Las Vegas Radio/Tech Summit Looks at the Connected Car

Kurt Hansen, the head of Accu-Radio and publisher of RAIN (the Radio And Internet Newsletter) is in the midst of a gathering he organized in Las Vegas called RAIN Summit West.  A panel was convened to talk about the connected car and what it means for radio and entertainment for the motorist.

Delivering Internet audio to the car is hard. Everyone on the "Dashboard Discussions" panel, which led off yesterday's RAIN Summit West in Las Vegas, agreed on that.

So far, implementatation are all unique and different, and it's expensive to work with carmakers.Entercom Director of Digital Operations Amy Van Hook (top right) explained that's why her company is sticking with aggregations likeTuneIn, or Entercom's mobile apps, to connect to cars for now. Chia-Lin Simmons, Aha by Harman VP/Marketing & Content, said it can cost amillion dollars to get integrated into the car "head unit." Moderator Roger Lanctot of Strategy Analytics verified that automakers make hard to "scale" integrations.

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Yes, Musicians Still Should Try to Get Their Music on the Radio

Despite what the naysayers may, uh, say, radio is still the number one place for music discovery for the majority of the population.  And once you get your radio on the air, it's the best way to reach the most people in the least amount of time.

New research confirms this.  From Hypebot:

Though research studies often conflict, recent research related to music listening habits make it clear that traditional radio, including traditional radio being streamed on the web, remains a dominant source of streaming music and music discovery. Yet pure play internet radio's audience is growing and younger people are gradually shifting away from traditional AM/FM radio to listening to such services even in autos. Aggregated data points indicate that musicians should continue to seek traditional radio play while exploring newer internet-based services.

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GM's New Infotainment System Functions More Like Your Smartphone

This is the car radio of the future--although "radio" doesn't really describe it because there's so much more going on with this thing.

From Gizmag:

Scheduled to launch later this year on an unspecified model or series of models, the app framework will allow you to download and utilize apps built specifically for your GM vehicle. Gizmag caught up with GM at the New York Auto Show to take a closer look.

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Is Sports Radio's Weapon Against Technological Disruption?

As more and more people begin to get at least some of their music through IP delivery (i.e. Internet radio, streaming music services, etc.), music-based terrestrial radio is going to be under more and more pressure. Could sports be the solution?  From Ad Age:

Live sports have turned out to be traditional TV's best weapon against growing competition from the likes of Netflix and disruption by the DVR. Now as Spotify and Pandora chase listeners -- and Apple reportedly prepares a streaming music service of its own -- radio broadcasters are hoping they can use sports in much the same way.

Last weekend NBC and the radio syndicator Dial Global introduced NBC Sports Radio on 249 affiliates around the country, joining an increasingly crowded field that was once, surprisingly enough, considered unpromising. Emmis Communications was given little chance of success in 1987 when it introduced WFAN in New York, the first all-sports radio station, which promptly lost millions of dollars and nearly got shut down. After relocating on the dial and gaining a stronger signal, however, business started improving -- to the point that WFAN, now part of CBS Corp., raked in $41 million in revenue last year, according to BIA Kinsey. It ranked first among all sports stations nationwide and just ninth overall.

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Canadian Music Week Moves from March to May for 2014

After 31years of being a late winter/early spring convention and festival, Canadian Music Week will become a slighlty warmer-weather event.

The traditional timing of CMW has become more problematic for organizers and participants over the last decade with the rise of SXSW in Austin.  The back-to-back scheduling of these two major events has all kinds of headaches.  Add in that mid-to-late March is spring break time (gotta take the kids to Disney World!) and you end up with all kinds of issues.  Best just move the whole thing to a better time for everyone.

So be it known that CMW 2014 will run from May 6-10, 2014, immediately following the rising World Wide Radio Summit in LA (first couple of days of May) and before Music Matters Asia (which usually starts around May 20). And yes, it'll be back at the Downtown Marriott Eaton Centre Hotel, which passed its inaugural test this year.

It'll be interesting to see how this move will affect the programming of NXNE in Toronto, which comes around in mid-June.