Auto parts manufactuer Delphi and Autonet Mobile just announced that they are working on a platform for downloadable and streaming internet entertainment in vehicles.

Strong positive implications for internet radio here.  If internet radio is available in-vehicle, what’s the reason to listen to terrestrial radio or pay for XM/Sirius?

Full article from Market Watch.

Article after article comes out discussing the fall of traditional, terrestrial commercial radio.   The diagnoses vary… Some blame a faltering economy.  Others blame the explosion of new media.  Still others blame a complex combination of societal changes for terrestrial radio’s ills.  Somehow no one blames the lousy programming.Through a series of acquisitions, cost cutting measures,  and generally bad decisions the radio industry has reduced programming content to overly researched musical standards, air personalities who somehow lack personality and badly produced commercials.Radio used to be known for forging a special personal connection with listeners that TV or the internet never could. Radio was intimate– personal.When I was learning the ropes of being an air personality in Westport, Connecticut, the best piece of advice I received was to address the listener as an individual– “You” instead of “All you guys…”  Radio no longer feels personal.  The programming feels vaguely repetitive and noisy.  I don’t feel any personal connection with the air personalities.  Gone are the days when calling in and making a song request or chatting with the DJ felt special.  Sure, I am older and I have changed.  But radio has changed too.  It has become homogenized.  There is no difference in the “personality” of stations that play the same type of music.  One classic rock station is the same as another. Listeners notice.  And they’re being driven away.Once a bastion of creativity, radio is now a vast world of sameness.  Yet, not one of the radio CEO’s or programming directors interviewed identifies the lack of quality programming and  content as one of the industry problems that is causal in the downturn.  Good content takes talent and money to produce, but it seems that radio is willing to invest in neither.It is in the next generation of radio– in the form of online radio and branded entertainment that we will see a return to quality content.  Then, the people will come back and the revenue will follow. 

Internet Broadcast Group’s Mark Lassoff has been invited to speak about streaming media at PodcampAZ Streaming Media Unconference.Mark’s session will be titled Streaming Ourselves to Death:  Online Radio.  Mark will discuss where online radio — a streaming technology– fits in to the larger social mediasphere.The conference will take place at the University of Advancing Technology on November 1st and 2nd. Visit PodcampAZ for more information. 

If you click the get and share option on the AffordableSound.FM widget above, you will see option to obtain code to place the widget in a number of different places online.  It’s one of the ways Internet Broadcasting Group makes radio stations spread virally through the web.Widget players are critical for strong marketing of internet radio stations.  IBG can help your station become ubiquitous on the web with the use of widgets. 

Pandora seems to be indicating if the end comes, it will be because of high music licensing costs- a common refrain among internet broadcasters.  While this is unfortunate, I’m not totally sure that music licensing is the only reason Pandora may go under.  It seems as though Pandora and other related sites were never built with a serious revenue or profit model in mind.  Sure, playing music people like is a great service, but without a related profit model, how is one to survive doing it? 

Some bloggers have tried to determine what Pandora’s possible demise means for internet radio… I would say the greater meaning is not as ominous as some would  like to believe.  Pandora had a bad business model– known expenses without known revenue streams.  What the demise of Pandora does tell online radio producers is that unlike Pandora, you need to have a plan to cover your expenses and hopefully profit from your online radio enterprise.