Mandatory FM radio in cell phones

August 16, 2010

The music industry may not have predicted what the Internet would do to their business model, but the owners of FM radio stations can see what it’s doing to theirs.

Given that I have Pandora and Slacker available on my phone, providing me with an endless stream of music tailored to my individual tastes, why on earth would I listen to FM radio? It’s full of ads, and mostly plays music I don’t like.

Yes, there are places where I can’t get phone signal. That problem can mostly be solved by caching the stream, like Slacker does. Alternatively, I can download podcast-length entertainment while I’m in signal range. It’s not like FM radio doesn’t have limited coverage, either: if you’re driving on US highways, you’ll probably have fewer cell network dead spots than you’ll have FM radio dropouts and station transitions.

There may still be a market for radio for real-time event broadcast and talk radio, but for random music in the car and at home, my prediction is that the Internet is going to wipe out radio in the next few years. That’s undoubtedly why the radio industry wants to mandate that cell phones have FM radios built in. Listening hours have already dropped 18% over the last 5 years, and companies like Clear Channel are keen to prolong the death of their current business model as long as possible. They know that as soon as their customers realize they can get better music from their 3G phones, they’ll head to the Internet.

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