'Last Everybody Is Apple,' Emmis CEO Says of Big NextRadio FM-Chip Holdout

That the NextRadio FM-listening smartphone app with activated FM-reception chips will soon be available on Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge is “a very big breakthrough” for the technology that Emmis Communications helped develop, said Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan on a Thursday earnings call. The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are “the top-selling phones in the world” and will soon have NextRadio available “across all wireless carriers" in the U.S., Smulyan said. It marks the first time that “major phones” with NextRadio “will be available on every carrier,” he said. NextRadio also signed on Home Depot as its first paying advertiser last quarter, and is working with “a number of other test advertisers,” he said. Landing additional NextRadio ad and carrier support “is the catalyst that we believe our industry desperately needs,” he said. “We think it is a game changer and we think it simplifies the pretty remarkable progress that we are making with NextRadio.” But Apple has been a longstanding NextRadio holdout (see 1504140047) and still refuses to activate the FM chips in its iPhones, Smulyan acknowledged in Q&A. “We still need Apple, and we like Apple.” That NextRadio will soon be available on all Android phones, “among all the carriers,” means the technology will have penetrated more than 175 million smartphones in the U.S., about 62 percent of all the U.S. phones available, he said. That’s an opportunity “to change the landscape of radio forever,” he said. “We have said we won't quit until we have everybody, and the last everybody is Apple.” Apple didn't comment Friday.