On the final day of Advertising Week, David Pogue of The New
York Times moderated a talk on the collaboration between the radio industry,
Sprint and record labels on NextRadio, an innovative new system with benefits for
business and consumer alike, according to allvoices.com.
This NextRadio system is the first of its kind to offer
every local FM station to smartphone users for free – without streaming music
and without consuming data. As a result, every partner in the venture is happy,
as are Sprint customers who can offer feedback in real time to radio stations
and buy songs with a single click.
The technology for NextRadio is embedded in every new Sprint
smartphone running on Android or Windows OS and launched officially in August.
At Times Center Hall Thursday evening, Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan and David Owens
of Sprint joined Pogue and record label figures to explore the phenomenon.
The multi-talented Pogue, who writes tech columns for the
Times as well as appearing on TV and radio, opened the discussion with a
question on the minds of many.
"As soon as I heard about this, I thought, 'Wow, that's
the dumbest idea ever!'" he said. "I've got Pandora, I've got iTunes,
I've got a thousand Internet radio stations that I can play already on my
phone."
This opener led the industry leaders to guide the audience
through key differences between NextRadio and other services on the market. The
biggest difference is in the fact that there is an antenna receiving the FM
signal directly. This solution eliminates the need to stream music, utilizing
about one-third of the battery life as Pandora or other services.
The key difference between NextRadio and the FM in a car is
the opportunity to give feedback to radio stations, in effect opening up a
two-way radio. Finally, the presence of Sprint means customers can buy songs
with a single click and have them appear on their phone bills as if they were
premium calls.
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