Melbourne company tunes into global dashboards

A MELBOURNE company has secured a place on the front row of the grid in the race to bring internet radio to the dashboards of new cars around the world.

From 2014 it will be mandatory for European cars to be able to send an SOS signal and summon emergency services, and that will require a built-in SIM card to provide a link to mobile telephone networks.

Camberwell-based Mi Media Holdings has spent the last five years developing its miRoamer system that uses the built-in data link to enable drivers to listen to any of the 35,000 radio stations around the world via the internet.

Mi Media has already signed a contract with Audi and is currently negotiating with a US car-maker.

The company has also completed prototype systems for several other car-makers and is aiming to secure a 20 per cent share among web-enabled vehicles.

Mi Media chief executive George Parthimos is about to travel to Detroit with the Team Australia Automotive trade mission to promote the company’s miRoamer system to carmakers and Tier One suppliers.

“What’s happening in the automotive space now is a quantum shift in terms of the infotainment and telematics systems that will be built into cars,” he said.

“And it was, of course, inevitable that vehicles connected to the internet would (then) be web-enabled.”

From top: Mi Media chief executive George Parthimos miRoamer screen page.

Mr Parthimos said miRoamer will give drivers access to virtually every AM and FM radio station around the world, wherever they are driving.

While the internet would make available a huge number of functions and options, Mi Media chose to focus on radio services because it has a very low level of driver distraction associated with it.

He said MiRoamer has been positioned to provide digital media content in the car.

“Radio has been in vehicles for 70 or 80 years and there is a big push to have radio as one of the key services bundled into these new web-connected vehicles,” said Mr Parthimos.

“We specialise in the radio market, the music services market, whether it be on-demand music services or global AM/FM radio stations, and eventually we see ourselves providing video in the back seat for kids.”

Mr Parthimos believes that, within five years, there will be vehicles that will provide complete infotainment solutions for the driver and passengers.

There are two aspects, and two revenue streams, in the miRoamer business model.

The first is from the car-makers, who will be able to pre-set radio stations for the country, or the state in a country, where the vehicle is sold.

For instance, when an Audi A3 lands in California, it sends a pulse back to base defining which country, or which state, the car is in. A signal is then sent back selecting the appropriate factory-compiled directory of radio stations suitable for that region.

Drivers do not have to pre-set any stations, although they can if they want to by customising the directory.

This allows the car-maker to tailor each radio directory to each model, so American cars receive American radio stations, Indian cars Indian music and so on.

“The miRoamer platform has been designed from the ground up to do this,” said Mr Parthimos. “It will ensure that only the right content will get delivered to the right vehicles in the right territories.”

The flexibility will allow the car-makers to not only differentiate their cars from those of other makers, but also between their own models.

“A base model, say a Mini Cooper, could have a different genre than a BMW 7 Series,” he said. “Typically, a Mini Cooper is bought by 20-somethings whereas a 7 series is bought by older people.”

The second leg of the business model is a music services offer that drivers can subscribe to on a monthly basis. Called Platinum, drivers can choose a version with no advertisements, or a version with advertisements for a lower cost.

Mr Parthimos said the Platinum service provides music on demand covering categories such as jazz, rock, pop, ’80s, ’90s, news, sport and comedy.

The music channels are all professionally mastered with disc jockeys and are carefully aligned for various markets.

“The Platinum service is customised to every territory (so) western music in India is different to western music in the US.”

Mi Media has already made some inroads in areas other than automotive, with two mobile phone companies in India offering miRoamer to users on all four phone platforms – iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7.

The company is already achieving more than two million listening sessions a month via the mobile phone platforms.

A Singapore telecommunications company also offers miRoamer to home users through its TV set-top boxes.

However, while Mi Media has had some success in India and Singapore in non-automotive areas, getting into the dashboards of new cars is the company’s priority.

“We have a few more contracts to sign with carriers (telecommunications companies) and handset vendors, but our main focus is automotive. That’s the space we want to win.

“If you consider the lifespan of an average consumer electronics product, cars are longer-lived. A mobile phone lasts two to three years, a home stereo probably three to five years, but the average lifespan of the radio in your car is probably seven to 10 years.

“It has one of the longest lifespans of any consumer electronics product, which means that, once you are in the vehicle, you basically become the incumbent in the vehicle. That’s the attraction.”

Mi Media is also addressing the radio aftermarket, seeking access to the units made by well-known brands such as Alpine and Bose.