Written by/ Shi Bin, Tang Mingze
Under the impact of television, broadcasting has gained a “revival” due to the popularity of cars, thus broadcasting is also referred to as “media on wheels.” Entering the digital network era, especially with the continuous maturity of 5G network communication technology and Internet of Things technology, the “Internet of Vehicles” is increasingly becoming a pressing reality. Audio consumption in driving scenarios has seen new trends and possibilities with the rapid development of the smart car industry, with audio aggregation platforms like Himalaya and leading audio clients penetrating into smart vehicle systems. The traditional broadcasting’s primary “in-car scenario” communication will face unprecedented challenges. How to respond to the intelligent in-car scenarios, how to reflect personalized and interactive content services in networked and digital terminals, and how to reform personnel mechanisms and innovate content production are all practical issues that traditional broadcasting must consider and address.
1. Changes in Driving Scenarios Under Technological Iteration
According to a report released by People’s Daily on January 7, 2021, China had 372 million motor vehicles by 2020. Based on the seventh national census report estimating an average of 2.62 people per household, the audience covered by in-car broadcasting is approximately 736 million. Additionally, a national survey by the Sali Media Research Institute in 2020 showed that over 90% of car owners have the habit of listening to in-car audio, suggesting that the number of audio media users in in-car scenarios exceeds 600 million, highlighting the vastness of China’s in-car audio market. The “revival” and “maintenance” of broadcasting benefit from the large number of in-car audio users in China. The closed nature of in-car scenarios, the accompanying nature of audio, the interactivity of broadcasting, and the community dissemination attributes make broadcasting the preferred medium in the in-car environment. In fact, even today, whether in terms of audience ratings or advertising revenue, traffic broadcasting targeting mobile (in-car) audiences remains the backbone of radio stations at all levels across the country. However, with the reconstruction of in-car scenarios by the “future has arrived” Internet of Vehicles, the advantages of mobile listening for broadcasting face unprecedented challenges. The Internet of Vehicles is a product of the combination of the traditional automotive industry and the Internet, a branch of the Internet of Things, based on in-car networks, vehicle-to-vehicle networks, and vehicle-mounted mobile Internet, utilizing wireless communication technology, GPS technology, and sensor technology for data analysis and usage, forming a system network for intelligent information exchange processing among “people-vehicle-network” and “vehicle-road-network.” Currently, the relatively mature and widely applied aspect of the Internet of Vehicles is still limited to “in-car networks,” which integrate intelligent interactive functions such as navigation, voice services, Internet, and audio-visual entertainment into vehicles. In the future, as autonomous driving technology and intelligent voice interaction technology continue to mature and be applied, human-vehicle interaction and even the integration of humans and vehicles will become reality, leading to disruptive changes in in-car audio dissemination scenarios.
As early as 2014, Apple and Google, which have mainstream smartphone operating systems, successively launched the CarPlay (for Apple phones) and Android Auto (for Android phones) in-car systems. In-car mobile users can connect to the pre-installed in-car systems via data cables or Bluetooth, enabling voice calls, online music streaming, and real-time electronic map navigation. Subsequently, major automotive manufacturers such as General Motors, Toyota, BMW, and domestic brands like Geely, Changan, and SAIC Group began developing their own Internet of Vehicles systems. The government has also introduced the “Intelligent Vehicle Innovation Development Strategy” and the “Internet of Vehicles (Smart Connected Vehicles) Industry Development Action Plan,” mandating that by 2020, the installation rate of connected vehicle information service terminals in new cars should exceed 60%, with goals set for 2025 to achieve large-scale production of conditionally intelligent vehicles, and for 2035 to establish a comprehensive intelligent standard system in China, making it a strong nation in intelligent vehicles. The development of intelligent vehicles will create entirely new “car life” scenarios, enabling all needs for work and life to be realized in the car through remote automated control. Even the current primary stage of the Internet of Vehicles, the “in-car mobile Internet,” poses significant challenges to traditional broadcasting. For instance, according to the “2021 China Media Market Trends” report released on September 15, 2021, Himalaya’s monthly active user base has reached 250 million, with an average daily usage time of 141 minutes, making this single “internet radio” 2.6 times that of traditional broadcasting. If we also consider that “mobile Internet users spend an average of 6.8 hours online daily, engage with an average of 4.2 types of online media daily, and use more than 25 apps monthly,” we are further convinced that the diverse array of online media, including internet radio, has already “occupied” nearly all of people’s leisure time. When in-car networks can easily bring the internet world “inside” through intelligent voice control, will traditional broadcasting still be the first choice for people? How much of the broadcasting’s in-car “monopoly” advantage will remain? To maintain its most important stronghold in in-car scenarios, traditional broadcasting cannot simply transfer existing broadcasting programs to in-car systems; rather, it must break through existing channels, content, and operational thinking, integrating smart interaction, big data analysis, and personalized recommendations to deeply fuse with the driving environment, constructing a new in-car broadcasting audio ecosystem.
2. Channel Priority: The Real Path and Dilemmas of Broadcasting in the Internet of Vehicles
Currently, audio integration in the Internet of Vehicles can primarily be divided into two types: “pre-installed” (or front-installed) and “post-installed.” Pre-installed or front-installed refers to agreements made with automotive companies before vehicle production to integrate audio products into new models. For example, Pandora, the largest internet music radio station in the United States established in 2000, has partnered with many automotive manufacturers to pre-install its in-car receiving terminals, making cars a major consumption scenario for Pandora. Similar pre-installed music stations include Germany’s Sound Cloud and the UK’s Spotify. Domestic traditional broadcasting clients and online audio platforms have also cooperated deeply with automotive manufacturers, such as the Central Radio’s “China Broadcasting” client collaborating with Ford to adapt to the Ford App Link in-car system; Hunan Broadcasting System’s “Mango Listening” app entering Geely’s GKUI intelligent ecosystem and NIO Radio platforms. Among audio platforms, Koala FM has reached pre-installation agreements with over 30 automotive brands, including Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, BYD, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. Whether through a basic collaboration of directly pre-installing an app into the vehicle’s system or deep cooperation with vehicle system content or even monopolizing certain vehicle screen resources, this pre-installation cooperation requires broadcasting media to directly connect with automotive companies and deeply engage with the automotive industry in terms of technology, personnel, and operations. For broadcasting media, this entails bearing the “exploration costs” of cross-industry collaboration and venturing into unfamiliar fields. Additionally, there are significant barriers to entry for broadcasting media due to the lack of unified standards in vehicle hardware across different automotive brands and even among different models of the same brand, meaning each model requires separate “personalized” development for pre-installation audio integration, making large-scale development and production unfeasible. From an industrial economic efficiency perspective, this represents a typical high investment, low output situation. Coupled with the development cycle and risks inherent in the smart automotive industry, the direct pre-installation of audio channels into vehicles presents obstacles for broadcasting media in terms of “cross-industry” and “investment-return ratio.” Besides direct collaboration with automotive companies, many broadcasting media also opt for the second type of “pre-installation,” partnering with internet companies that possess strong technical development capabilities and proprietary intelligent in-car information systems, integrating broadcasting audio apps or mini-programs into the car networking ecosystem built by platforms such as Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Huawei, and Xiaomi. For instance, the Central Radio and Television General Station’s audio client “China Broadcasting” is integrated with Neusoft’s “Mengjia Cloud Platform”; Beijing Radio and Television’s “TingTing FM” is integrated with “Tencent WeChat” and collaborates with “Alibaba Zhiban”; and Shanghai Radio and Television’s Archimedes app has partnered with “Tencent WeChat” and Huawei OS. Compared to traditional broadcasting, internet platforms are more mature in terms of online audio content aggregation, technological development, digitalization, and commercialization, and have greater leverage and initiative in collaborating with automotive companies. However, for open internet platforms, traditional broadcasting clients are just one type of their many audio content and may not even be considered mainstream; moreover, audio and other entertainment services are only a small part of the ecosystem built by major internet companies, and currently are not core. From a certain perspective, the significance of the internet is less than that of the Internet of Things, as the concept of the Internet of Things, “everything is connected,” encompasses all aspects of the material world, information world, and organism world. The core goal of the Internet of Vehicles, as a type of Internet of Things, is to provide users with more and better driving service experiences. Currently, the applications of the Internet of Vehicles are diverse and complex, but the primary focus and investment of automotive companies and the internet industry remain on achieving active safety functions through autonomous driving services and technology, rather than entertainment services. Not only is audio business currently unlikely to become the focus of Internet of Vehicles projects, but traditional broadcasting also faces a deeper concern and cost in collaborating with internet companies to “enter the vehicle.” Internet companies invest in the development of the Internet of Vehicles ecosystem not only to reach as many users as possible through vehicle networking products for immediate benefits; another longer-term and more scarce benefit stems from “user big data.” By collecting data on the combination, variation, and frequency of driver (passenger) behaviors and geographic locations, as well as tagging the population and capturing offline scenarios, precise user profiles can be “calculated”—and user profiles are the most important basis for achieving precise marketing, such as personalized information and advertising pushes. Traditional broadcasting, leveraging internet platforms to enter in-car scenarios, cannot reclaim the multidimensional data of its audience, losing the ability to rely on data for commercialization benefits, obtaining research-based decision-making support, and lacking ownership and control over data. In an era where smart media holds “unlimited” possibilities, the reliance of AI on high-quality big data makes the loss of data rights an “unbearable burden” for traditional broadcasting in constructing new mainstream media, which also contradicts the central expectation for mainstream media to build independent all-media platforms.
Unlike the aforementioned two types of “pre-installation” audio access methods, the third access method is classified as “post-installation,” where audio media collaborates with third-party service providers to build hardware, “empowering” audio products to hardware devices and then installing them in the driver’s cabin. For example, Himalaya launched its in-car sound box “Sui Che Ting” in 2015, and that same year, Koala FM introduced its smart hardware product “Koala Treasure.” Broadcasting media have also attempted to expand the Internet of Vehicles market through “post-installation hardware,” with the most representative being the “Broadcasting Car Box” developed by Fujian Broadcasting and Television Group in 2016. The “Broadcasting Car Box” is a type of “cloud rearview mirror” product, allowing users to interact and engage with broadcasting programs through voice rather than a phone. For instance, saying “I want to take a snapshot” will enable the “Broadcasting Car Box” to upload traffic violation videos captured by the rearview mirror to the broadcasting network’s backend, where live directors and hosts can use them in programs, and traffic police can utilize them for real-time traffic control. In 2017, Fujian’s “Broadcasting Car Box” was included in China Mobile’s Internet of Things product catalog and occupied over 30,000 vehicles’ Internet of Vehicles access points within three months. Although various “car boxes” are easy to install and cost-effective, these post-installed hardware solutions lack open big data collection capabilities, meaning that from the perspective of the development trend of the Internet of Vehicles, hardware post-installation is merely a short-term transitional method, and future developments will gradually shift towards intelligent solutions.
3. New “Content is King”: Traditional Advantages and Innovative Thinking of Broadcasting
The dilemma of “channel priority” primarily arises from traditional broadcasting not leveraging its core advantages in the development of the Internet of Vehicles. Continuous professional content production capabilities, resource integration based on credibility, online and offline connectivity arising from multi-scenario transformations, and long-term accumulated brand effects are all advantages of traditional broadcasting centered around “content” as a core competitive strength. How to innovate and reconstruct the content advantages, interactive forms, and operational mechanisms of in-car broadcasting using “integrated thinking” in the Internet of Vehicles ecosystem is of utmost importance for traditional broadcasting to respond to changes in in-car scenarios.
Foreign developments in broadcasting for the Internet of Vehicles primarily focus on content rather than the complex “channel” technology development and cross-industry capital operations. For instance, the most popular type of in-car audio in the United States today, and the earliest form of digital broadcasting, is the “podcast,” which has evolved from primarily talk shows to include news programs, narrative programs, in-depth reports, etc., making it very suitable for the “closed” and “accompanying” scenarios in vehicles. For example, the news podcast “On the Media” interprets news events from the perspective of news practitioners, fully reflecting the inherent “personal experience” and “I” perspective of new media while gaining the professional guarantee of traditional media due to the topics and “behind-the-scenes facts” focused on by professional journalists, ensuring freshness and listenability. This successfully integrates the professional content production advantages of traditional media, the personalized dissemination characteristics of digital media, and the accompanying requirements of in-car media.
In recent years, China’s podcasting has developed rapidly. As of September 1, 2021, data from the podcast search engine Listen Notes indicated that the number of Chinese podcasts reached 36,860, more than doubling from the end of 2020 just nine months prior. According to eMarketer, the number of podcast listeners in China is expected to reach 86.5 million in 2021, second only to the United States, and is projected to maintain double-digit growth until at least 2025. In December 2020, the “Lizhi Podcast” app partnered with Xiaopeng Motors to launch the first in-car podcast live streaming platform in China. Whether traditional broadcasting can enter the “vast space” of in-car podcasts and leverage the rich content forms of English podcasts to exert its professional content production advantages in narrative and in-depth reporting is worth looking forward to. In the traditional broadcasting era, determining which audience to design what frequency and program was the primary consideration for radio stations to enhance their influence, namely the “positioning” and function of frequency and programming. In the digital communication era, especially in the era of intelligence, the previous method of relying on limited market research or subjective experience to “guess” program positioning has been replaced by more precise, scientific, and individualized “customization” based on big data—this includes personalized definitions and arrangements combining traditional linear dissemination and personalized pushes of fragmented content. The success of platforms like Toutiao and Douyin, which have emerged in the competitive landscape of aggregated news platforms, demonstrates the value of “personalized” intelligent content pushes in the digital age. In-car broadcasting can also verticalize and fragment news information, continuously improving the keyword “tags” of news content through big data and deep learning, enhancing push accuracy to achieve personalized pushes of broadcasting news content. According to a survey by Sali Media, the proportion of listeners who frequently listen to news programs reaches as high as 61%. If digital radio can combine users’ different times, locations, scenarios, and even emotional states to conduct personalized pushes based on precise user profiles generated by big data collection and analysis, it can easily increase listeners’ recognition and so-called “stickiness” to the station. Of course, compared to commercial platforms, radio media’s personalized content services should also adhere to the principle of “technology for good” from an algorithmic perspective, considering factors beyond economic benefits such as traffic. This “algorithm ethics” reflects the value orientation and social responsibility that new mainstream media should embody.
Looking back at the development history of mobile internet, most successful products have simple concepts, and in-car scenarios especially require products to be simple, convenient, and safe to use. For in-car broadcasting, not only should it continue to promote the “interactive” elements inherent in the “genes” of broadcasting, but it must also leverage intelligent technology to “upgrade” the interaction of traditional broadcasting. Technologically, the first requirement is to ensure “hands-free” interaction while driving, meaning that listeners do not need to use their phones, rely on text, or go through other media platforms; they can interact directly with the in-car broadcasting platform through voice. For example, in 2017, the BBC launched an interactive radio drama “The Inspection Chamber,” where listeners could decide the future direction of the story through voice interaction, thus easily obtaining “deep participation” and an immersive experience without any “technical barriers.” In 2018, Google partnered with over 130 media outlets to create a personalized intelligent radio controlled by user voice, allowing functions like “skip,” “back,” or “deep report.” Meanwhile, intelligent voice broadcasting is increasingly being adopted by various media, with Google’s latest version of the AI voice synthesis system, Tacotron 2, capable of producing voices indistinguishable from real human voices. Traditional broadcasting, especially local stations, engages in various forms of interaction with local audiences, possessing high recognition and a strong loyal audience base. When full-media broadcasting deeply integrates with the Internet of Vehicles, listeners/users can directly converse with radio stations, participate in, or even lead programs while driving or riding, and engage in deep interactions with broadcasting and other users through actions like liking, sharing, and commenting, embodying the attributes of social media behavior.
On the basis of technological connectivity, “content” will become the largest composite industry linking society as a whole, providing greater development opportunities for traditional media like broadcasting to explore new business models.
Conclusion
In 2021, the Central Radio and Television General Station incorporated the entire Koala FM radio segment under its umbrella, and Koala FM has been deeply engaged in the in-car content field for many years—In August 2017, Koala FM signed an agreement with Changan Automobile to jointly develop Internet of Vehicles entertainment products; the following year, Koala FM launched the smart in-car audio brand “Ting Ban,” and introduced the K-radio content operation cloud platform, also leading the establishment of the China In-Car Program Alliance. Just as media convergence is not simply additive, in-car full-media broadcasting is not merely transferring traditional broadcasting content to in-car systems or incorporating online audio content into broadcasting’s own platform. The Internet of Vehicles is not just about “channels” or technology; it is an “ecosystem” and a new “Internet of Things” thinking. Traditional broadcasting must proactively prepare for entry into the Internet of Vehicles ecosystem, first by changing content forms and production mechanisms through new communication thinking and reasonably allocating interests among all parties in the industry chain; secondly, by digitally and intelligently upgrading the “interaction” inherent in broadcasting; thirdly, by leveraging the credibility advantages of traditional media to integrate various social resources, including government, professional (industry), and public resources; and lastly, and most importantly, by fully recognizing and effectively utilizing audience (user) big data, the most important “resource” in the digital age. Only in this way can in-car broadcasting maintain smoothness in the “car life” scenarios when 5G and the Internet of Vehicles are truly popularized.