Yahoo hearts Clear Channel
Yahoo, the Silicon Valley Internet media company, on Thursday announced it is integrating Clear Channel Communications’ iHeartRadio streaming music service into its Yahoo Music site.
The pairing comes on the heels of Yahoo’s announcement Tuesday that it had added Spotify’s on-demand digital music service.
The two services are complementary in that iHeartRadio continuously streams songs that are similar to what its listeners say they like to hear -- similar to what Pandora does. Spotify, on the other hand, lets users choose exactly which songs or albums they want to hear, much like a jukebox -- but one with 16 million songs.
Yahoo has a standing arrangement with CBS Radio, a division of CBS Corp., which will continue to be available for now.
However, iHeartRadio will be the “preferred radio” partner, according to Lisa Goodwin, a Yahoo spokeswoman. Yahoo promotional campaigns, for example, would link to iHeartRadio rather than CBS, whose service is labeled Radio.com. iHeartRadio also is the site’s default radio player. In addition, Clear Channel will be Yahoo’s exclusive Web and mobile broadcaster for live concerts such as the upcoming iHeartRadio Music Festival.
Traffic to Yahoo’s music site, which includes the radio service, grew 14% over the last year to 25 million unique visitors in May, from 21 million a year earlier, according to ComScore. Still, that’s less than half of the 53.3 million people in May who tuned in to Pandora, a rival Internet radio service. (Spotify attracts 10 million listeners a month. Of those, about three million pay a monthly fee for Spotify Premium, which lets users access the service on mobile devices, among other perks.)
The addition of both Clear Channel and Spotify signals Yahoo’s willingness to elevate its music and broader entertainment offerings. The company, which reaches 700 million users a month, on Wednesday announced it had hired Rich Cusick, who was senior vice president of digital media at Gemstar TV Guide, as vice president of its entertainment and lifestyle sections, which include Yahoo’s Shine, Health, Movies, TV and Music sites.
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