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Did everyone switch out their car radios?

by mongol 7y ago

lb1lf 7y ago
-No, most people simply stopped listening to radio in their cars, or bought DAB adapters which rebroadcast the DAB channel you wish to listen to on an FM frequency. A lucky few with cars old enough to have a standard DIN car stereo bracket simply popped out the FM radio and dropped in a DAB replacement. But, essentially, radio listening in both car and home dropped off a cliff. Edit: The Great FM Kill-Off was a double whammy as they simultaneously stopped broadcasting DAB using the MPEG2/L1 codex and switched to DAB+' HE-AAC. This made sense, technologically - sound quality of low bitrate MPEG2 is not impressive - but the result was that most early adopters of DAB had to purchase new receivers yet again as early DAB sets did not support DAB+. Further, leading up to the FM shutdown all the focus was on FM=>DAB, not DAB=>DAB+ - so during the switch, three of my four DAB radios went the way of the dodo bird without me even having realized it was going to happen. I wasn't very motivated to buy new receivers yet again...
- 1bc29b36f623ba8 7y ago
  Didn't that have an impact on the amount of listeners? Sounds like commercial stations must have taken a big hit.
  - lb1lf 7y ago
    It did, and they did.
    - obruchez 7y ago
      It probably wasn't helped by the success of podcasts as well.
tyfon 7y ago
I got an option to switch to DAB+ from my (previous) dealership but I just don't see the point. It's much better just to use mobile broadband and stream whatever you want using your phone + bluetooth. My new car has DAB+ but it also has tunein and spotify built-in so that's a much better option. FM isn't dead yet here in Norway though you can still listen to local stations via FM and it looks like the license for them will be extended to 2031.
- gpvos 7y ago
  Which is a shame because broadcast radio via AM, FM or DAB(+) is at least still one-to-many, while streaming is one-to-one and therefore scales badly.
- CalChris 7y ago
  Does local mean low power? We have low power FM in the US, up to 100W. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-power_broadcasting#FM_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-power_broadcasting#FM_radi...

Did everyone switch out their car radios?

by mongol 7y ago

Did everyone switch out their car radios?

-No, most people simply stopped listening to radio in their cars, or bought DAB adapters which rebroadcast the DAB channel you wish to listen to on an FM frequency. A lucky few with cars old enough to have a standard DIN car stereo bracket simply popped out the FM radio and dropped in a DAB replacement. But, essentially, radio listening in both car and home dropped off a cliff. Edit: The Great FM Kill-Off was a double whammy as they simultaneously stopped broadcasting DAB using the MPEG2/L1 codex and switched to DAB+' HE-AAC. This made sense, technologically - sound quality of low bitrate MPEG2 is not impressive - but the result was that most early adopters of DAB had to purchase new receivers yet again as early DAB sets did not support DAB+. Further, leading up to the FM shutdown all the focus was on FM=>DAB, not DAB=>DAB+ - so during the switch, three of my four DAB radios went the way of the dodo bird without me even having realized it was going to happen. I wasn't very motivated to buy new receivers yet again...

1bc29b36f623ba8 7y ago
Didn't that have an impact on the amount of listeners? Sounds like commercial stations must have taken a big hit.
- lb1lf 7y ago
  It did, and they did.
  - obruchez 7y ago
    It probably wasn't helped by the success of podcasts as well.

tyfon 7y ago

I got an option to switch to DAB+ from my (previous) dealership but I just don't see the point. It's much better just to use mobile broadband and stream whatever you want using your phone + bluetooth. My new car has DAB+ but it also has tunein and spotify built-in so that's a much better option. FM isn't dead yet here in Norway though you can still listen to local stations via FM and it looks like the license for them will be extended to 2031.

gpvos 7y ago
Which is a shame because broadcast radio via AM, FM or DAB(+) is at least still one-to-many, while streaming is one-to-one and therefore scales badly.
CalChris 7y ago
Does local mean low power? We have low power FM in the US, up to 100W. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-power_broadcasting#FM_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-power_broadcasting#FM_radi...