Do you use the radio in you car? I do.

Internet - 4G - Spotify App on Phone - Bluetooth - FM transmitter - FM Radio - Speakers

I use all the networks to get Spotify to my car speakers 😁

Thing about FM/AM/Radio though is that it's "free", can broadcast 1 way to everybody in the country and uses very little power. The amount of power and bandwidth required to deliver the broadcast is the same for 1 user or a million users. Also the receivers require very little power.

I would imagine some form of communication like this would always be necessary, especially in disaster situations.

4/5G has black spots, uses a lot more power and bandwidth, and this goes up as the number of users go up.

Yeah I do that cause we've 1 account we share here and I have download rights 😁

But, I guess my point was, that won't work for live digital radio over 4/5G for example.

Definitely think a FM/am radio is always useful to have. Maybe it'll go this way. People will have to buy cheap FM/am radios that Bluetooth to the car audio system if they want radio broadcasts.

The only time I listen to the radio is in the car, Pat Kenny in the morning, or Sean Moncrieff in the afternoon. Unfortunately I rarely get to hear the whole programme but if there is something I want to share with those at home I'll probably pull it up online for them as well. If they get rid of radios in cars I'm bringing me tranny!!! (showing my age there!)

That's very modern but I don't think you are allowed to call them that now. They can have all different genders and you should treat them with respect.

But back on topic. If they do away with radio, the first thing I'll do is ring Joe Duffy to complain.

The RSA doesn't do **** about how cars are built

Also learners don't use the radio or satnav, they're supposed to be listening to the instructor 😉

An alternative to disabling the speed and lane warnings is to drive below the speed limit and not change lanes without indicating 😜

FWIW, I do miss some physical buttons in my car, temperature, volume and next song would be enough IMO

Apparently the next set of European NCAP standards will push back on having too many functions controlled via the touchscreen

The issue is the functions that are done via the touchscreen aren't considered essential, you shouldn't mess around with the radio/AC/satnav unless it's safe to do so, regardless of whether they've buttons or not

VW is the same, but those wouldn't be considered essential functions when driving. Things like wipers and indicators are and that seems to be what NCAP are after

I assume this is on the back of Tesla moving functions like wipers to the touchscreen

Yeah this seems like a key fork in the argument

There's a decent case to be made that analog radios should be in cars for emergency broadcasting

However you could just as easily argue that putting them in phones would be more effective for reaching people (also, welcome back headphone jacks 😂)

The other fork to the argument is whether broadcast radio for entertainment has a future. This is a lot more dubious IMO with more creators moving to different methods of reaching their audience there just doesn't seem space for radio

Maybe it'll end up that there'll be a radio network maintained by RTE at taxpayer expense for essential broadcasting and the rest of the stations will die off

Alternatively, maybe ComReg will loosen up licensing and we'll get a bunch of semi pirate stations cropping up, which could be a bit of fun to see