In this week’s egtabite, we take a closer look at an innovative in-car solution that unifies the radio experience in the car and future-proofs radio’s position on the dashboard.
The car industry is rolling out bigger and better-connected digital dash displays. The future of audio on the digital dashboard is increasingly under the control of global audio providers and streaming services such as Spotify, Apple, Google and Amazon. For the moment radio is still the most used medium in the car but online audio streamers are quickly catching up – they have a large base of users, massive revenue streams, and a unified experience across car brands. There is a new solution by Xperi that promises to bring radio onto a level playing field with streaming platforms. This solution was recently presented at egta’s Top Execs’ & CEOs’ Summit in Warsaw.
DTS AutoStage – How it works
In order to enhance and unify the radio experience in the dashboard, the technology company Xperi launched DTS AutoStage in 2020. DTS AutoStage is an independent global media platform for the automotive sector providing metadata on in-car display with coverage across 147+ countries, supporting 90,000 radio stations. The solution displays station logos as well as what is currently playing, through high-resolution album covers, artist images, other radio branding elements, song lyrics, and more. It enhances the overall radio experience with additional metadata and switches automatically to an online stream if the car is outside FM coverage. The solution delivers analytics and metrics to broadcasters at no cost. The cost is paid by car manufacturers who license the technology from Xperi.
DTS AutoStage is already available across various car brands: Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, Genesis, with more brands scheduled to come to market globally. The car brands especially like that this is a single solution offering a unified radio experience across all markets. Within the next 12 months, DTS AutoStage will be present in over 100 car models. Tuning occasions increased 14 times since January 2022.
Big data for radio
DTS AutoStage offers privacy-compliant analytics to broadcasters at a previously untapped scale. The data has no personally identifiable information and each broadcaster only receives data for their stations. Big data has changed every industry and radio is no exception.
Data from DTS AutoStage can generate heat maps that visualise listener journeys. It shows where listeners are when driving. Broadcasters can see the reach of their station within a given area and consider advertising in new areas.
The solution can also monitor dayparts every 24 hours and compare any specific day to an overall average. This allows analysis of special events and hosts within broadcasting. The data also shows how many people listened to specific songs, radio segments, ads, or even who tuned away.
Xperi can quantify the data to distinguish between FM and DAB+ listening and show which type of stations are in the top.
The solution is free for broadcasters, the only thing needed to be onboarded is static data, such as station call letters, logos, names, slogans, streaming URLs, and live data from the station’s programming system (title and artists of songs, name of advertisers from ads, DJ name and photo, etc.). It is the broadcasters who decide the type of data to share. For more information on this, see here.