Spanish Radio Television (RTVE) and the Federation of Autonomous Radio and Television Organizations or Entities (Forta) have warned of the imminent danger that threatens the consumption of linear radio in cars caused by the so-called gatekeepers. These large technology companies – such as Amazon, Google, Apple or Spotify, among others – seek the complicity of automobile companies to prioritize streaming broadcasts over other broadcasting systems.
According to public channels, the online giants “offer multimedia solutions to car manufacturers that ignore the DAB+ receiver.” Immediately afterwards, RTVE and Forta predict that “if this situation becomes widespread, there is a risk of the radio in the car disappearing.” For all of the above, the struggle that regulators, radio content providers and audiences must resolve is concentrated on a single battlefield: which technology will appear as the first option on the screen of automobile multimedia systems. If technology companies impose their negotiating and convincing power, users will tend to listen to their favorite stations through streaming, with digital quality but with the consequent consumption of mobile data and to the detriment of FM broadcasts or the DAB+, acronym for Digital Audio Broadcasting. This technology is a sound broadcasting standard that, according to RTVE and Forta, represents “the only alternative today to guarantee the future of long-term linear radio distribution in Europe in the terms in which the know and that it is already used in numerous European countries. Among other features, the DAB+ offers free digital quality, without the need for an Internet connection, without contracts and without the limitations of FM due to the lack of spectrum in the cities.
Through a statement, public television stations denounce the risk of “the loss of pre-eminence of radio on the first screen of vehicle multimedia systems, making access to radio broadcast to citizens extremely difficult.” As an example, the situation could be compared to the Google search enginewhere results that do not appear on the first page practically do not exist. And the same thing would happen on the car’s dashboard screen, which is why TVs are calling on vehicle manufacturers to prioritize the adoption of DAB+.
At the same time, TVE and Forta point out that the deployment of digital sound broadcasting has been stagnant in Spain for more than two decades (since 1997), “with a window of opportunity for its deployment that is progressively closing.”
The same sources urge administrations to regulate digital terrestrial broadcasting and combat “the illegal DAB+ broadcasts that are proliferating with impunity throughout Spain, which also poses a serious threat to the radio sector due to unfair competition“Likewise, RTVE and Forta ask the administrations to establish a date for the migration from analogue to digital radio, with the switching off of FM broadcasts, in favor of DAB+.
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