Sun Broadcast Anniversary Milestone

11-19-14

Sun Broadcast Group is celebrating its sixth anniversary with the news that, with programming additions to its 2015 lineup, it will now reach over 142 million listeners on over 5,500 general-market affiliates. Sun Latino has also grown its listening audience to over 35 million listeners, making it one of the top three Hispanic networks in the country.

"Talk about a wild ride," said Jason Bailey, CEO of Sun Broadcast Group. "Our revenues have more than doubled year over year, we were honored by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in America, and now, on our sixth birthday, we are able to announce such mind-blowing numbers. My sincere thanks to the great programming partners who have chosen us as their network rep, and to the amazing team here at Sun who work tirelessly, day in and day out to make us the very best network in radio!"

Last month Sun announced major 2015 lineup additions including Shazam for Radio, Entercom morning man Fitz and his nationally syndicated countdown show Powered By Country,  SupeRadio?s Weekend Throwdown with Jagger, and Retro Pop Reunion with Joe Cortese. Joining Sun?s ever-expanding country music offerings are the popular weekend dance show Country Club with Dee Jay Silver, SupeRadio's Retro Country USA, and Buckwild Saturday Night, as well as Gen3 Entertainment's newly expanded Nashville Minute with Fitz. Sun Latino welcomed new partnerships with vCreative Hipsanic, Yahoo Deportes, and PromoSuite Latino Network.

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Not So Fast Pandora. iHeart Hits Milestone

5-18-2012

Clear Channel says iHeartRadio now has 10 million registered users. Even though the app has been out since 2008, users were not required to register until the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas last September when Clear Channel upgraded the app allowing users to create their own stations. So for iHeartRadio the climb to 10 million only took 8 months. It certainly doesn't hurt when you have hundreds of radio stations to help promote.

Jacobs Media CEO Fred Jacobs, who will be speaking at Convergence 12 next month, says "We also saw impressive numbers for iheartradio in our recently released Techsurvey8.  As streaming becomes a more popular form of accessing audio content, individual apps and iheartradio are helping broadcast radio remain relevant in the digital world."

Clear Channel says the entire iHeartRadio network had more than 45 million monthly digital uniques in April, although they did not specify exactly what they mean by that. iHeartRadio now has over 800 radio stations on the app, with Cumulus stations expected to come onboard in a few months. All curated stations on iHeartRadio remain commercial free. To date, the Pandora app has been accessed more than 100 million times via a smartphone or tablet in the U.S. Listener hours for Pandora during the month of April 2012 were 1.06 billion. Active listeners were 51.9 million at the end of April 2012. Pandora was launched in 2005.

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JacAPPS Hits Milestone.

Nearly three years to the day that media consulting firm Jacobs Media announced the formation of jacAPPS, the company has reached a significant milestone in mobile application development, its 500th application release. JacAPPS Vice President and General Manager Paul Jacobs tells Radio Ink, "when we started the iTunes Store was 3 months old.  I don't think anyone had an idea - except maybe Steve Jobs - that apps would take off like this."

Jacobs says getting into the App business was a risky move that has reallp paid off. "Less than a year after we started jacAPPS we met with an investor friend of ours -  a really smart, successful businessman.  He told us he thought apps were a fad.  Even a smart guy like him got it wrong.  But I have to tell you, we launched the business in the fall of 2008 as the economy was cratering.  And we sold our first twenty apps in the first 60 days.  So there were some signs that we were onto something.  We dove in headfirst and haven't stopped since."
JacAPPS started selling Apps to radio and continue to sell a good percentage of our apps to radio stations but have also expanded accoring to Jacobs. "With the support of radio, we've been able to invest in people and processes so we can build even more sophisticated apps for radio and non-radio clients.  Moving ahead, we are merging all of the skills of our company - app development, research, strategy, and social media and are creating a full-service mobile business to help our clients with all of their needs."
And, to generate revenue for radio, Jacobs says, among other relationships, his partnership with Verve Wirelss is key. "We've integrated display ads through our partnership with Verve Wireless.  We selected them because they enable stations to benefit from ads that Verve sells, but local stations can also sell ads locally and traffic them to the app through Verve's network.  Stations are starting to integrate audio pre-rolls from TargetSpot also.  Looking ahead, we are working on a major feature that provides stations with a scalable opportunity to have an app that works like a combination of Groupon Now and AroundMe.  We think this is going to really unlock revenue for stations because it's so scalable, and enables stations to compete directly for mobile dollars."
What is Jacobs' prediction for where JacAPSS will be in another 3 years. "I hope we are the largest full-service strategic consulting, research company, and mobile app development company in America.  That would make me very happy."

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