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NextRadio Growth Slows, Experts Urge More Consumer Awareness
July 28, 2014 at 11:23 AM (PT)
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The growth of NEXTRADIO's FM chip in smartphones cooled off from its torrid pace over the past month (NET NEWS, 7/14). As noted in NEXTRADIO's blog, over the past two weeks, 45,000 more apps where downloaded, raising the total to over 670,000, Over 150 more radio stations were tuned in by users (making it over 9,950 FMs), who listened for over 780,000 hours -- an increase of 80,000 hours.
To keep the growth momentum going, PAUL JACOBS and PAUL BRENNER held a 'Connected Car" webinar where they challenged radio to do more to alert its listeners to the device and to lobby their carriers to active the FM chip in their phones. When it comes to being a part of "the connected car," JACOBS counseled platform consistency and raising consumer interest.
“Anyone who can come up with that standard platform, standard experience for users, I think is going to have a real advantage,” he said. “The automakers are agnostic. It’s not like they’re rooting for radio or they’re rooting for PANDORA, they’re rooting for what works – what moves cars… So if the radio industry gets behind NEXTRADIO and begins to build the case that it sells cars, that it enhances the user experience, they will jump right on it.”
The key to doing that is raising customer interest by emphasizing its ease of use. “We need to make sure that the user doesn’t think that the only way to listen to the radio outside of the car is through a streaming app, BRENNER said. That’s not a good business model for the radio industry to rely on – that royalty-based business is very challenging. So portability is very important.”
Bottom line: Fueling consumer demand for the FM chip is essential for getting more carriers . "When asked in the Q&A segment what other carriers are saying, BRENNER recounted that the response is usually 'Show us you can do it. Show us that your industry call pull this off and we’ll talk to you again'.”
Read all about it here.

