iHeartRadio notification of Malaysian plane news gets it right

I have complained twice about the execution of iHeartRadio’s mobile news notifications — first when Justin Bieber was arrested, and a few weeks later when a building exploded in New York. But today, when alerting my Android phone of the news that the Malaysian airplane was destroyed for sure, the online-to-broadcast chain of news delivery was perfect.

(My apologies for using disasters to review an online service. Not counting Justin Beiber, of course.)

In both earlier cases, the words “fail” and “poor” figured in my assessment of the iHeart Experience. It wasn’t that the notifications failed — to the contrary, iHeart got them out lickety-split, scooping my other news apps. The problem was in the resulting live radio-stream experience which should have delivered a rapid news update, but played heavy ad loads instead. In the New York instance, I had plenty of time to learn everything about the explosion in my phone’s mobile browser before the live radio station resumed its reporting.

This time, iHeartRadio prepped the update with archived radio news reports that probably were no more than a few minutes old. No ads. The stream cycled through recordings of live correspondents reporting on the scene of the Malaysian Prime Minister’s announcement. Bulletins from ABC Radio, CNN, and 24/7 News were stacked up and ready to go.

The experience was a perfect digital/terrestrial showcase, highlighting the news-gathering resources of old media, and pulling users in through new media.