Toyota says the new vehicle along with HD Radio Technology will make its debut at dealerships this fall. iBiquity President and CEO Robert Struble (pictured) says Toyota's announcement is very significant because, "It's one more very notable milestone in a long effort. There will be more to come." 19 automotive brands have announced that HD Radio Technology is or will be available as a factory installed feature including Audi, Bentley, BMW, Ford, Hyundai, Jaguar, Kia, Land Rover, Lexus, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, MINI USA, Rolls-Royce, Scion, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo. Camry has been the best selling vehicle in the US for several years now.
Struble says this success, and others with automakers, are multi-year efforts with a huge number of interactions, with folks inside and outside of iBiquity working with the automaker. "I and most other iBiquity execs have visited with Toyota multiple times over the years, in their facilities in Japan and here in the US. The primary customer responsibility falls on our Detroit-based OEM business development team, who did a great job here. Toyota was ultimately very impressed with the nationwide HD Radio station infrastructure the broadcast industry has built, with the rapid adoption by other automakers and with the value that HD Radio offered to their drivers, especially some of the new features like iTunes Tagging."
Earlier this year, Toyota announced the adoption of HD Radio Technology starting in 2011. Scion recently announced that they are making the technology a standard feature with their 2012 audio products. Struble says automakers are recognizing the huge value they have in that dashboard and HD Radio is certainly parto of what's being offered to the consumer. "The growth in factory installed HD Radio receivers in cars has been phenomenal. We will see another doubling of sales in 2011. This is critical to broadcasters because of the amount of listening that goes on in cars and the new competition radio is seeing in the digital dashboard. And we see that rapid growth continuing."
iTunes tagging is a safe way to save your favorite songs and when installed on an HD radio, as Struble points out, local stations get it on the action. "I like a song I am listening to on an HD Radio station. I press the radio touch screen where it says 'tag'. The info on that song is stored in the radio. If my iPod/iPhone is connected in the car, the tagged info is automatically transferred to that device, if not, it will be transferred the next time I connect it. And when I next sync that device on my computer to iTunes, I will find a folder in iTunes labeled 'tagged' that will have all the songs I tagged. I can preview and purchase them at that point. And if I do buy, the station that I was listening to when I tagged the song will get a finder's fee on the sale from Apple.
Pretty cool feature. Certainly better than fumbling for a pen and paper while driving if I want to remember a song."
Today, there are over 2,000 AM & FM stations broadcasting with HD Radio Technology with more than 1,300 additional digital only FM HD2/HD3/HD4 multicast channels sending new exciting programming.
To get in touch with Bob Struble go HERE
For more information on iBuiquity go HERE
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