ARE WE READY FOR VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT IN THE CAR? By Robert Guest, VP Product Management at ACCESS Europe
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ur appetite for media and entertainment has continued to grow over the last 50 years. The TV set has become the centre point of most living rooms with additional sets through the house. Video on demand (VoD), which started on tablets and PCs and then to smart TVs has now spread to the mobile world and media consumption habits continue to evolve. Today’s millennial audiences are watching more content on smartphones on-the-move than on the big screen at home. Frequent flyers on long-haul now consider the in-seat screen - and personal entertainment - as a necessity rather than a luxury. In many ways, the last untapped sector in media and entertainment is automotive, but that is about to change. With improved mobile connection reliability, advances in In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) hardware platforms and support for Wi-Fi to enable BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) we are at the start of the in-car entertainment revolution. Although IVI is not a new concept, the stage is set for a massive market growth over the next decade. The catalyst is a confluence of technologies that are fundamentally changing the automotive transport industry with an even bigger shift when fully autonomous passenger vehicles hit our streets.
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MORE VIEWERS Improved connectivity and reliability, coupled with technologies such as adaptive bit-rate delivery of content mean that streaming audio and video services can be delivered to vehicles now. Deployment of in-car Wi-Fi hotspots will ease the ability of passengers to stream their favourite content to their personal devices, opening up entry level options for car manufacturers to still deliver digital services to their customers. Electric vehicles will also offer an opportunity for media consumption while charging, another opportunity for manufacturers to develop their digital brand and customer relationship. The availability of full autonomy will overcome the major limitation of IVI; a lack of viewers due to strict driver distraction regulations. According to the UK’s Department of Transport, in 2017, UK citizens travelled 808 billion km by car, van or taxi. That equates to tens of millions of hours on the roads, however currently 60 per cent of all journeys are made alone so video services are simply not possible. The number of journeys with more than two passengers only equates to 15 per cent of all trips. In a future world where the driver can relax, either when recharging or when the car is autonomous, in-car entertainment consumption is likely to soar. A modest estimate suggests that the global