The stations are fun to dip in and out of as a kind of history of hits. We have long admired AccuRadio’s cluster programming which groups stations by high-school periods such as “Summer Hits ’64-’69” and “Oldies 1967-1968” which is pitched as “A golden age of AM Top 40.” (AccuRadio is marketed to non-Millennial older listeners.) iHeart’s gambit targets the specific nostalgia of graduation year.
The first station we tested began with a video pre-roll — nothing unusual about that. The ad was for SoFi (refinance college loans — nicely topical). When the music began, a companion banner appeared in the web app we tested, proclaiming the stream to be ad-free courtesy of SoFi. An iHeart spokesperson confirmed that all the stations are ad-free (after the pre-roll).
There might be a data play at work — any programming tactic which teases out the listener’s age probably works that datum into a larger dataset. We selected a graduation year from an unregistered browser, and were presented with a registration form, as expected. We opened a new account with false age information (sorry, iHeart), and the service threw us into that year’s Class of Radio station. (There was no pre-roll, and the page was sponsored by Chevrolet.)
Repeating the test in yet another unregistered browser, we declined to fill out the date-of-birth field. iHeartRadio wouldn’t accept the account. We conclude that if there is a data-collecting benefit to the Class of Radio programs, it is minimal, as you can’t access the station without handing over your age — honestly or not.
At any rate, the stations are fun, and are HERE.