Another Buggy Whip Moment
It's another episode of "no one is entitled to a business model". The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) wants to mandate FM receivers in all smartphones, probably due to the audience drop they're seeing. This is all part of the RIAA and NAB fighting over the remaining crumbs in the broadcast music business:
NAB, in an effort to expand radio audiences, has been seeking an FM receiver mandate for digital devices for several years. But the proposal doesn't make sense, with many smartphones able to stream music and other content from the Internet, including streams from commercial radio stations, said Jot Carpenter, CTIA's vice president for government affairs. Several mobile devices available in the U.S. have FM receivers, but they are not among the top-selling devices, he said.
When I'm listening to music, I tend to do one of three things:
- Shuffle my entire music collection on my iPhone/Mac
- Put on a Pandora station
- Create a "Genius" playlist (like Pandora, but limited to my collection)
I haven't turned on the radio more than a handful of times in the last year, and those times happened because I forgot my phone. The sales numbers for devices that include radios show how much demand there is for that (virtually none).
Add to that another reality - many (most?) radio stations now stream live on the net. So I can already get radio stations over wifi or 3g if I want to. I don't want, or need, another radio draining battery in my iPhone, thanks.
