On Your Car's Speakers, Woodward's Book: Doron Levin (Correct)

(Corrects customers to monthly subscribers in ninth paragraph. Commentary. Doron Levin is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- No time to plow through 480 pages of Bob Woodward's ``Plan of Attack?'' No patience for fiddling with cassettes and CDs while negotiating rush-hour traffic?

The latest digital cure for those endless wasted hours sitting behind the steering wheel may be no more than a download away.

Automakers, realizing that long drives are a major bore and a productivity killer, are collaborating with the entertainment industry and its techno-wizards to offer drivers more and better amusement.

In the early 1980s, I discovered Books on Tape to be a relatively cost effective, mood-enhancing response to the mind- numbing, 90-minute round-trip to the office. (``The Hunt for Red October'' remains a favorite memory of those days, a book that's much better heard than seen or read.)

My biggest reservation: Managing and mailing back boxes of up to 20 cassettes, not to mention the near-collisions while inserting them into my dashboard -- sometimes in the dark -- at 70 miles per hour.

These days, Books on Tape, a division of publisher Random House Inc., a unit of Bertelsmann AG, is phasing in CDs. Cassette players are being phased out of most new car models. General Motors Corp. won't put them in its models starting in 2006.

Audible.com

Enter Audible.com, the Wayne, New Jersey-based Web site that enables customers to download thousands of books and other narrated programs, such as newspaper articles, on to mobile devices like Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod.

Since March, when Audible began promoting a $100 rebate on an iPod for new subscribers who agreed to join for at least one year at a monthly charge of $15 or $20, the company's common stock has gained more than 50 percent in price. Currently trading in the range of about $4.50 a share, Audible stock reached a high of $15.50 a share in 2000 prior to the high-tech meltdown. The company announced on Tuesday the first profitable quarter in its history: $57,772 (19 cents a share loss after payment of preferred dividends) on revenue of $6.77 million.

Audible, which says 70 percent of its 80,000 to 120,000 monthly subscribers listen to its downloads while driving, is advertising an abridged version of Woodward's new book for $16.95 that takes six hours and 42 minutes to hear. Depending on the monthly fee, subscribers can download one or two books a month, plus other content, such as programs from National Public Radio.

MP3 Files

General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and other automakers, eager to attract youthful, gadget-savvy buyers to their vehicles, are adapting CD players to accept discs containing MP3 files, which are most commonly used for downloading music.

``Every new model they feature on `Pimp My Ride' has an MP3 player (or port) in the dash,'' said Miles Johnson, a Ford spokesman. On MTV's ``Pimp My Ride'' show, car customizers perform extreme makeovers on beat-up jalopies, adding wild upholstery and the latest electronic gadgets.

So far, automakers don't equip new models with MP3 players or ports that accept iPods and other devices as factory-installed equipment, though they say that day is approaching quickly.

For the time being, an iPod owner can buy a short-range FM transmitter attachment, costing as little as $25, which allows music and books to be heard on an idle FM radio frequency.

With the advent of satellite technology, XM Satellite Radio and Sirius have been signing up new subscribers rapidly, offering scores of channels -- many commercial-free -- dedicated to narrow interests such as comedy routines or Broadway show tunes.

Andrew Schreck, a GM spokesman, said XM Satellite Radio is being offered on 43 GM models and is being installed in about a quarter of new vehicles.

Opening the Door

Satellite communication opens the door to new uses for digital data. General Motors, for example, said it soon will offer current traffic information, delivered via XM Satellite Radio and displayed as part of the vehicle's navigation format. The feature, demonstrated in April at the New York Auto Show, will be offered first on Cadillac models.

In the past year XM Satellite Radio stock has risen from about $10 a share to the neighborhood of $25 a share, reflecting the view that GM's ownership of 2.4 percent of the outstanding shares could help drive subscriptions from owners of GM models.

Sirius shares have risen to about $3.50 a share from about $1 a share over the same period.

The next frontier of automotive entertainment is, of course, television. ``We put UHF/VHF in a few cars exported to Japan,'' said Mike Schwartz, GM's group manager for infotainment. ``For customers in the U.S. it's all about getting DirecTV (satellite).'' Vehicle-based TV service awaits development of an antenna that can track a satellite ``and that will look good.''

Engineers more and more are thinking in terms of car designs that accommodate the latest mobile devices from Apple, Dell, Sony and Rios. It might not be long before buyers choose their cars on the basis of sound and picture quality.

To contact the writer of this column: Doron Levin in Southfield, Michigan, at dlevin5@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 6, 2004 10:28 EDT