9-15-13
With the purchase of Dial Global/Westwood One Cumulus, CEO Lew Dickey has made it clear his goal is to put his company in a position to compete with Clear Channel. Now, Dickey appears ready to make his digital play. For the most part Cumulus has latched onto iHeartRadio, streaming its stations via Clear Channel's consumer app. Now, Dickey could be signaling a break from iHeartRadio when his contract with Clear Channel expires, in another attempt to compete with Clear Channel. At 9a.m. Monday morning, Cumulus will announce a new partnership with Rdio. In exchange for a significant equity stake in Rdio?s parent company, Pulser Media, Cumulus will give Rdio broad access to its programming and promote Rdio on its stations. The deal between Rdio and Cumulus is a trade, with no cash changing hands but the value of Cumulus?s content and services is estimated at over $100 million. Rdio.com offers three subscription plans, $4.99 per month for web based streaming, $9.99 per month for unlimited web and mobile listening and $17.99 per month for two unlimited subscriptions. Cumulus stations are already heard on Clear Channel's iHeartRadio. In the New York Times, Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey called that deal ?a marriage of convenience? and said that the Rdio deal allowed it to do much more. Dickey is quoted in the Times saying, ?We?re trying to be much more active in the audio ecosystem than just passively handing our streams over. That has severe limitations in terms of our ability to monetize.?Last night, Dickey told Radio Ink Cumulus is not leaving iHeartRadio. "Cumulus is happy with the iHeart deal as we?ve seen our traffic increase dramatically since we moved over to their platform. We have a contract with them and are happy to be honoring it. Rdio does not presently have this feature and we are relying on iHeart as well as our stations websites and apps for streaming of our local radio stations."A Clear Channel spokesperson told Radio Ink, "We will continue to be a good partner and portal for Cumulus stations and wish them luck in their new endeavor."Add a Comment Send This Story To A Friend
