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Clear Channel becomes iHeartMedia

In a breakthrough announcement, Clear Channel today renamed the company iHeartMedia.

“Clear Channel announced today that it has become iHeartMedia, reflecting the company’s success in becoming a one-of-a-kind multi-platform media company with unparalleled reach and impact,” according to the press release. Darren Davis, President of iHeartMedia, remarked in an email, “iHeartMedia reflects the momentum of iHeartRadio and how consumers and advertisers engage seamlessly across our diverse live media platforms — broadcast radio, digital, mobile, social, TV, outdoor and events.” Continue Reading

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Michael Robertson: 5 Reasons Why NextRadio Makes No Sense

This guest contribution by Michael Robertson, founder of Internet Radio Search Engine and DAR.fm, was originally posted on Google Plus. On that site, the article is followed by an interesting comment discussion featuring James Cridland, a frequent RAIN contributor. Here, Roberston takes NextRadio to task. Right or wrong? Leave a comment! Continue Reading

Sirius XM increases predictions for member growth in 2014

Sirius XM shared strong subscriber growth in its second-quarter conference call, but recently increased its projections for that metric. In the call, the company predicted that it would add 1.25 million new subscribers for the year. Now it has increased that guidance, and is expecting to add 1.45 million for a total subscriber base of 27 million. Continue Reading

NextRadio app gets aesthetic updates, but audience size unlikely to change

Emmis Communications unveiled new a feature for its NextRadio smartphone app called Live Guide. This update is a visual representation of the currently playing music on local stations, an addition meant to make browsing easier. The app also got updates to its navigation tools and will now show listeners extra information about station songs and programming events during broadcasts. Continue Reading

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Editor’s Notebook: Baseball and AM radio

Reading that automaker BMW eliminated AM terrestrial reception from one of its new car models was a “Hold everything!” moment. The hazy future of AM is generally troubling to someone of a certain age, who grew up listening pretty evenly to the AM and FM sides of the dial. But there is something more sharply distressing in seeing AM ripped out of a car, laregly because of the baseball connection. Continue Reading

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Research finds Pandora listening may not replace broadcast radio time

NuVoodoo Media Services released new research that found Pandora and broadcast radio may have a more symbiotic relationship than expected. The survey of 1,100 in the PPM markets revealed that 62 percent of the Pandora users listened to the online radio service for at least half an hour per day, and 56 percent of Pandora users spent that much time listening to broadcast radio. Continue Reading

Review: WKAZ switches to “no rules radio,” emulates playlist programming

When we heard about a daring format flip at WKAZ in Charleston, WV, we tuned in to the station’s webcast to hear the mix and find out how engaging the experience was on the digital side. We haven’t tuned away in 12 hours — an unusual level of engagement in an office known for its obsessive stream-surfing, app-switching, genre-scrambling listening tendencies. Continue Reading

Can FM Radio Be Liberated from the Car?

“The once-ubiquitous FM radio is today primarily enjoyed in the car, where a growing variety of audio consumption occurs. But stored and streamed content on mobile devices is steadily marginalizing the broadcast portion of in-car listening, sucking the audience lifeblood out of the medium.” Connected-car analyst Roger Lanctot contributes this guest column that examines how Sprint is handling its NextRadio implementation of FM in smartphones. Continue Reading