When it comes to radio in car, the ultimate question for car manufacturers is do cars need tuners to pick up FM and other broadcast radio or is it all about racing to the internet to deliver radio in car.

Most manufacturers believe that the internet is not quite ready to deliver the massive amount of radio listening out there and they are supportive of tuners remaining in the car to deliver radio to drivers and passengers. Whatever is the opinion on how to provide radio in car, what is clear is that it is a hugely important pat of the car experience for people. Radioplayer carried out research with over 6,000 drivers in six countries, and the results showed that:

*80% of people said they would never consider buying a car without a radio.

*89% of people said broadcast radio is their favourite type of entertainment in the car even above streaming services like Spotify, Apple Carplay and Android Auto.

*90% believe that broadcast radio should be standard in every car.

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Car manufacturers are aware of this sentiment among drivers, and are therefore, going to ensure the ability to receive high quality radio content in a very simple manner remains. Accessing radio in car needs to remain super simple for hugely important safety reasons.

But what happens when the driver becomes a passenger in a fully autonomous vehicle? It is venturing into the unknown.  But it is commonly agreed that radio’s delivery into the car is likely to change in the coming years and will probably be more IP orientated. The requirement for a radio button that is prominent and simple to use and a reception that is robust will be more important than how the content is delivered to the car.

Radio stations are already using platforms like Radioplayer to get metadata into cars allowing stations to get real-time analytics data back from cars, not just streaming information, but the FM and podcast listening habits of drivers.