I don't understand, why do smartphones come with built-in applications to listen to local radio stations but have no applications to watch free-to-air TV? even though they usually have video-on-demand apps installed such as netflix...
more legal issues, copyrights and battles over consumers? Just like libraries are cheap, but video games are controlled by a host that artificially keeps prices high.
Radio is almost always available and uses very little data. Free to air TV often times requires broadcast licenses, are encoded and often region locked so making a universal Free-to-air would be hassle whereas something like Netflix and Disney+ are straightforward internet services.
I believe it was an inclusion mandated by a government regulation at some point years back so phones could be used to listen for radio announcements during emergencies. I remember hearing about it quite a while ago, though, so it might not still be the case (and I'm too lazy to check).
When I consider the size of antennae used for free over-the-air tv and compare it to a cell phone, ....yeah. Not going to happen. Unless you want a backpack sized phone.
Early analog/touch screen phone hybrids came with that feature, even comes with its own extendable antenna. Disappeared when smart phones came into existence
I can confirm this I used to work for phone distributors about 12-15 years ago They do come with built in antenna, but the quality is horrible I guess with the bad quality, most producer opt to take out that antenna and make more slim design even the radio signal receiver also got cut off hence the current smartphone design I used to love the flip phone design, hey it's cool at that time
The hardware required to listen to radio comes in your phone so it isn't an "application" thing whereas for terrestrial broadcast you need different "hardware" which is probably hard and not worth the R&D to put into a smartphone. In my country there are applications though (each channels' own app) which you can install and watch different TV channels over the internet.