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800.275.2840 MORE NEWS» insideradio.com THE MOST TRUSTED NEWS IN RADIO THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015 Clip to app listeners: Have it your way. The message to some station app users has just become: have it your way — broadcast or stream. Developer Clip Interactive has updated its roughly 100 station apps to give users of Android’s HTC One (M8) the choice of accessing the station’s audio via its broadcast signal or online stream. The new feature makes use of the smartphone’s embedded FM chip. So far it’s only available to Clip app users on the HTC One. But the company plans to enable the feature on more phones, albeit just ones from manufacturers and carriers that have activated FM chips. The capability, which sidesteps NextRadio, means stations using Clip-built apps can encourage listeners to listen to the broadcast signal to preserve their mobile data. “Our goal is enabling interactive radio listening for the total audience no matter how they listen,” Clip VP of marketing Sara Sisenwein says. The company plans to poll users and analyze its app usage data among HTC One owners to assess the appetite for FM listening among its users. “Time and data will tell us if tuning through the FM chip is the desired approach or not and what impact that has on the total audience,” Sisenwein says. Clip has developed interactive apps for about 100 stations owned by Alpha Media, Salem Communications, Beasley Broadcast Group and Digity, along with Cumulus Media in Indianapolis and Entercom in Portland. The apps enable listeners to interact with and respond to station programming, advertising, contests, polls and other content. CEO Michael Lawless says the platform has generated $5 million in new revenue for broadcasters, who share the interactive revenue with Clip. Is Clip Now a NextRadio Competitor? Clip Interactive’s new FM-enabling app feature will compete with the Emmis- developed, NAB-backed NextRadio initiative on some levels. The Emmis cloud-based Tag Station system for NextRadio offers user interactivity similar to that offered by Clip. And both platforms enable FM listening on smartphones. But there are major differences between the two. For one, Clip app users can only access the broadcast signal of the station whose app they’re using. NextRadio functions like any FM tuner, providing access to all the stations within a user’s location. Both companies say, at least on the record, that they don’t see each other as competitors. In fact, Clip approached Emmis about a NextRadio partnership but Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan says Emmis passed. “When people do it themselves, the broadcaster has complete control of their ecosystem,” he says. “When you turn it over to a third party, they take a significant percentage of the advertising and you cede control.” While it’s true that Clip is piggybacking off the work Emmis, the NAB and the industry have done to get FM chips activated, any station app provider could integrate with the FM chips that have been activated on certain smartphones, providing they’re willing to make the technical investment. “The point of NextRadio is it’s an agnostic, industry solution, a partnership between the broadcaster and the carrier,” Smulyan says. “Whether you do Tag Station or not, your radio station is on that chip.” But broadcasters don’t have to choose one over the other. In fact, many want to make their content available on as many platforms, devices and services as possible. For example, Alpha Media, a big NextRadio supporter, uses Clip-developed apps. Data consumption a concern for 42% of online radio listeners. One of NextRadio’s value propositions is the ability to listen to radio on a smartphone without eating into a consumer’s mobile data plan. Recently-released research from Edison Research and Triton Digital shows smartphone data plans are on the minds of many online radio users. Respondents were asked the question: “When listening to internet audio on your smartphone, do you ever take into consideration how much [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 1 NEWS insideradio.com THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015 data you are using on your cell phone?” More than four in ten (42%) answered yes. The younger the demo, the higher the number: 49% of 12-24 year-olds said it was a consideration, 38% of 25-54 year-olds and 33% of those aged 55+. The survey of 2,002 Americans aged 12+ used random digital dialing techniques, making it representative and projectable to the U.S. population. It included 900 interviews conducted on mobile phones. Interviews were done in English and Spanish as appropriate. Read the Infinite Dial study HERE. Tom Schurr joins Cumulus as operations executive. Just weeks after Cumulus Media announced it would not hire a No. 2 executive to assist CEO Lew Dickey run the radio group, it’s done the next best thing. Tom Schurr has been recruited as senior vice president of operations. Reporting to Dickey, the veteran radio executive will oversee station operations in several of Cumulus Media’s most important markets. That list includes Dallas and Houston, among others. “Tom is an extremely talented broadcast executive with unparalleled operating experience across all market sizes. We look forward to his important contribution to our success,” Dickey says in a statement. It was one year ago that Schurr exited iHeartMedia where in his final position he was president of operations for the company’s major markets. He earlier held regional operational duties in the East and Southeast regions. In addition to the beefed up regional structure, Dickey told analysts earlier this month he has been reorganizing the company’s managerial ranks to make the organization “flatter” and put more duties into the hands of its 95 managers. Dickey also said the company is making “key hires” across the company. That includes the just-announced hiring of Pierre Bouvard as chief marketing Tom Schurr officer. Best known in radio as the head of sales for Arbitron and a driving force for the rollout of the Portable People Meter, Bouvard most recently was working at TiVo Research & Analytics. Based in New York, Bouvard will work to sell Cumulus properties to advertisers and agency planners. And get Cumulus ready for the arrival of programmatic buying. “Incremental data beyond ratings is rapidly becoming the most important component in advertising decisions, and we are excited to have Pierre leading our effort to help our clients achieve a superior return on investment,” Dickey said. How’s Business? SCBA predicts ‘very active’ second quarter. The Southern California Broadcasters Association is issuing an optimistic outlook for business in the coming quarter. In its quarterly guidance to stations, SCBA projects advertising activity will be “very active” as the economy ramps up. SCBA president Thom Callahan points to a stronger regional economy and improving job growth. “While caution is still the prevailing mood with some client categories, others will continue enjoying record months through the important second quarter consumer period,” he tells stations. One reason for that rosy outlook is how well Southern California broadcasters did last year in attracting new and returning advertisers to radio. In all, 456 new advertisers were brought onboard in 2014 which SCBA says contributed $40.6 million in station billings. “If radio’s real strength is local, then this impressive new business fact speaks loudly about the new partnerships that local and regional businesses have developed with Southern California radio,” he writes in the report. In terms of specific categories, Callahan says continued low interest rates and cheaper gas prices should fuel automotive ad spending. “We look to a 13.4% increase,” he tells stations. Auto parts and service retailer spending has also been strong. It grew 16.4% during January, and SCBA estimates it will be up 24% in Q2. SCBA also projects sizable spending increases in the casino, health care, home security system, and insurance categories. Home improvement advertisers increased their radio budgets by 19.1 % in January and with owners staying put rather than selling, SCBA estimates that category will grow 21% in the coming quarter. Kantar: Top 1000 advertisers increased spending in Q4. Kantar Media’s year-end data shows that while spending among the ten largest advertisers declined in fourth quarter, there’s an important silver lining. “Although total spending volume slowed in Q4, a majority of the Top 1000 advertisers actually increased their year-over-year spending during the period, a promising sign for the start of 2015,” Kantar chief research officer Jon Swallen says. An upbeat sign for local radio is that mid-sized companies showed the most growth in spending last year, up 4.6%. The tier has now led the ad market for the past four years. Kantar says total U.S. ad spending grew by just 0.7% last year to $141 billion as fourth quarter spending [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 2 NEWS insideradio.com THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015 actually slid 1.6% compared to a year earlier. Why radio didn’t show more growth last year is in part due to what Swallen says had marketers spending more last year: the Winter Olympics, World Cup and midterm elections. The two sporting events typically only lift Spanish radio revenue. And the election produced fewer dollars than expected. Those three factors are also why television spending grew as the other legacy media posted year-over-year declines. The firm also blames “steep reductions” in the financial services, restaurant and travel categories for the radio industry not doing better in 2014. And Kantar notes digital wasn’t immune. Display ads edged up just 0.9%.