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TuneIn Tune Out For Entercom: Radio.com Gets Exclusive

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

https://www.rbr.com/tunein-tune-out-for-entercom-radio-com-gets-exclusive/

note this move will start from July to August where Entercom will leave Tunein App.

Until now, Radio.com has been a bit of a laggard as a streaming audio portal.

Created by CBS Radio as a home for its stations and select outside partners, including WDST-FM 100.1 “Radio Woodstock” in Woodstock, N.Y., it never reached the consumer awareness level and widespread ubiquity of iHeartRadio‘s eponymous App.

Advertisers haven’t been flocking to CBS Radio, either: Aside from Miami Lakes Auto Mall, users in South Florida regularly heard promos for CBS Television programs. WDST shifted to the iHeartRadio platform in the last year.

Meanwhile, TuneIn has emerged as a major go-to point for audio streaming. It can be found on Roku devices and in gym equipment. Hotel rooms often have TuneIn as the only way to listen to local radio.

Now, Entercom is doubling down on its ownership of Radio.com by yanking its stations from TuneIn.

The move will make Radio.com the exclusive home of all Entercom radio station audio streams.

In an internal memo sent to all Entercom staff on June 25, Entercom President/CEO David Field said he was “pleased” to make the announcement.

During July and August, Entercom will begin to remove its stations from TuneIn. This is being done, Field said, “to drive all digital listening of our outstanding stations, shows, and personalities to our own Radio.com platform.”

The transition dates are July 6 for the legacy Entercom stations, and August 1 for the legacy CBS stations.

Field told employees, “One of the benefits of our scale and the quality of our brands and content is the ability to compete effectively in the rapidly growing digital audio sector. As the nation’s No. 1 creator of live, original, local audio content with a lineup of 235 outstanding stations, and the country’s unrivaled leader in news and sports radio, we have assets no other company can match and an enviable reach of over 112 million listeners per month — plus tens of millions more on our digital and social platforms.”

That said, Entercom wants to protect its assets. This, it appears, includes prohibiting TuneIn from pocketing any dollars from pre-roll prior to any station streams from an Entercom AM or FM. This is in addition to any payments to TuneIn for hosting any Entercom station.

Entercom has a tall task ahead, but Field is confident Radio.com can become as commonplace as iHeartRadio.

“We are committed to making Radio.com a leader in the digital audio space,” he said. “We have added a number of highly talented leaders to our team to help lead the charge. Over the next several months, we will be rolling out new product features, distribution partners, advanced advertising products, and other improvements to enrich the user experience and enhance our value to customers. Our goal is to make Radio.com a daily habit for many millions of Americans.”

Yet, “radio” is not a habit for many Americans, with podcasts and audio streaming via Pandora and Spotify part of the new audio consumption paradigm.

Promotional efforts for Radio.com will start on Entercom’s own stations.
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boombox4 said:
The hollowing out of TuneIn for what, exactly?
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Have you been to TuneIn lately? It's pretty hollow already.

TuneIn could have become a destination. Right now, they don't know what they are. But their primary emphasis seems to be creating original content and converting users to paid subscribers. Unless Entercom is getting a cut of that subscriber money, WHY should they allow their content to be used to make money for TuneIn?
 
TheBigA said:
Have you been to TuneIn lately? It's pretty hollow already.

TuneIn could have become a destination. Right now, they don't know what they are. But their primary emphasis seems to be creating original content and converting users to paid subscribers. Unless Entercom is getting a cut of that subscriber money, WHY should they allow their content to be used to make money for TuneIn?
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For the free users, I think TuneIn would provide a service for the other radio streaming services. I mean -- the infrastructure for delivery of streams is already in place.

For paid subscribers, though, you definitely have a point.

But yeah, I got tired of TuneIn the nineteenth time I 'TunedIn' to a station only to hear a commercial before a message saying "Sorry, that programming is not available in your area". So why even have the station listed? I guess it was to get you to hear the commercial.

PS -- the commercial wouldn't have bothered me so much if I actually could have heard the station.
 
boombox4 said:
For the free users, I think TuneIn would provide a service for the other radio streaming services. I mean -- the infrastructure for delivery of streams is already in place.
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But the management of the company wasn't satisfied with providing a free service. They had to screw it up. So now the radio stations, who have far better infrastructure, are taking back their content. Don't blame Entercom. Blame TuneIn for getting greedy.

No offense to the folks at TuneIn, but I think Entercom PDs know more about creating original content. My prediction is that in addition to their 236 stations, you'll also start to see lots of original content, and perhaps a real competitor to Pandora.
 
mikerock said:
If they want to maximize the amount of people that use radio.com they should develop the apps and a website that is backward compatible.
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From what I've seen, they're making changes in their digital people to simplify the site. But TuneIn had become cumbersome as well.
 
There is a LOT of free content available on Tune In, so what on earth are you talking about?

Entercom sees the success that iHeart is having with its proprietary portal, which is also mostly free, but does offer additional features for a Premium service, which is what Tune In does for MLB Broadcasts and some other sports broadcasts that require them to pay a rights fee. Entercom has the opportunity to build the identity of Radio.com. I just hope Radio.com creates an app for the Kindle Fire. Both iHeart and Tune In have.
 
As I've mentioned before, the last radio company where I was small and only owned a handful of stations, none of which fully covered a rated market. TuneIn provided a free service that it otherwise couldn't have gotten. I'm sure being used to direct people to a billboard for a paid service was an irritation (as was being grouped in with other radio stations worldwide airing the same or similar formats), but free and being on every device was a tough price to beat and worth the irritation. I did, however, notice that even a few of that group's stations now have iPhone apps. As far as I know, its stations are still on TuneIn, and I saw them on NextRadio for the area where I used to live when I worked there a few weeks ago.

Entercom has the ability to make a platform on its own that smaller operators don't have. Hard to tell if it will succeed or not. CBS pulled all of its stations from TuneIn a few years ago only to put them back after complaints about the Radio.com app and not wanting to put money into developing multiple versions of its app for every device. Plus, Entercom will have to find a way to make itself available on smart speakers and the Roku without TuneIn, and the Radio.com app for Windows 10 was absolutely terrible and went away a long time ago (though you can get around that problem with a browser).
 
WCBS now announces itself as "a Radio-dot-com station" at the top of the hour.
 
Entercom will grow Radio.com. That was one area where CBS management fell very short. This kind of branding is smart and leverages the OTA stations in building awareness of the platform. Now they need to get the app available in the Amazon App Store.
 
Right now I can't afford to upgrade my phone. I don't have the memory on my phone (thanks to the mandatory crap Google won't let you uninstall even if you never use it) to download radio.com app and I already have the Tune-in app. Until Entercom removed their stations from Tune-In most of the stations I like listening to are on that app. Even if I could upgrade my phone I listen to two Entercom stations. That's not enough to get me to download the radio.com app. There's also only one i-Heart station I listen to, so again it's not enough to get me to download the i-Heart app
 
CTListener said:
Bingo. Entercom doesn't care if people who can't afford to upgrade their phones are listening, because they also likely can't afford to buy much of what Entercom's advertisers are selling.
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Short sighted. MarcB could win the lottery tomorrow! And I'm sure Entercom will include him in the audience count when selling spots to advertisers.
 
wadio said:
I'm sure Entercom will include him in the audience count when selling spots to advertisers.
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Huh? The main thing they have to include him in is the royalty payment to SoundExchange. Online listeners are mainly an expense, not a source of revenue.
 
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