Blog: Reaching audiences on the road
The BBC Academy and D&BD put on a very successful one day event in London to raise awareness of how in-car infotainment is changing and to draw attention to the BBC’s innovation and automotive partnerships. Despite a rail strike which was called off at the eleventh hour, 90 people showed up in Broadcasting House’s Media Café, and over 500 joined the live stream from around the world.
Hosted by motor sports presenter Suzi Perry, the day saw talks from VW, Ford, and Polestar, and contributions from Bauer, Radioplayer, DTS and more. Speakers from the BBC included Tim Davie, Aled Jones, Alison Winter, BBC Sounds and BBC R&D.
A Mercedes C-Class running a state-of-the-art hybrid radio was parked in the piazza, and a Polestar running a beta version of BBC Sounds for Android Automotive was also available for hands-on demonstrations. The Blue Room was on hand with a number of demos, showing off Spotify’s Car Thing hardware, an emulator of Android Automotive and more. The battle for in-car.
The first part of the day was about audiences: what are they doing in cars, and how is that changing? The European Broadcasting Union’s Grace Zakka used a new report from the EBU’s Media Intelligence Service as the basis for an analysis of youth behaviour in cars. The car as a platform.
Alison Winter, Head of Audiences for Radio, reminded us how strong radio still is for in-car audiences, and its importance with a chart that she said might be the best she’s ever produced. The orange line is the number of vehicles on the road during COVID, and the blue bars represent total UK radio reach. Two entirely different data sets – which track each other almost perfectly. Is there any better illustration of the car’s importance to radio listening? Tuning-in to the in-car audience.
We then invited Bauer, Radioplayer, VW, the EBU and German broadcaster ARD onstage for a panel discussion about what the future of this graph might look like. Will radio stay strong, even as other media types compete for attention? What would happen to the concept of radio if car makers stopped putting tuners in their cars? What will be the hallmarks of future car radio?
The second part of the day was about digital products, and BBC Sounds gave us a sneak peek at their new version of Sounds which will run natively in cars using Google’s new Android Automotive operating system. How is BBC Sounds adapting its digital products for the Connected Car?
If I had to boil down my takeaways from this eventful day, they’d be:
- Radio is to the car what the telly is to the living room
- Radio is still usually the top choice in the car - but with more options available young people are spending less time with it. We at the BBC need our own clear, simple, digital offers to take up this slack.
- IP delivery to vehicles will open up a world of new data, powering recommendations and more. Controlling and influencing this data and the uses to which it’s put will be key.
- Ease of use is so important – in the car more than pretty much anywhere else. This plays to our strengths. We know how to make “lean back” content better than anyone.
- Future standards and behaviours are still very uncertain – we must be nimble, flexible, and work on specific projects with specific partners to see what works
The above is just a sampling of the many sessions in a day packed with information and innovation sharing. All the sessions can be seen on the Connected Car 2022 homepage.
