IBiquity Digital and Emmis Broadcasting are in talks with the...
IBiquity Digital and Emmis Broadcasting are in talks with the major wireless carriers trying to convince them to build HD Radio functionality into their smartphones, iBiquity and Emmis executives told an NAB news conference Monday. The capability of building HD…
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Radio into smartphones has been in development for about a year and has been funded by NAB, with Emmis taking the lead among other radio group owners to make the technology happen, iBiquity CEO Bob Struble said. “We have been talking for some time about the tremendous potential of including radio in smartphones, and the vision is pairing the very, very efficient distribution capability of greater broadcasting with a connected backchannel,” Struble said. Doing so will create “new revenue streams for broadcasters, new opportunities for advertisers,” he said. HD Radio functionality can be had through a new series of low-power “state-of-the-art” chipsets developed by Intel for smartphones, but also for tablets and other mobile devices, said iBiquity Chief Operating Officer Jeff Jury. “We have a number of other partners developing similar chipsets that were designed for exactly the same market segment,” Jury said. Emmis regards the HD Radio smartphone opportunity as “a landmark” because it’s “truly revolutionary for our industry,” CEO Jeff Smulyan said. Following Emmis’s lead, other broadcasters “have come forward to work on this project,” including CBS, Clear Channel, Cox, Cumulus, Hubbard and Radio One, he said. All think “this is a significant part of our future,” he said. “We think this gives us the opportunity to compete in every appliance out there.” Struble thinks building HD Radio into smartphones gives wireless carriers a huge opportunity in terms of “network utilization, user experience and incremental revenue,” he said. “There’s a very acute spectrum shortage,” he said. “IPad 3 comes out, people get throttled, data plans go up. There’s not enough spectrum out there for everybody to be listening to their favorite radio stations over streaming. It just will not work. So part of the pitch to carriers is to say, ‘Look, if a guy is streaming, you put this nice HD chip in your phone, they can listen to their local markets and we're not chewing up your valuable spectrum.'"