80+ years.”
RBR-TVBR observation: Radio wouldn’t be the first business category to be wiped out by the internet. When’s the last time you saw the few remaining stores are a skeletal shadows of the robust and exciting places this author used to spend hours in browsing and buying.
Radio certainly could be on the road to a skeletal existence as well.
The internet has certainly had its effect on RBR-TVBR. Back in the days when the publication was known simply as Radio Business Report, it came to subscribers on paper once a week, in an envelope festooned with a stamp issued by the United Postal Service.
We’ve adapted – our publishing platform and business model is completely different, but at the same time we have tried to remain true to our core philosophy – and part of that philosophy is to shoot our mouth as we’re doing now – hopefully we’re making sense.
In our humble opinion, radio is essentially a local medium, and that is the constant that must be at the center of all attempts to defend the dashboard. It’s the advantage radio has for which national internet services have no good answer.
Let’s leave it here for now: Radio must win this fight or it may resemble the record store – a few skeletal signals hanging on, fighting the good fight among the bones of those that didn’t make it.
Take this seriously.
