Executive Summary

Many listeners — commuters, households with smart speakers, and drivers who use phones for in-car audio — are frustrated that FM radio is fragmented across station apps and still dominated by ad-supported streams that interrupt music and talk. There is no widely adopted, mobile-first product that lets users pay a small annual fee for an ad-free, castable experience that works seamlessly from phone to speaker, TV and car. The product would be a mobile-first aggregator that negotiates station carriage and rights to offer ad-free FM streams for a subscription (~$24/year per user), with first-class casting (Chromecast, AirPlay, smart-speaker APIs), CarPlay/Android Auto support, low-latency streaming and offline caching where licensing allows, plus rich metadata and personalized presets. This is an attractive moment: addressable market estimated at $4.8B (200M potential paying listeners × $24 average annual subscription), smart-speaker and casting adoption has accelerated, and consumers are increasingly willing to pay small fees for ad-free, privacy-focused experiences while cord-cutting drives mobile-first listening in cars. To stand out you must combine two hard things well: negotiated broadcaster partnerships that offer a fair revenue share and a best-in-class technical stack delivering sub-second playback handoffs and multi-protocol casting, with a privacy-forward billing model and local curation to retain subscribers. Real challenges include licensing complexity, convincing legacy broadcasters to forgo ad revenue or participate in revenue-share models, and competition from existing aggregator apps and big streaming players; a pragmatic go-to-market is to focus on top-50 markets and flagship station deals to prove unit economics before national scale.

Market Opportunity

Make FM radio listening ad-free and castable with a modern mobile-first app targets a $4.8B = 200M potential paying listeners × $24 average annual subscription total addressable market with medium saturation and a year-over-year growth rate of 8-12% annual growth for digital audio and streaming audiences (source: Statista/Deloitte industry reports 2023-2024).

Key trends driving demand: Trend — smart-speaker and casting adoption has accelerated, creating demand for apps that work seamlessly across phone, speaker and TV.; Trend — growing consumer willingness to pay small subscriptions for ad-free and privacy-focused experiences creates monetization opportunities outside ad revenue.; Trend — cord-cutting and in-car connectivity mean more listeners rely on mobile apps for live radio, increasing the importance of low-latency streaming and offline features..

Key competitors include TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Radio.garden / Simple Radio (Streema).

Sign in to access

Make FM radio listening ad-free and castable with a modern mobile-first app

Executive Summary

Market Validation

Market Opportunity

More in Content & Media

Slow process documentation -> instant AI-generated training & compliance videos

Automate YouTube content workflows using n8n-powered pipelines

Automate short-form video creation for creators and SMBs (AI-driven)

Prevent rogue AI posts with a real-time content firewall

Quickly create printable comic-page layouts in-browser without installs

Solve poor prompts with a guided AI director workflow (brand-coherent videos)