Emmis ‘Won’t Rest’ Until NextRadio App Is Adopted on Every Phone, Says CEO

Q3 was a “landmark quarter” for the NextRadio FM-reception smartphone app, Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan said on a Thursday earnings call. NextRadio developer Emmis landed adoption of the app on the Samsung Galaxy S7, the top-selling smartphone in the world and one that’s sold by all major U.S. carriers, Smulyan said. “Stay tuned for announcements about NextRadio being adopted by other manufacturers.” Emmis also just reached a renewal agreement with Sprint that keeps NextRadio pre-loaded on the carrier’s Android devices, he said. “That’s our first renewal and Sprint was our first partner, and we’re happy about that.” NextRadio has surpassed 25 million listening hours, but “the reality is this is still the early stages,” he said. “We have come an awfully long way since this project started.” Emmis thinks NextRadio “is the catalyst that our industry needs,” he said. But landing NextRadio on the iPhone remains the toughest nut to crack, Smulyan said. “We have a whole game plan” for winning Apple’s support, but nothing “definitive,” he said in Q&A. Emmis defied the “skeptics” when it won NextRadio adoption among all the major U.S. carriers after Sprint, he said. “We won’t rest until we are in every smartphone, and we’ve got to get Apple.”