What the future of the radio can look like, shows a view of the United States. Radio usage has declined steadily over the traditional FM and medium wave distribution channels, and internet radio listening has been steadily rising. In 2017, radio Internet use for the first time overtook the use of radio over the traditional channels and is clearly ahead of the clock at 879 minutes per week. Terrestrial radio is only 780 minutes.
The German marketing company Audimark specializing primarily in the marketing of Internet radio, hopes "that the digital radio use continues to increase and the traditional radio use may even outdated."
A flop in the US is the digital terrestrial HD radio. Although the advocates are constantly reporting success figures - most recently the news that 40 percent of new cars are now equipped with HD Radio. However, the real use is extremely low and even declining. Now around 4 percent.
Although HD Radio is free for users, the offer of over 200.000 radio stations via the Internet is far more attractive to listeners. In addition, there are very well-developed mobile networks in USA and - one of the main reasons for the success - attractive, cost-effective data packages with a so-called "zero rating" offer for streaming that still makes it easy to use mobile Internet radio.
The digital mobile satellite radio is still successful in the US: Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, currently has about 18.5 million subscribers. (via Satellifax.de)
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