DABbling in in-car audio

Not many of us can claim to be working whenever we switch on the car radio. But when Simon Mason tunes in it’s not just to unwind while travelling between meetings, but to study what he believes is a rich area of opportunity for broadcasters and their clients.

“In the UK almost a quarter of all radio listening takes place in the car, and as radio listening in general is on the increase broadcasters need to understand the opportunities and challenges facing them when delivering to this audience,” he says.

Mason is Head of Broadcast Radio Technology at Arqiva and was on the panel of a very popular IBC2018 session, ‘World DAB: Radio’s digital strategy’. He has been with Arqiva for 20 years, but his career in the broadcast industry spans more than 35 years in a range of roles from radio content production to designing high power radio transmitter networks. His passion is radio content, and specifically how this is delivered to the end user in the best way to give them the best experience possible in terms of convenience, audio quality and availability.

Mobile broadcast
More than half of in-car radio consumption is now digital, mostly via DAB (digital audio broadcasting) – a figure that is set to grow as both coverage and installed base increase, Mason believes.

“In-car digital listening has seen year on year growth, thanks in large part to another 2.2 million DAB-equipped cars hitting the road in the last year in the UK, and more than 90 per cent of new cars are now fitted with DAB receivers as standard,” he says.

“In the past five years Arqiva has built hundreds of new DAB transmitters, and it’s getting harder to…