By Matthew Phillips, Product Director – Broadcast & Maritime, CML Micro
Vice-Chair, DRM Consortium
Editor's note: In this guest article, Matthew Phillips explores how existing FM radio hardware in mobile phones could enable DRM digital radio reception through software-based solutions, creating a practical pathway for wider digital radio adoption in India.
Mobile Devices with over one billion mobile phones alone are a feature of Indian life. 76% of radio listeners in India leverage their mobile devices over standalone sets [TRAI / industry data]. At the same time, free-to-air broadcast radio remains a vital public infrastructure for news, entertainment, education, rural connectivity, and national emergency alerts. However, as private FM broadcasters expand into 234 new towns (FM Phase-III rollout), the physical hardware required to listen to these broadcasts is rapidly vanishing from citizens’ pockets, homes and in some cases even cars.
Delivering Mass-market DRM Adoption in All Frequency Bands (FM included) to Mobile Phones – A Game-Changing Solution
Bringing together the ease of mobile phone use and the content of free-to-air radio broadcasts offered by public, commercial and community stations has become an imperative. And it is no wonder that marrying the two and giving the millions of listeners from all walks of life and localities access to news and general information, entertainment, sport, Bollywood music, education, and emergency warnings is a brilliant, highly pragmatic, affordable, and viable solution and strategy.
“Why Not Just Stream?” – The Operators Pushback
But is digital terrestrial broadcasting the solution when IP streaming is so popular?
Currently, for every single listener who streams a radio service via an app over Internet, the broadcaster pays content delivery network (CDN) fees, and the consumer pays data package fees. With a station’s success, the distribution costs become unsustainably high. It is also known that the mobile phone/cellular networks often struggle to cope during disasters, large sports events, and crowded festivals – and in some cases may not reach more rural parts of India at all.
Despite all this, telecom carriers actively disincentivise broadcast radio reception integration from mobile phone devices. They prioritize 4G/5G data streaming to maximize Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) via IP streaming.
On the other hand, free-to-air broadcast distribution costs via DRM remain flat for the broadcaster even when serving millions of listeners simultaneously – the ‘one-to-many’ advantage. The DRM radio standard, as the digital successor of analogue AM/FM developed by and for the global radio industry, protects the national technology sovereignty. And it guarantees public accessibility to crucial information during cellular network blackouts or intentional switch-offs in times of crisis via a trusted and well-protected source of information.
In 2023, the Indian Government (MeitY) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued strict advisories and recommendations asking that smartphone manufacturers ensure FM radio is built-in, active, and never disabled. However, the response of the cell phone industry to this advisory has been limited. Therefore, a different solution is required for receiving free-to-air Digital FM services on every mobile phone in India, up until a government policy will mandate support for the DRM Emergency Warning Functionality (EWF) in every mobile phone sold in the country.
What Is the DRM for Mobile Phones Solution?
DRM Digital Radio services can be broadcasted in the FM-band (VHF Band II) for local services or in the MW and SW bands for large-area coverage from a single transmitter – in any case providing the full digital radio feature set for the listeners. This includes the state-of-the-art audio codec xHE-AAC for better-than-FM sound quality, Journaline interactive advanced text and graphics information, as well as Emergency Warning Functionality with automatic receiver wake-up/switch-over, audio announcement and multilingual text instructions.
Democratising Digital Radio - Embedded DRM Receivers in Wearables
The new approach to enable DRM broadcast reception in all types of mobile phones is through everyday accessories such as headphone cases containing the actual DRM receiver chip. The wireless neckband of such a headphone acts as the natural antenna.
The DRM1000 tuner chip captures and processes the DRM broadcast signals natively and makes it available via wireless Bluetooth to the DRM companion app running on the mobile phone. The same concept applies to the popular earbuds. The charging cases of the earbuds contain the DRM chip which acts as the DRM receiver.
This innovative approach does not require any internal mobile phone hardware additions or design modifications, works with a wide range of mobile phones supporting Bluetooth connectivity, and gives access to all DRM services not only in the FM-band but also in the MW and even SW bands.
The Breakthrough Strategy: The OEM Bypass
The lightweight DRM companion application on the mobile phone is available as a free download for installation. It is responsible for service selection (i.e. controlling the tuner) and displays Journaline interactive text with graphics, emergency warnings, and programme guides without using a single kilobyte of cellular data. The audio content can be accessed via the phone’s built-in speaker or connected earphones through Bluetooth or wireless connection.
This new approach allows consumers immediate access to DRM digital radio services without the need to replace or upgrade their mobile phone model of choice, merely by means of an everyday and highly affordable small phone accessory.
The Innovative DRM Ecosystem Is Here Now
In short, the radio reception of the on-air signal is moved from the physical mobile phone to a wearable device (headphones, earbuds, and later other similar products). From a technical standpoint the digital radio baseband is moved out of the smartphone and embedded directly into a wireless audio accessory. This ground-breaking solution ensures that the phone incurs zero hardware burden. The Android or iOS companion app connects via Bluetooth to control tuning and service selection, SlideShows, interactive Journaline text with graphics, and optionally outputs the audio content via the phone’s connected speaker options.
The appetite for such a solution is there, as India has the world’s fastest-growing wireless earbud, neckband and speaker accessory market led by brands such as, BoAt, Noise, and GoBoult.
Enabling this revolutionary approach is a high-technology but small-sized and ultra-low-power DRM chipset such as the DRM1000 by DRM Consortium member CML. It can be integrated into Bluetooth neckband control pods, wireless earbud charging cases, headphones or portable speakers. The complex digital demodulation is done by the chipset outside the phone, thus sparing the smartphone’s battery. Newly implemented Bluetooth Low Energy DRM radio control protocols seamlessly interface with standard smartphone operating systems. For the full-featured DRM companion app, CML is partnering with another DRM Consortium member Fraunhofer IIS and its well-proven MultimediaPlayer Radio App in a version automatically branded to the hardware partner’s UI and branding. It will be available as a free download for installation on the mobile phone and automatically detect the DRM-enabled accessory via Bluetooth.
A Game-Changing Solution Enabled by the DRM1000 Module Receiver
The Universally Available DRM Digital Radio App
The Strengths: Why this Innovative DRM to Mobile Phones Solution Works
A. DRM is the only open digital broadcast standard that can use the existing FM tuner hardware in mobile phones to deliver native DRM reception in the FM band on mobile phones.
But until a government mandate will require the phone industry to support DRM Emergency Warning Functionality as a native feature on mobile phones sold in the country, the industry is not likely to adopt this feature – following the path of past mobile phone innovations such as support for GNSS/GPS and cell broadcasting that were only widely introduced after clear regulation and today are considered a native functionality of every phone.
B. The cost of DRM Enabled Ear-Bud
The beauty of old-school analogue FM reception on mobile phones was that it felt “free.” Users bought a mobile phone, it came with cheap plastic earbuds in the box, and they could listen to the radio forever without spending another rupee.
However, consumers have accepted that besides the phone they need to invest into de-bundled ear- or headphones. Often with convenient Bluetooth connectivity instead of physical wires. To access the free-to-air DRM broadcast services, the consumer must simply buy a DRM-enabled Bluetooth accessory. DRM-enabled phone accessories will be available for a small add-on cost compared to the respective non-DRM version, with the mobile phone companion app available as a free download as part of the purchased DRM-enabled accessory.
A DRM-enabled Bluetooth neckband (a massive market in India via brands like BoAt or Noise) could be marketed as a premium, value-added feature.
C. Enabling New Revenue Opportunities for Broadcasters
In addition, broadcasters can consider creating their own branded mobile phone accessories along with their individually branded companion phone app. They then may choose to use these as a promotional tool at a very low user price.
This fits the new revenue opportunities enabled via DRM for broadcasters, such as sending occasional messages for advertising or programme notifications to the millions of Smartphone users using those devices and their custom app via the DRM feature Journaline: Targeting those messages to defined sub-groups of listeners and enriching the textual/graphical ads or sponsored information with direct interactivity options (such as taking part in polls or purchasing items via web-link or phone number), leading to instant audience-engagement measurements for the broadcaster.
Only digital radio based on the open DRM standard can offer this innovative business transformation option.
D. The DRM in Wearables – Is it Just about Chips?
Though the solution is to use a specially designed chip for wearables and use the companion smartphone app as your control panel, this is not about selling chips but about introducing a viable, instant and elegant compromise: Enabling DRM radio reception in the hands and ears of millions of listeners without waiting for governmental mandates to possibly include DRM EWF as a native feature in mobile phones in future. This solution respects the physical layout of modern phones, taps into India’s massive love for wireless audio gear, and gets DRM into citizens’ hands immediately.
By shifting the DRM receiver into a Bluetooth accessory controlled by an Android/iOS-based companion radio app, the smartphone’s biggest asset – its screen, processor and versatile audio connectivity – is turned into the radio’s interface, without touching its heavily guarded internal hardware.
Digitisation can become reality for hundreds of millions of listeners. The Indian consumer gets a modern, premium app-driven interface on their preferred phone model they already own – complete with convenient service selection, DRM Journaline interactive text and images, and EWF Emergency Warning Functionality, bringing radio consumption to the convenience and accessibility levels of any major IP music streaming app, but its content fully in the hands of and controlled by the radio broadcaster.
By embedding the CML DRM1000 Wireless Solution including its DRM companion app into the booming local wireless accessory market – the very neckbands and earbud cases that millions of Indians are already buying – the smartphone OEM bottleneck and hurdles are by-passed entirely, making DRM services immediately accessible to virtually all existing smartphones without requiring modifications to the actual phones.
E. Why Upgrading to DRM Digital FM Broadcasting Future-Proofs Indian Broadcasting and Manufacturing
The new DRM in wearables solution can deliver digitisation in India on a scale it has not achieved yet in both AM and VHF bands. Apart from ease in ingenuity this solution has clear benefits:
- For the Ministry: Complete national digital radio penetration across both Android and iOS users, achieved with zero friction from global smartphone manufacturers. Ensuring free-to-air access to trusted broadcast information and national instructions in times of disaster via DRM EWF.
- For the Consumer: Free, high-fidelity audio, instant access to text-based news, lifestyle updates and educational content, and lifesaving emergency alerts delivered directly to their favourite wireless accessories with zero mobile data charges. Making radio as media-rich and convenient to access as any IP streaming app.
- For the Broadcasters: Transforming the radio business with new revenue opportunities beyond the classic radio ads: By making use of Journaline for listener targeting, listener interactivity and instant audience engagement measurements.
- For the Indian Economy: A massive technological boost to domestic hardware and audio accessory manufacturers under the ‘Make in India’ initiative.
The One Thing Required Now
This solution, an “Indian practical solution”, can be introduced in the country straight away, as it perfectly aligns with India’s ‘Make in India’ audio manufacturing sector, allowing local brands to add a premium, highly marketable “Free Digital Radio” feature to their wireless product lines.
The game-changing solution to achieving millions of receivers is here, but one thing is required now:
Formally adopt DRM also for digitizing the local FM band services, as the unified, all bands digital broadcast standard in India for mobile-peripheral integration, providing immediate broadcast services and market certainty to local accessory manufacturers.
