12-5-2011
They compete in many markets across America, however, in an announcement leaked to the New York Times yesterday, Cumulus' Lew Dickey and Clear Channel's Bob Pittman have apparently found a way to work together on at least one major project. The Times is reporting that Clear Channel plans to help Cumulus succeed in the daily deals market. And, in turn Cumulus will help Clear Channel compete with Pandora. It's the second side-door entrance into the daily deals market for Clear Channel. The company recently announced a partnership with Living Social.
While online daily deals have become nearly a $2 Billion business, companies are popping up every day, with different models to compete for those dollars, saturating consumers. Clear Channel, according to the Times, will run ads to promote the Cumulus SweetJack daily deals program. And, in return, Cumulus will put its radio stations on iHeartradio. Cumulus has introduced SweetJack in 16 cities so far with more cities to follow.
Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman was quoted in the paper saying the deal represented ?one more data point that proves radio is not a laggard, that we do see the future, and that we?re moving toward it in a smart and fast way.? Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey said ?What has happened in the daily deal space is that heavy users tend to have multiple sites they will look at on a daily basis. We found this an excellent opportunity for radio to enter that space and compete for the long tail of advertising.? By teaming with Clear Channel, Cumulus plans to take the service to 120 markets by the end of next year the paper says.
Clear Channel's iHeartradio is in a battle for brand leadership with Pandora and carries all of Clear Channel's radio stations in addition to providing users the ability to create their own stations. There are no details in the story about whether the Cumulus stations being added to iHeartradio will be in markets where there are already Clear Channel stations, making it competitive for the Clear Channel owned stations.
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