It is true that Radio risk disappearing from cars? Yes, the risk exists, and it is more concrete than it seems. THE’AGCOM (Authority for guarantees in communications) has already launched an alarm signal, underlining the urgency to preserve this tool which, in addition to entertaining, plays a fundamental role for pluralism and public safety. In fact, some car manufacturers are already producing cars models without of the classic radio tunerboth in FM (frequency modulation) that in DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting), or the digital radio transmission.
In their place they are found simple USB ports and multifunction screensdesigned to connect external devices or use digital platforms. This change of course could have profound consequences that could lead to a cultural and democratic transformation. The radio is still one of the main ones today sources of free information, accessible even without internet connection and capable of reaching remote territories. Its elimination from cars therefore risks excluding millions of people fromimmediate access to news, emergencies and independent voices. On this issue it intervened in particular Massimiliano Capitaniocommissioner of the Guarantor Authority, who lit the spotlight on the matter. To the broadcaster’s microphones RTL 102.5 He said:
There are about 26 million Italians who listen to the radio daily. A tool of information, democracy and pluralism that seriously risks disappearing. Some car manufacturers are, in fact, already producing models of cars without the classic car radio and equipped only with a USB interface to convey, evidently, digital platforms.
23.7 million Italians listen to the radio by car
In the 2022well 23.7 million Italians They listened to the radio mainly through the car radio. It is an eloquent data, which tells us how central tool is still in everyday life. Yet, just as it happened with the CD readers, also gradually disappeared from the cars, the car radio also risk becoming a memory. The reason? A pushed towards extreme digitization Which, while offering comfort and variety, risks throwing the means of communications in oblivion that has linked entire generations so far. The new cars, especially the most compact and accessible electric ones, are increasingly produced without radio tunerreplaced by screens compatible with musical apps or mobile operating systems.
Second Massimiliano CapitanioCommissioner of AGCOM, the disappearance of the radio from cars is a dangerously underestimated danger. Capitanio, in fact, explained:
The risk we are going to meet is a risk at the moment underestimated. There are important car manufacturers, but also producers of small electric cars widely used by young people, who have eliminated car radio. (…) From our point of view, as a control and guarantee authority on communications, this is an alarm that we have reported with an official note also to the government.
Eliminating the radio does not only mean removing a listening option: it means to exclude an essential information channel, completely free from algorithms and commercial prophylations. In fact, the radio transmits editorial content chosen by editorial offices, not by advertising logic. In a world increasingly filtered by digital platforms, where what we listen and read is often determined by our previous behaviors, the radio represents a virtuous exception: a means capable of offering news, debates and plural voices without intermediation by the tech giants.
Not to mention, then, of the fact that radio is one of the few information tools capable of work also in the absence of internet connection or during electric blackout. In emergency situations FM transmissions can become the only channel still active to communicate with the population. For this reason, Capitanio defined radio networks a “garrison of certainty, as an infrastructure backup necessary for our democracies».
The possible legislative interventions called to save the radio
The debate has already arrived in Parliament, where he is discussing himself to possible legislative interventions To ensure the compulsory presence at least of FM or DAB technology in the new cars sold in Italy. AGCOM, for its part, has already sent one formal reporting to the government to solicit an urgent evaluation.
In particular, Agcom highlighted the results of the investigation carried out by GFK Italia, according to which in 2024 they were in use beyond 14 million DAB+ receiversmainly installed on cars and commercial vehicles that represent about 35% of the car park Private Italian, which has about 40 million vehicles. In Italian homeson the other hand, the penetration of the radio was found less than 15%.
