#nextradio

Sep 19, 2016

Radio’s Problem After the iPhone 7

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock you know that Apple released its latest iPhone last week, and the announcement came with all the usual pomp and publicity. But what does the iPhone 7 mean if you’re working in the radio industry? The key thing is the much noted removal of the 3.5mm Earbud jack, an output device that – until now – has been ubiquitous. Sure, Apple will provide a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter in the box along with some standard Earbuds with a Lightning connect

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mramsey1

May 12, 2016

The Death of the Mobile Phone Antenna

So the hot rumor about the forthcoming iPhone 7 is that it will lose something that has so far been taken for granted. I’m talking about the headphone jack. No headphone jack means no place to plug in your earbuds, headphones, or stereo cable. That means the audio will transmit wirelessly, and that most irritating of mobile phone nuisances – the easily tangled and easily ripped-from-your-ear cord – will be a thing of the past. According to one source: …the iPhone 7 will ship

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mramsey1

Dec 12, 2015

Why Data Caps Don’t Matter for Audio

Do consumers want radios built into their mobile devices so they can save on precious bandwidth? In other words, does the use of audio streaming itself push bandwidth past available data caps? Is audio a “data hog”? Is there a consumer problem here? I have previously argued that audio streams are, in fact, fairly economical. Even if you do all of your streaming audio consumption without the benefit of Wi-Fi, you’d need to stream about 4 hours on Pandora every day to hit a 2-g

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mramsey1

Feb 23, 2015

A Choppy Stream Ahead for NextRadio

With a great flourish, the powers-that-be behind the NextRadio app have announced that this week shall begin a thunderous effort to enlist one constituency so far utterly lacking in enthusiasm for NextRadio’s product: Consumers. And so begins an onslaught of over-the-air radio spots designed to lead consumers to download an app that will not work on most of their phones, meanwhile attempting to incite rage that the “choppy, buffered streaming radio” that wireless companies “w

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What Does Sprint’s Unlimited Data Plan Say About NextRadio?

mramsey1

Nov 8, 2014

What Does Sprint’s Unlimited Data Plan Say About NextRadio?

Lots of folks in the radio space are talking about Emmis’ NextRadio initiative to activate FM chips in smartphones (here and here), but not a lot of folks in the industry are paying attention to NextRadio’s primary partner, Sprint. Remember that one of the driving arguments for NextRadio is that consumers can conserve bandwidth by tuning in radio over-the-air without eating up precious bits and bytes. But nobody in radio seemed to notice Sprint’s announcement last month that

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Here’s Why Radio Will Have a Tough Time on Mobile Phones

mramsey1

Aug 24, 2014

Here’s Why Radio Will Have a Tough Time on Mobile Phones

The battle for real estate and attention on mobile devices is even tougher than you think. This past week Techcrunch reported on a study by comScore which indicated… U.S. users are now spending the majority of their time consuming digital media within mobile applications. That means mobile apps, including the number 1 most popular app Facebook, eat up more of our time than desktop usage or mobile web surfing, accounting for 52% of the time spent using digital media. Combined

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Why Chasing “Cool” for Radio is a Fool’s Errand

mramsey1

Aug 21, 2014

Why Chasing “Cool” for Radio is a Fool’s Errand

There’s nothing less “cool” than a room full of 50-year-olds preaching the importance of making something “cool.” And that happens all the time in the upper echelons of the radio industry, a place where the air must be thin enough to imagine that “cool” can be manufactured rather than earned. I’m reminded of a brainstorming meeting many years ago: The client had a station mascot, a character in their logo. Management was obsessed with making that character more “cool” to the

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Here’s Where Built-In Radio on Mobile Phones Would Win Big

mramsey1

Aug 6, 2014

Here’s Where Built-In Radio on Mobile Phones Would Win Big

Earlier this week I provided data and an argument to show why the NextRadio campaign to add an FM chip to mobile phones in the U.S. will be fruitless. But I hinted at an international scenario which might make much more sense for a form of this technology. Show me a market where everyone has mobile phones but not radios, and I’ll show you a market made for radios built into mobile phones. So it is in many areas of the world where radios and the plugged-in electricity which dr

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Is NextRadio’s Consumer Enthusiasm a Mirage?

mramsey1

Aug 4, 2014

Is NextRadio’s Consumer Enthusiasm a Mirage?

I am stridently pro-consumer. I believe that if we focus on what consumers show us they want, then we will have more consumers, happier consumers, and a healthier business overall. This is the thinking that has driven all my successful audience research efforts for years. So it was with much disappointment that I reviewed the recent research project produced by Coleman Research for NextRadio, financed by the NAB. Coleman has a well-deserved strong reputation, but this deeply

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The Death of Distribution Channel Advantage

mramsey1

Jul 16, 2014

The Death of Distribution Channel Advantage

So I read with interest today this distribution-related tidbit from NTS MediaOnline: Cumulus Media-owned Westwood One has announced an agreement with NextRadio that will enable all U.S. radio stations to use advertising inventory to fund the industry’s payments to Sprint. Over the past year, broadcasters have been asked to commit dollars and/or inventory to fund the Sprint NextRadio Initiative, which plans to sell at least 30 million FM receiver-enabled smartphones in the nex

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Radio Listeners: Is “Free” All That Matters?

mramsey1

Apr 21, 2014

Radio Listeners: Is “Free” All That Matters?

“When it comes to mobile devices, we need to remind listeners that radio is FREE – that its use does not sap so much precious battery energy and even more precious data plan bandwidth.” So argue the folks I call the “freeks.” These are the well intentioned folks in the radio industry who believe that listeners do not have their own best interests at heart. That listeners are, as a group, a bit dull-minded. Thus, listeners must be marketed at and advertised to in order to conv

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mramsey1

Mar 19, 2014

Is NextRadio Growing…or Sinking?

From Radio Ink: The latest statistics from Emmis regarding NextRadio show the popularity in the app is still on the rise. NextRadio allows listeners to access their favorite radio station on select Sprint phones without using data. In addition to the NextRadio app being downloaded over 240,000 times, listeners have tuned to nearly nearly 8,000 radio stations racking up over 190,000 hours of listening through the app since it was launched. In January and February of 2014, the

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As Long As FM Radio is on Sprint Phones….

mramsey1

Jan 14, 2013

As Long As FM Radio is on Sprint Phones….

Last week one of the radio industry’s big headlines was the preliminary deal struck between Sprint and various players in radio to provide over-the-air FM on Sprint devices via the Emmis/HD Radio NextRadio platform. I haven’t seen much thoughtful analysis on this yet, so here goes nothing. On the surface, this is good news. After all, it means more ways for listeners to listen to the stations they love and more ways to interact with those stations. Looking deeper, however,

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Everything you Need to Know about FM Radio Chips in Mobile Phones and NextRadio

mramsey1

Aug 25, 2010

Everything you Need to Know about FM Radio Chips in Mobile Phones and NextRadio

As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for. Question: With FM on mobile phones I will no longer need to stream my content, right? Think of the money I’ll save! Answer: Wrong. The purpose of streaming existing and new content via the Internet is not just to be present on mobile devices but to provide the heart of a broader brand experience attractive to consumers and advertisers alike. Dumping out of the online radio game now would be like dumping out of FM radio

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