iHeartRadio mobile bulletin on NYC disaster: good digital idea, poor radio experience

Shortly before noon today, my Android phone pinged with an iHeartRadio notification of a deadly explosion and building collapse in New York. Good job iHeart — I was unaware of the disaster despite my many news subscriptions. iHeartRadio scooped all my other apps.

As an ex-New Yorker, I jumped onto it to find out details. The link opened up the WABC-AM stream. At the same time, on the same phone, I started Googling the event via the mobile web.

As with iHeart’s notification of Justin Bieber’s arrest, which I wrote about in January, the resulting content experience suffered from radio’s overwhelming ad load. I entered the stream while an ad pod was in progress. This is what I heard: a health ad, a Giraldo promo, a “stay tuned” promo (right, but for how long?), a credit-solution ad, another ad which streamed at such a low volume that I could not understand it, a behavioral therapy ad, a traffic promo, and a general station promo.

Even as I made notes for this article, I was able to gain a deep understanding of the New York explosion from Google News  (including dozens of on-the-spot photos) before WABC got back to its reporting. The station’s three-minute update was tight, expert, and informative. Then it was on to the next barrage of ads.

Radio’s spot load is not news. But iHeart’s attempt to bring a digital sensibility to its radio-listening platform highlights the commercial-load problem in bold relief. All kudos to iHeart for its immediacy and digital chops. I want those notifications to keep coming — more of them, in fact. But the old-school, analog experience inherent in radio creates a ruinous encounter in crucial moments. In this case, iHeart broke the headline to me, but WABC failed to break the actual news. By the time the ads finished spooling, I was sufficiently informed, tuned out, and turned off.

Is there a solution? Ideally, WABC would have recorded a three-minute report, notified iHeart that the recording was ready to go, and placed that file at the head of WABC’s live stream. Anyone coming into the stream whether via an iHeart mobile notification or not, would be hooked by the important content first, and would be more likely to stick through ad breaks to hear more.

iHeartRadio is an immense platform on which radio stations struggle to stand out. Sending a linked notification to millions of users is audience-development gold. It’s worth laying down the operational tracks to do it right. Digital news notifications inherently promise immediate delivery of the news, not minutes of unavoidable ads. In this instance, radio stepped on its own feet.