Eileen Hutton, president of the Audio Publishers Association, has clearly voiced her plans to be a driving force in making automobile manufacturers more aware of an important group of car buyers: audiobook listeners. "I feel it's critical that we educate automobile makers about the 23 million U.S. households that enjoy audiobooks and work with them to make sure that future sound systems are audiobook-friendly."
According to the 2001 Audiobooks Biennial Market Survey, commissioned by the APA, audiobook listeners spend an average of 4.4 hours per week listening to audiobooks in the car, and the automobile remains the most popular venue for audiobook listening.
On August 9, Hutton met with representatives from Mitsubishi Electric, USA at their offices in Plymouth, Mich. Mitsubishi Electric supplies sound system components to a variety of auto manufacturers, including Volvo, DaimlerChrysler and Mitsubishi Motors. On August 16, Hutton traveled to Kokomo, Ind., to speak with executives of Delphi, a company that sells sound systems to General Motors (except for Saturn), Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen. "These were surprisingly good meetings," Hutton commented, noting that the sound system manufacturers were eager to know more about the demographics of audiobook listeners.
Hutton made the case that audiobook listeners are a growing group of consumers who want to have their cars equipped with cassette players in addition to any other technology, as the cassette tape remains a popular audiobook format. She requested that cassette players be included in cars at least through the first few model years that feature MP3 players; the auto industry plans to introduce MP3 players beginning in 2002. Hutton also explained some specific technological needs of audiobook listeners: the ability to bookmark and move seamlessly from one track to another. She was assured that future sound systems could have those capabilities. In addition, Hutton said, some of the sound system representatives accepted her offer to use the studios and postproduction suite of her company, Grand Haven, Mich.—based Brilliance Audio (where she is v-p and associate publisher), as a "research and development lab" as they look for ways to make MP3 players audiobook friendly.
