The Digital Dash In 2025: Now You See It

The state of in-dash automotive technology has been all over the road since Ford unveiled its SYNC platform way back in 2007.  Since that innovation, we’ve talked about other in-car advances – dashboard shopping, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, metadata, apps, and of course, AI – and how each may or may not impact radio listening.

One thing that hasn’t changed – the lion’s share of radio listening, especially among younger drivers and passengers, is when they’re in a vehicle.  So, the listening experience in cars and trucks offered up by radio broadcasters becomes a true linchpin variable in the determination of audio options.  Is radio keeping up with the times and technology in the car?  Is it meeting the consumer wherever they’re driving to, and is it delivering in-car audio on the devices and platforms that matters?

You’ve no doubt heard me use the phrase, “Choice kills” either when you’ve seen me at conferences or you’ve read my missives here in the blog.  It’s a favorite saying of Emmis legend Rick Cummings when describing a crowded listening environment.  And the car fits R.C.’s definition to a T.

When I programmed radio decades ago, the dashboard standard was two knobs and six presets.  Yes, there was another slot for an audio cassette or later a CD player.  But for all intents and purposes, radio was king of the car – hands down.

Those were the days.  Today, anything on your phone can now be heard over your vehicle’s system:  podcasts, streams, satellite radio, on-demand programming, talking books, and of course, the phone itself.  Yes, radio is in the mix, but it is now one of many options for drivers and passengers to choose from.   And we know from our CES sojourns, video is rapidly becoming a dashboard option as well.

And the one irrefutable trend in the in-car entertainment sector is “screenification”  – a term you heard here first.  It describes the expanding number of screens in newer vehicles and the sheer size of these screens themselves.  Pillar-to-pillar screens that appear across the width of the entire dash itself are becoming more and more ubiquitous each year we attend CES.

Just like the size of the TVs we install in our homes and workplaces. bigger just seems to always be better when it comes to dashboard displays.

You can see that pictured in the photo above this post.  Yes, that’s me mesmerized by the massive dashboard in the new concept-but-soon-to-become-a-reality Afeela, a fascinating mashup collab between Honda and Sony.

This beautiful and intriguing car features the superpowers of both companies to produce a stellar driving and entertainment experience.  This new mashup goes on sale later this year, and it perfectly illustrates the innovative confluence of both brands’ best qualities.

So, how can radio even hope to compete within these increasingly crowded dashboard ecosystems?  It’s funny – although not really – when you pose this question to automotive experts.  Invariably, they’ll tell you radio’s best shot is to leverage its unique core strengths – its local presence and proprietary personalities.  Ironically, many radio companies have gravitated away from these inherent strengths, ultimately to their detriment as vehicles have become even more sophisticated.  If there’s nothing especially unique about your radio station, you’re going to be hard pressed to be a major option in people’s cars.

As radio listening in the home and in the workplace has eroded as cars have become more connected, every broadcast radio company serious about still being in business by 2030 is going to need to devise a cogent and effective in-car strategy.  This likely involves app presence in Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, for example.  And chances are, some of the strategic calculus will revolve around display on dashboard screens.

By definition, radio has never been conceived of or positioned as a visual medium.  This partially explains why the industry has been reluctant and slow to integrate video into its content array.  Whether it’s on social media, YouTube, Twitch, or on websites, radio broadcasters have generally struggled with its visual presentation.  As stations and their companies have learned, staffers with strong video editing or graphic arts skills are of immense value to programming, sales, and the digital department.

Yet, audio remains radio’s top delivery platform and priority.  It also explains why too many morning and talk hosts fail to support their on-air content with accompanying video or even pictures that listeners can see in order to better enjoy the content.  Thinking visual is something most broadcasters struggle with, and that’s why an upcoming webinar is of great importance to your brand and/or your company.

Quu is the entity behind this event, scheduled for early April.  You’ll read about it over the coming weeks.  Panelists include Paul and me, Mike McVay, and Joe D’Angelo, all discussing the value of display from our own unique perspectives.  Moderated by Steve Newberry, the session will break down Quu’s second annual “In-Car Vehicle Study,” a roster of how the 100 most popular vehicles are equipped.

From AM to FM, CarPlay to Android Auto,  HD Radio and SiriusXM, the report is required reading for broadcasters.  After all, you can create an in-car content strategy if you don’t know how most car and truck dashboards are configured.

For all the above reasons, it has become essential for radio companies not to just add metadata messaging technology, but to actively program it.  And here’s even more fodder to start proactively approaching in-car display.

Over the past several years, we’ve asked about in-car messaging in our Techsurveys. (Full disclosure: we’ve also conducted proprietary research for Quu, focusing how drivers react to the content broadcasters post.)

And this year, we went one step further, and the results are exciting.  We first determined that eight in ten core radio listeners have vehicles capable of showing artist/title of songs they play.

As we’ve done in previous Techsurvey studies, here’s the hierarchy of in-car display content respondents care are most interested in:

Beyond artist/title info, displayed local service element alerts – weather, traffic, news – is especially important to large segments of drivers.  Of course, this is information they cannot easily access while behind the wheel.

The remainder of important elements provides insights as to what drivers and passengers value in real-time dashboard display.  Interestingly, we continue to see the value to displaying the song that’s coming up next.

The added element in TS 2025 now transcends what they prioritize on the screen. For the first time this year, we asked those who spend any time in cars about how much attention they pay to dashboard display.  The results are revealing:

It’s impressive how nearly half say they pay close or above average attention to the messaging displayed on their dashboards.  And note how women and progressively younger drivers are more apt to take note of what they seeing on these screens.

While we don’t ask it, imagine if we utilized the same question for radio commercials that have become a bigger irritant over the years.  We know the answer.

But dashboard metadata captures the interest and attention of significant amounts of drivers and passengers.  Now imagine if most radio stations actively programmed it to be helpful, informative, and even interesting.

This data suggests these in-car messages are analogous to push notifications, except they’re displayed on the dash – not on mobile phones.  But the difference is that metadata in the car that matches up to programming content is integrated in a streamlined format, whereas “push,” by definition, is interruptive.

This is why marketers need to be vigilant about how many mobile phone push notifications they send out.  While each consumer has their own personal limit on the quantity of these messages end up crossing the line and becoming annoying, messaging on car dashboard screens is shorter and usually integrated, for the most part, with what’s on the air.

Our Techsurvey data can help broadcasters map out in-dash messaging priorities, whether a music or a spoken word outlet, or providing info for commercial, public, and Christian music stations.  These messages help radio be more reflective of what’s happening locally and in the moment.

And because their capabilities have only been fully available to programmers and marketers for a relatively short period of time, we haven’t yet seen all the creative and connective ways they can be used.  Whether to inform the audience about the sudden passing of a format core artist, let them know about an incoming weather emergency, or to loop them into a station event happening soon/now, dashboard metadata can easily do much of the heavy lifting.  And now we know they’re going to be noticed.

This sense of immediacy is what will keep drivers and passenger tuned in and expecting this content from one of their go-to stations when they get behind the wheel.   And as we’ll explain in the webinar, the station/platform they end their driving experience will likely be the one that’s “on” the next time they start their vehicle.  I don’t have to tell you just how important that is, especially in well-equipped cars and trucks.

It starts with being proactive and giving consideration to how dashboard metadata can enhance an automotive event – whether it’s a commute, an errand, a leisure moment, or just a drive.  We can look at this adjunct piece of content creation as a burdensome duty or as an opportunity to connect with a consumers in real-time in radio’s #1 listening location.  And that’s something Spotify, Joe Rogan, “Classic Vinyl,” or any of Apple’s music channels.

And here’s one more piece of the future – heads-up displays.  This is where the windshield – all of some of it – become a messaging board the driver sees transparently as they look down the road.  BMW advanced this technology at CES 2025 in January with their iDrive X/Panoramic Vision platform.  While HUD display has been an available feature since 2003, this new technology uses the entire windshield as its entire message palate.  Here’s a short promotional video from BMW:

Both the driver and passengers can see the display, so unlike earlier iterations of this visual technology, you don’t have to seated in a specific position for viewing.  And various features in BMW’s infotainment offerings can become part of the visuals.  So, is this the next innovation chapter for the wizard engineers at Quu – working out how metadata will be visualized on HUD platforms?

Here’s a screengrab from Mike’s Car Info on YouTube that provides a helpful video that shows how the navigation system comes alive on BMW’s platform.  But late in the video, he reminds us the display is hi-res, and has capabilities of showing pretty much anything, including the selection of music options:

Look for information about the Quu webinar which will provide insights about the in-car media environment you’ll need to know in order to navigate your brand’s future.