Paul Brenner

In the eye of the hurricane that is the rapid growth of radio listening on mobile phones, Paul Brenner and NextRadio keeps riding the waves of critical-mass high technology. Despite Apple's hesitance to enable the FM chip in its iPhones, NextRadio has locked up the Android market in the U.S. and is aggressively expanding to other parts of the world. What's more, its ability to monitor the listening habits of all its users makes it an ideal partner for Nielsen to help capture more earbud listening. And now, at the NAB, NextRadio is starting to roll out its plans for in-vehicle integration. Here, Brenner offers exclusive details on all this and more.

When did the concept of NextRadio first catch your attention?

Around 2009, our thinking changed. The first version of NextRadio was a cloud service, originally built for Apple to support song-tagging for FM iPods. They decided not to go forward with FM iPod song-tagging, so we flipped it to an Android solution and took off with an FM smartphone app.

Are you satisfied with the progress NextRadio has made so far?

Where I'm most satisfied is that the FM chip is now in every smartphone and all we have to do is activate that chip. When you're looking at hardware-enabled technology, it usually takes up to six years to get it to marketplace, and we did it in three years. In that sense, I'm very satisfied; now we have to do more with it. Technology is always moving, changing and shifting, and I guess it's harder for traditional radio people to see it when you adapt and pivot every six months, but that's quite normal for us.

Why do you think Apple has yet to enable its FM chip?

The majority of smartphone makers we work with have gone through various stages before enabling their chips. I don't know if ignoring FM plays directly into Apple's decision-making, but I can say publicly that they do talk about Beats One as being a replacement for local-formatted radio, and by appearances they shifted away from the FM chip for very strategic reasons that have them thinking that Beats One can do better than local radio.

Besides Apple, where else do you see NextRadio use growing?

Since NextRadio has various purposes, especially when it comes to public safety, regardless of Apple's strategy around Beats, we have proven our worth through Android phones and their customers' use. Even if Apple doesn't acknowledge that we could be beneficial, Google sure has acknowledged that with us. Efforts in the automobile are increasing and we expect NextRadio usage to grow in that space. Our biggest push this year is using all of the Big Data we collect from our radio network and app usage. At the NAB Vegas show, more announcements and demonstrations of expanded capability will be on display.

We also have usage growth is in international markets. NextRadio has launched in Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, where 85% of the market is Androids, and where FM listening is prominent. Maybe our international growth would be of interest to Apple as well.

Relationships with handset makers are key and you have to go where their interests are as well. We're willing to go where they go.

Radio executives such as Kim Guthrie and consultants such as Alan Burns have brought up the issue of the PPM failing to effectively monitor headphone or earbud listening - and that NextRadio effectively captures that listening. Do you agree with those sentiments, and do you believe NextRadio can play a role in alleviating this problem?

We get asked that question a lot. Even though Kim is right, our typical answer is we are aligned with Nielsen and do not prevent earbud encoding from being picked up by PPM. For now, we have to rely on Nielsen's current method of capturing earbud listeners. We won't go against that because NextRadio is not accredited. Nielsen gives an adapter to PPM carriers so they can plug it into their smartphones. Whether they connect it is up to them.

To Alan Burns' point, NextRadio does capture the listening of all of its users. That's what he means; while there's an FM chip in all those smartphones, they're not all enabled, and we're not relying on a small subset of PPM users; we capture all radio listening. Nielsen and NextRadio have announced efforts to try and combine our data to possibly improve measurement through our listening usage.

You mentioned NextRadio not having MRC accreditation. Would you consider getting that accreditation?

No, we've been more in the camp of trying to be supportive of the Nielsen currency. We really are leaders of all radio interests in today's data, and we want to help the ratings system they currently use, so we haven't pursued being our own measurement service. We want to follow the lead of people who are currently doing it and help them make it better.

Recently, NextRadio entered into a 'Data Evaluation Agreement' with Nielsen. What do you hope to accomplish with that?

Yes. We're extremely interested and working together quite well behind the scenes. There's some publicity around Nielsen on the TV side where they're using set top box data to help with their ratings system. With our agreement, I view NextRadio as a set top box for radio, and what we capture by using more FM smartphones, we can explore and derive ways that can be helpful in improving ratings.

Is it possible that NextRadio can help Nielsen increase the sample size?

Yes.

Besides Apple, are there any other phone makers in America that don't enable the FM chip?

Not in the U.S.; we've got them all sealed up. Our next effort in America will be in the automobile.

Yesterday at the NAB, you announced in-dashboard vehicle integration. What does that entail and how will that change radio's presence on the connected car?

We feel delivering a common source to the in-dashboard experience and measurement is something we can do for the industry. We are supporting the connected car with an app version and an embedded version. We know, based on feedback for agencies and brands, that providing data from any consumer listening source is of value to the broadcaster and we can deliver on it.

What car manufacturers and third-party integrators will be supporting this - and approximately when this summer will it hit retail?

We continue to partner with DTS/Xperi on embedded interactive radio products, but we are also working with SmartDeviceLink as well as AndroidAuto-style versions for aftermarket and in-dash. We have lots of things in motion and will announce those partnerships as they are finalized.

What kind of goals have you set in terms of market penetration and advertiser participation?

Over 90% of U.S. radio stations are using TagStation to serve content to NextRadio and future dashboards. Our smartphone penetration is now higher than 50% of the new smartphones sold. A long list of advertisers and agencies are working with us directly. The goal is to keep building towards more usage, more listening while working with the radio industry owners to monetize all of these efforts through innovative measurement and data services.

Back to NextRadio in general. There are those who are concerned that radio groups will look at NextRadio as a cure-all panacea for radio's problems with generating engaging content. Agree?

What NextRadio does is try to tackle the challenges of distribution. That's the first thing; we're just trying to make sure we're available everywhere. That's done in the form of the smartphone today, but how can it work in a car in the future? How can we distribute content with the ability to measure interactivity? That's why the majority of what we focus on is in distribution. In some of the analysis work we're doing, we've found out that there's a whole lot of tune in and out, which we can recognize and see through analytics, but there are limitations in discerning why content prompts tune-in or out.

What kind of research can you do to indicate what type of content works better over a smartphone? Should there be smartphone-only content?

It's a great question. The data we capture is a tool to better understand what content is working and what's not working with radio listeners. I'll give you one example: In today's world, there is a heavy amount of commercials in an hour because of the way a clock is programmed -- driven primarily by the AQH model. When you look at our ability to analyze listeners minute by minute, you see a different world. We probably need to adapt in the amount of commercials and way the clock is programmed; that could help our cause. I wouldn't say they need to create content just for the smartphone. It's still radio listening. The data analytics from measurement can be used to make better content and programming decisions.

Where does podcasting fit into NextRadio's platform?

When you look at our road map and the version we're about to release at the NAB show, you will see a switch to more of a referral radio app, where podcast listening could be an extension of the listener. The way to refer that out is to recommend podcasts to listeners as you would songs. If they like a certain song, they can listen to it again. Or they can listen to something station-related; watch a video that the station produced -- and all of that is measured. Once you have a view of the way your content plays from broadcasts to digital, you can figure out how you might program the two together to keep listeners as long as possible. That's how the digital world is using the smartphone -- as a way to measure and display that. Radio people have to do a lot more than just rely on Nielsen measurement because it can present such a skewed picture of the real world.

And what of NextRadio's future - can you strategize long term, or do circumstances dictate you keep focused on the short term?

It's both. We're invested enough through the technology sector to see three to five years out. For example, we know what a massive global chipmaker has planned for several years from now, and we need to plan for that. Or we see the explosive growth in data analytics and work to exploit our measurement for radio industry revenue opportunities. Automotive takes time to bring to market so that is both a short term through apps and long term through embedded strategy.

In regards to the second part of question, the week to week, of course we're always reading into user's habits in the shorter term. Their behavior propels us to drive innovation. We need things like adding simple features to our app because that's the way people are now using us. It's a microcosm of change, which is very normal in today's world where Facebook seems to come out with a new major release every three days. That's the way life works.