{"id":110015,"date":"2026-01-11T09:34:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/01\/11\/audio-grew-up-quietly-ces-just-made-that-impossible-to-ignore\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T09:35:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:35:35","slug":"audio-grew-up-quietly-ces-just-made-that-impossible-to-ignore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/01\/11\/audio-grew-up-quietly-ces-just-made-that-impossible-to-ignore\/","title":{"rendered":"Audio grew up quietly. CES just made that impossible to ignore"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\n
<\/p>\n

SiriusXM\u2019s Lizzie Collins reveals how \u201csecret\u201d auto demos at CES 2026 level to a brand new period for in-car sound \u2013 interactive, data-rich and participatory. However for manufacturers to catch up, audio measurement should lastly evolve.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When folks discuss CES, they often discuss screens. Larger ones. Foldable ones. Ones that roll up, roll down or in some way disappear into the wall. Audio hardly ever will get high billing.<\/p>\n

And but, once we caught up with Lizzie Collins at CES this 12 months, it grew to become clear that among the most consequential experimentation on the present wasn\u2019t visible in any respect. It was taking place by way of sound \u2013 and infrequently behind closed doorways.<\/p>\n

\n

Collins, a senior chief at SiriusXM, was in Las Vegas for conferences with companions, advertisers and automobile producers, together with a sequence of what she overtly describes as \u201csecret\u201d automotive demonstrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re completely secret,\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cEvery automobile producer has its personal proprietary roadmap. So what we\u2019re actually doing is giving them a way of what audio could possibly be as a part of the in-car expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n

That distinction issues. We didn\u2019t see the demos, and she will\u2019t discuss specifics, however the route of journey is obvious: audio is not one thing that merely fills the automobile. It\u2019s changing into one thing you work together with. And that\u2019s an enormous shift for a medium that, till comparatively just lately, lived inside a quite simple field.<\/p>\n

From beer corrals to robots<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Collins has seen CES change greater than most. This was her sixteenth 12 months on the present (14 of them uninterrupted) and her first go to, again in 2006, appeared nothing like at present.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy very first CES was when it was actually only a commerce present,\u201d she says. \u201cWe put a trailer in a beer corral with little iPads that had Pandora on them \u2013 it was the very first time folks might request a tune and see how customized music labored.\u201d<\/p>\n

The activation was carried out in partnership with the John Lennon Songwriters Basis. Will.i.am was there. Yoko Ono, too. Folks might come into the bus and make music.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the time, it felt experiential,\u201d she says. \u201cHowever CES was actually about what you have been going to purchase. Huge TVs. Huge gadgets. Content material was an afterthought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, she argues, that logic has flipped. \u201cAll of the makers are included within the definition of the product. From a publishing standpoint, you see SiriusXM everywhere in the present ground. Pandora grew to become a part of that story. And the velocity of innovation within the final 5 years has simply been insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

The place CES as soon as centered on lounge {hardware}, Collins says it now feels extra intimate \u2013 and extra unsettling. \u201cIt was about what was in your lounge. Now it seems like what you put on, what\u2019s in your mind, what\u2019s a part of you. We went from plasma TVs to robots in underneath 15 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Audio stopped being a spot and began being in all places<\/strong><\/h2>\n

That acceleration issues most, she argues, in audio. \u201c15 years in the past, audio was about programming one thing that will hold you in a single place, just like the automobile, for hours. Now sound comes by way of all the things. You’ll be able to inform a tool what you need to hear. It\u2019s bi-directional.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result’s that audio is not appointment-based. It follows you. \u201cIt was in-home, on-the-go, at-the-office. Now it\u2019s all the things you do. Cooking. Understanding. Transferring round.\u201d And the numbers again that up.<\/p>\n

SiriusXM at present is much broader than the satellite tv for pc radio model many nonetheless affiliate it with. The corporate now spans subscription radio, ad-supported streaming and podcasting, proudly owning SiriusXM and Pandora outright whereas additionally representing a large community of podcast creators and exhibits. In whole, it reaches round 170 million listeners a month throughout music, discuss and reside audio \u2013 giving it a uncommon, joined-up view of how folks really use sound throughout totally different moments of the day and totally different gadgets, notably within the automobile.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 32% of time spent with leisure is audio,\u201d Collins says. \u201cThat\u2019s a loopy quantity. And it\u2019s grown as a result of it\u2019s straightforward and easy to obtain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Wish to go deeper? Ask The Drum<\/h4>\n


\n <\/p>\n

<\/miso-explore>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Probably the most misunderstood medium in advertising and marketing<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But the cash hasn\u2019t adopted. \u201cSolely about 4% of advert {dollars} go to audio. And I do know precisely why.\u201d<\/p>\n

Audio\u2019s underinvestment, Collins argues, isn\u2019t about lack of effectiveness. It\u2019s about measurement \u2013 and many years of unhealthy habits. \u201cEntrepreneurs will take terrestrial radio, streaming, podcasts, endorsements \u2013 all very various things \u2013 put them into one bucket and simply name it \u2018audio.\u2019 Then they anticipate it to behave like show.\u201d<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t. \u201cThere\u2019s no click on. So the sign by no means arrives in the way in which they anticipate.\u201d<\/p>\n

SiriusXM has spent the previous two years, she says, going shopper by shopper, serving to advertisers rebuild how they consider audio. \u201cEach single time we get to the tip of that course of, they are saying: \u2018We made an enormous mistake. We have been measuring it flawed all alongside.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t imply each marketing campaign works, she\u2019s fast so as to add. However it does imply audio has been systematically undervalued. \u201cI picked the toughest medium to characterize. Typically I\u2019m jealous of video and show. You guys have it straightforward \u2013 you’re taking credit score for all our conversions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why the automobile modifications all the things<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If measurement is one battle, the automobile is one other frontier totally. Traditionally, in-car media needed to be easy for security causes. That constraint is loosening \u2013 even earlier than full autonomy arrives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a world the place many people won’t be driving, however nonetheless in a automobile, what does that imply for media?\u201d she asks. \u201cThat\u2019s an entire different horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even at present, automobiles are already linked, already data-rich. \u201cIf you happen to\u2019ve purchased a brand new automobile within the final 4 years, it\u2019s principally an enormous cellphone. Mine tells me all the things I\u2019m doing flawed. Put your eyes again on the street. Cease drifting. Take a break.\u201d<\/p>\n

What SiriusXM is exploring \u2013 quietly, and infrequently confidentially \u2013 is how reside audio would possibly match into that setting. \u201cThere\u2019s a future the place you press a button and say, \u2018I have to know one thing,\u2019 and it maps straight into the studio. On to the manufacturing board. Right into a reside present.\u201d<\/p>\n

That issues, she believes, as a result of youthful audiences don\u2019t need to sit again and hear. \u201cGen Z doesn\u2019t need to be passive. They need to be a part of a dialog.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reside call-ins. Polls. Actual-time interplay. Audio, as soon as probably the most one-way of media, is changing into participatory once more \u2013 this time with expertise doing the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n

Making audio enjoyable once more<\/strong><\/h2>\n

SiriusXM\u2019s ambition isn\u2019t simply to repair measurement or modernize the dashboard. It\u2019s to make audio artistic really feel alive once more \u2013 for listeners, creators and types.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreators don\u2019t need scripts,\u201d Collins says. \u201cThey need to know what a product seems like. What colour it might be. What emotion it creates.\u201d<\/p>\n

That philosophy has already formed how SiriusXM works with expertise \u2013 from reside call-in exhibits to hosts who insist on writing their very own advertisements.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne creator stated to us, \u2018This copy is garbage. I can do it higher.\u2019 And he did,\u201d she says. \u201cThat will by no means have occurred in old-school radio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Audio, she argues, is lastly shedding the concept that it\u2019s only a 30-second spot between songs. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot extra audio being made. And it could present up reside, between songs, in podcasts, within the automobile. Our job is to assist manufacturers perceive the place they belong.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n