Bob Maccini Questions Broadcasters Joining iHeartradio

Bob Maccini

There's been lots of activity for CLEAR CHANNEL MEDIA + ENTERTAINMENT's iHEARTRADIO recently. MONDAY (NET NEWS 1/23), it was announced that iHEARTRADIO will add college radio stations to service beginning later this month. Last week (NET NEWS 1/20), two LOS ANGELES-area non-comm stations, KCRW and KUSC, jumped onboard, and earlier GREATER MEDIA (NET NEWS 1/9) and CUMULUS (NET NEWS 12/5/11) agreed to join the iHEARTRADIO lineup.

But not everyone is positive this is a good idea. On his ANGEL STREET CAPITAL blog, ROBERT MACCINI, one of the founders of ANDO MEDIA [now TRITON DIGITAL], writes, "What Do Broadcasters See In iHEARTRADIO?"

"Is it extension of their brands?" he blogs. "Is it increased advertising revenue? A new distribution platform? A number of broadcasters have agreed to have their Internet streams added to CLEAR CHANNEL's iHEARTRADIO platform. Even though I believe in added distribution channels, there simply is very little benefit for stations to join and distribute their programming via this platform. Being added just means that you are one of more and more stations/channels on this increasingly fragmented platform. While stations may get to keep their in-stream audio ad revenue, I'm sure CLEAR CHANNEL is keeping all pre-roll and display revenue. Will this platform result in some added ad impressions and therefore revenue? Yes, but not enough to buy a cup of coffee. Of the five featured stations today, all were owned by CLEAR CHANNEL."

MACCINI continues, "For CLEAR CHANNEL this is a beautiful thing. They get content for free to add to the offerings on their platform to the consumer and take advantage of the effects of 'the long tail' (No one broadcaster will benefit dramatically, but CLEAR CHANNEL may in the aggregate)."

"It appears that this is more a feel-good strategy that terrestrial radio is doing something in digital," he concludes. "As I have noted before, CLEAR CHANNEL is tiny compared with PANDORA's audience (about 15%). Based on TRITON DIGITAL DECEMBER 2011 Internet Audio ranker, even if you added all of the top 20 terrestrial stations’ audience including CLEAR CHANNEL, it would still only be 42% of PANDORA's audience. What's more, PANDORA's audience is increasing rapidly while the terrestrial stations audience has not increased over time."

Clear Channel Respectfully Disagrees

CLEAR CHANNEL spokesperson WENDY GOLDBERG told ALL ACCESS, "We clearly have a different point of view from Mr. MACCINI, who is an investor in digital products competitive with broadcast radio. iHEARTRADIO is an aggregator — its value is when listeners can't get to their radio stations, either through a radio or through the direct stream from the station's individual website. iHEARTRADIO takes both CLEAR CHANNEL stations and other stations on the platform to devices that only an aggregator can serve -- everything from ZYNGA to XBOX to automobiles. We're proud of our accomplishments, our accessibility and, as always, our service to the radio industry."

« see more Net News