This is either brilliant or the absolute worst idea in radio history. (I vote for the latter.)
 
This is a story from May of last year but I assume it’s still going on. It has to do with a Brazilian radio station app that tries to stop its in-car audience from speeding – or be forced to listen to the most boring radio show in the country.
 
It centres around a station in Rio that’s very popular, but is forced every night to air an hour of government news. And it’s not like you can turn elsewhere. By law, every single station in the country is required to air this thing at the exact same time. So if you’re listening to the radio in your car, there’s nowhere else to turn. Needless to say, it’s become the most hated show on the medium and people go out of their way to avoid it.
 
But thanks to streaming, drivers have found an alternative – listening to the popular Paradiso FM on their phones. The stream is allowed to continue with music.
 
So what’s the big deal? The app has a special program hidden within it that checks the speed of the car where it’s tuned in. And if it detects you’re going over the posted limit, it issues a “sound penalty” that forces you to hear one minute of the so-called “Government Hour” until you slow down. It only resumes the regular music stream when you do.
 
The station claims it’s been a big hit in Brazil and no one who’s been assessed the penalty has ever repeated the sin.
 
First, I find that last claim almost impossible to believe. Second, why in the world would you want to do this to your loyal listeners? Can you imagine a longtime market leader like CHFI forcing you to take your foot off the gas to keep hearing their signal? It's ridiculous and smacks of Big Brother. But the station is proud of this initiative and claims it helps public safety. I think it would send most fleeing anywhere else and deleting the app entirely.
 
At first, I thought it might be an April Fool's joke. (The story was posted in May, so that's unlikely.) But it's almost too bizarre even for that. Either way, it’s certainly the strangest promotion I’ve heard of in years. 
 
You can read more here or see the video about this (in English) here.