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800.275.2840 MORE NEWS» insideradio.com THE MOST TRUSTED NEWS IN RADIO WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015 iHeart creates programmatic, real-time radio buying platform. iHeartMedia, has announced the launch of a programmatic and automated ad buying solution for its broadcast radio stations, powered by cloud-based technology innovator Jelli. This solution is the foundation for iHeartMedia to be able to offer its ad inventory to advertisers and agencies looking to leverage programmatic and automated technology including private market place and exchange environments to improve the buying process and reduce administrative hurdles and delays. The new programmatic solution will also allow iHeartMedia to apply its rich data and insights to the planning process and will utilize data sets to enable unique forms of targeting, such as music- based psychographic groups, weather and traffic patterns, purchase behavior and other environmental, population and consumer trends. “Programmatic is already an important and expected method of ad buying in the digital space. Now we can bring broadcast radio into that world at a scale no digital audio provider can offer,” said Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, Inc. “This new tool will give our sales groups the ability to more deeply partner with an advertiser and bring the best resources, unprecedented accountability and speed ,allowing us to provide much better service and performance to every client.” HD Radio status report: 25 million digital receivers, most on four wheels. This year marks a decade since HD Radio scored its first entry into the dashboard. As the connected car today dominates automotive conversations, iBiquity says its digital technology keeps radio at driver’s fingertips. “We offer a better way to do over-the-air,” iBiquity COO Jeff Jury says. He concedes a focus on web-delivered services may pose a challenge for radio, particularly to remain at the center of dashboard developments. But offering a digital radio product, dovetails with carmaker efforts to increase ways to get new content to drivers. “It is definitely hot to say let’s put more in the dash,” Jury says. “But the real question is what will survive the scrutiny of the consumer and in that sense radio is very well positioned because it is something consumers want to use in the vehicle.” There are more than 25 million HD Radio receivers in the market, with more than eight in 10 in a vehicle. That figure will continue to climb, with 40% of new cars sold today equipped with digital radio. There’s been a democratization of HD Radio over the past few years as more mass-appeal car brands like Toyota and Mazda have joined high-end brands like BMW and Jaguar. More brands are also using HD Radio for related services. Mazda and Honda use it for navigation, while Toyota has traffic and weather piggybacked on digital signals. “These are all great signs for HD Radio, and for the broadcast community, because it shows the power of radio as being more than just an audio experience,” Jury adds. Ibiquity wants to bring radio back to Radio Shack. There are over 2,300 stations broadcasting with HD Radio technology with more than 1,550 subchannels on the air. The car dashboard remains the main focus, yet iBiquity is also working to bring radio back to Best Buy and other electronics retailers where finding a standalone home receiver has become a shopper’s challenge. “If you go to a retail store, you are not going to see a lot of radio products and we’re working to turn that trend around,” Jury says. That includes getting HD Radio into new portable devices, although web-enabled wearables like smartwatches are not on the radar. Smartphones are somewhat a different story. Jury says iBiquity is talking with handset makers around the globe, but a bigger issue overshadows those conversations. “The first battle for the smartphone is radio in there at all,” he says. “And then the question is, if you like radio in there, then you’ll like digital radio even more.” Ibiquity has formed an alliance with NextRadio to cross-promote each other’s technology, and while it hasn’t opened any new doors [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 1 NEWS insideradio.com WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015 per se, Jury says it’s part of a “broader dialogue” with carmakers. “It’s part of the ongoing process of showing them what radio can do,” he says. NextRadio TSL 70% higher than over the air radio. With two million activated users, the percent of radio’s 242 million total listener base using NextRadio is relatively small. Despite the small cume, Time Spent Listening outperforms the industry norm. The average NextRadio listening session clocks in at 17 minutes, according to Emmis, 70% higher than the typical radio listening session of 10 minutes tracked by Nielsen’s PPM service. Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan chalks up the longer TSL to the app’s interactive and visual experience, which allows listeners to see album art, interact with DJs, enter contests, and rate, share and buy music. “When people have the interactivity of NextRadio on their smartphone, they’re spending almost twice as long,” he said on a webinar yesterday. “As we go from two million to many more millions, it will be a game-changing experience for our industry.” That interactivity is now being investigated as a way to attract more ad dollars to the industry. NextRadio is beta-testing visual reinforcements and calls to action executed in the app in conjunction with a 70-market spot radio campaign purchased by Allstate. But the campaign, which began last week and runs through November, won’t just be scrutinized by Allstate. NextRadio president Paul Brenner said other advertisers “are watching the results of this test very closely.” Emmis says it will roll out new reporting functionality that quantifies the engagement produced by radio campaigns that are enhanced by the app’s interactivity. Smulyan says the ability to track the number of impressions delivered will position the industry to leverage it’s over the air signal to take advantage of digital ad budgets. Do radio ads produce results? They did for NextRadio. Apart from getting more listeners to download the app, one goal of the recently launched NextRadio on-air spot campaign was advocacy. With messages like “demand free radio,” some of the spots were designed to motivate listeners to contact their wireless carrier or government officials to persuade more carriers to unlock FM receivers on smartphones. Since the campaign launched, Emmis reports one million page views to freeradioonmyphone. org, which in turn triggered 132,599 messages to carriers, regulators and Congress. The actions, which encompassed emails, calls, and social media posts, resulted in 48,142 messages to Verizon, 40,892 to AT&T and 7,659 to Congress. “We’ve got feedback from carriers — they know people are contacting them and it seems to ramp up their willingness to talk to us,” Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan said on a NextRadio webinar yesterday. “Outsiders are taking notice; whether it’s carriers, regulators, device makers or members of Congress.” Emmis says the spots have increased NextRadio downloads by 400%. The first flight of the campaign, which ran from February 23-March 31, resulted in 51,933 spots being aired, according to Media Monitors data provided by Emmis. A second flight launched April 1, adding a batch of new 30-second spots. “We learned a lot from this round about what kinds of messaging drive the most downloads,” NextRadio president Paul Brenner said. Among the new spots are some designed for sports stations that talk up the ability to listen to a game when it is otherwise blacked out. CEA predicts record year for electronic gadgetry — including audio. Whether it’s HD Radio or smartphones with NextRadio pre-installed, the radio industry is selling into a rapidly expanding tech marketplace. The Consumer Electronics Association is updating how much it believes consumers will spend on electronic gadgetry and appliances this year. It now expects total sales of $286 billion. That’s a jump from $223 billion forecast in January and the CEA says it’s not that consumers have rallied, but rather CEA is now factoring into its total retail margins and additional services sold to tech buyers. CEA president Gary Shapiro says that’s become a “common expectation” in the consumer goods sector. The trade group was already predicting consumer electronics revenue would reach an all-time high in 2015 as the category keeps growing and expanding to include everything from new devices equipped with speakers to drones and home robots. “Our forecast underscores that consumers’ love affair with technology shows no signs of slowing any time soon,” Shapiro says. CEA pegs audio devices among the growing categories this year, and sees automotive electronics sales increasing 3.3% to $14 billion. Smartphones and tablets are the two tech products showing the biggest growth. “Overall, improving economic conditions, consumer enthusiasm for new features and product categories, competitive manufacturer pricing and several other dynamics now at play should make 2015 an especially significant year for tech,” CEA chief economist Shawn DuBravac says. [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 2 NEWS insideradio.com WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015 Edison: tech advances welcomed by consumers. A majority of Americans say technology changes during the past decade have been a positive thing for society. And just 14% say they’ve been a negative. Typically it’s the elderly and the less-educated that are down on technology. That’s according to Edison Research-Triton Digital’s Infinite Dial study. The study found one-quarter of those surveyed said technology has been equally good and bad for society.