An apparatus comprises a digital input port configured to receive digital audio packets of main program service (MPS) audio; a modem operatively coupled to the digital port; an analog input port configured to receive an audio engineer society format (AES) audio signal that is a digitized version of the analog signal component of the frequency modulation (FM) hybrid radio signal; and an alignment unit configured to time-align the AES audio signal with the digital audio packets at the modem; wherein the modem is configured to generate the FM hybrid radio signal using the digital audio packets and the time-aligned AES audio signal.