Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications announced in October a decision to “dramatically reduce” the operations of NextRadio and TagStation after tens of millions of dollars in losses.
Emmis Communications spent nearly a decade and tens of millions of dollars trying to put together an industry-wide effort to make cell phones act like smart portable radios. In the end, CEO Jeff Smulyan said he couldn’t continue to “fund R&D for the entire industry.”
The car dashboard, once the exclusive infotainment domain of traditional radio, is becoming a battleground where divergent companies fight for the attention of drivers and passengers.
The growth of pure-play streaming providers disrupts our business on a daily basis. This is the wrong time for broadcast radio to believe its position will go unchallenged.
Emmis Chairman Jeff Smulyan and his followers have further to travel to reach their goal of turning smartphones into the new-age transistor radio for the masses.
As a former radio personality (NPR and later WHAS-AM 840 in Louisville and other stations) and broadcast operations manager and intern supervisor at the University of Louisville), I continue to shake my head at Emmis and boss Jeff Smulyan’s total swivet with cell phone operators for refusing to put radio tuners on their phones or switch them on if they exist.
Paul Brenner, chief technology officer for Emmis Communications Corp., is largely credited with pioneering two recent technological breakthroughs that could pump badly needed revenue into the radio industry.
