NPR Talks FM Chips And Why You Can't Use Them

Jeff Smulyan

NPR's All-Tech Considered this week aired an interview about FM chips in smartphones with Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan.

The NPR story notes most of today's smartphones have FM radios inside of them. But the FM chip is not activated on two-thirds of devices. That's because mobile makers have the FM capability switched off.  The National Association of Broadcasters has been asking mobile makers to change this. But the mobile industry, which profits from selling data to smartphone users, says that with the consumer's move toward mobile streaming apps, the demand for radio simply isn't there.

NPR, along with the NAB, has been part of a lobbying effort to require this free radio feature to be enabled. In 2013 they teamed up to create a free app that allows for free FM listening on smartphones.