800.275.2840 MORE NEWS» insideradio.com THE MOST TRUSTED NEWS IN RADIO TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2015 Radio experiments with online customization. With web pureplays capturing the lion’s share of online audio listening, some broadcasters are experimenting with reduced online spotloads and giving listeners the ability to customize what they hear. Preliminary data suggests it’s having a positive impact on digital listening. Federated Media’s new “My” personalized streaming audio player allows listeners to tweak the music mix and skip songs, while still hearing the station personalities. The players start with the same music library as the broadcast simulcast. Registered users can skip six songs an hour (three for unregistered listeners) and rate the songs, which affects how often they’re played in that user’s stream. But the custom streams aren’t just online jukeboxes. There are brief voicetracked jock drop-ins and produced branding elements. And though they’re commercial- free for now, the company plans to add a limited number of spots. An auto dealer has signed on as the sponsor for the players in one of its markets. Some Federated stations offer streaming brand extensions — country “K-105”WQHK-FM, Ft. Wayne, IN has separate streams for southern rock, alt country and specific decades. So which stream do listeners prefer? Based on seven weeks of data, 49.8% of listening was to the customizable versions of the stations, compared to 11.2% for the live station streams. Offshoot channels added up to 36.2% of listening. Keep in mind that when a listener hits the “Listen Live” button, it takes them directly to the live station simulcast. “Those listeners are making the decision to sample these other channels,” Federated Media chief strategy officer James Derby says. The numbers don’t account for listening that takes place on third party aggregators. Is radio ready to let online listeners have it their way? For the past two years Delmarva Broadcasting has covered some spots on its news/talk station streams with snack-sized commentaries and features on such topics as health, education and technology. Some of its music stations replace on-air spots with brief artist profiles or behind the music mini-features. Delmarva, which owns about a dozen stations in the Mid-Atlantic region, plans to eliminate entire spot breaks on some streams from 9am-3pm and fill them with music. It’s also working on giving listeners the ability to personalize the content, betting that the combo of reduced spotloads and customization will boost online listening. “We know we have to move into personalization,” says Mark Weidel, GM of Delmarva’s interactive division. “If we can combine that with all the local content and personalities that people count on us for, we’ll have a winner.” Federated Media’s James Derby agrees. “There’s a strong attraction to the ability to listen to my favorite stations in a way that I prefer to use them — without losing the voices that I’m familiar with,” he says. With online competitors offering more choice and customization, WideOrbit Streaming senior director of product management Jim Kott believes broadcasters would benefit from more investment and experimentation in their streaming offerings. “It’s all about being competitive when people have, in their pocket 24 hours a day, the ability to listen to any audio content they want,” he says. Kott believes many consumers expect the option to customize, especially the younger ones. “When they don’t have it, it’s a competitive deficiency, given all the internet services out there now.” Song skipping delivers increased listening. Even with a bare bones player with minimal engagement opportunities, online listening session lengths for broadcast radio were 10% to 20% longer when song-skipping functionality was added, in beta tests conducted by Abacast in 2013. The company, which has since been acquired by WideOrbit, plans to partner with a research firm to study in greater detail the impact of song skipping on online listening to broadcast radio streams. The [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 1 NEWS insideradio.com TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2015 preliminary results are based on four months of testing a player for Federated Media hot AC WMEE, Ft. Wayne, IN (97.3). The technology substituted another song from the station playlist, before rejoining the live stream in what was described as a seamless broadcast-like experience with all non-music content intact. Abacast took the player offline to make architectural changes in late 2013 and a subsequent acquisition of the company by WideOrbit slowed the process down. Entercom’s plans to add the song-skipping ability to it station streams were put on hold as a result. WideOrbit Streaming senior director of product management Jim Kott says the company has been granted a patent for the player and plans to re-launch it later this year. Kott sees monetization opportunities for broadcasters in song-skipping. For instance after a user skips a third song, a mid-roll video ad could be inserted, taking advantage of a time when the user is engaged with the player. For programmers, there would be a trove of data to analyze on which songs were skipped the most and when. “We think it’s going to be a money maker that will increase listening times and attract audience,” Kott says. Growth in market share helped Entercom remain on track in first quarter. The ad market isn’t growing as much as everyone would like, so Entercom says its strategy of going for revenue share is helping to offset any losses in sales. “We achieved significant market share gains, which offset sluggish advertising conditions,” CEO David Field said during a conference call with analysts. He thinks it’s a combination of strong local brands and great local personalities that are making the difference. “You’re seeing that pay off in our results,” Field said. While its markets were down 2% according to Miller Kaplan, Entercom reports first quarter revenue held steady with a year ago at $78.4 million. If it weren’t for a collapse in telecom ad spending, Field said Entercom revenue would have increased 3% for the quarter as it saw gains in the retail, financial, insurance, TV/cable and entertainment categories. “Auto looks decent for the second quarter — it’s currently pacing up,” Field said, noting the category looks even better in third quarter. The company says its second quarter sales are on par with last year, with June tracking up 4% after low-single digit declines for April and May. Field also noted the very early read of third quarter points toward growth. “Radio is the least disrupted traditional ad medium with massive reach and strong usage trends and is the number one medium in the United States between 5 am and 5 pm daily,” Field reminded investors. “I believe the evidence is growing that radio’s perceptions are starting to improve, particularly as competitive media are being increasingly disrupted and challenged.” Field: Programmatic selling plays to radio’s strengths. Entercom has been among the early adopters of programmatic buying and selling, working with Jelli since February 2013 to use its ad selling platform across all of its 23 markets. As Jelli now becomes part of Katz Media Group’s Expressway programmatic platform in the coming year, Entercom CEO David Field predicts it will do more than just make it easier for clients to buy radio. “It will elevate the art of selling and will lead to conversations that are much more focused on marketing and the power of great ideas and truly selling the value of certain brands and certain products,” he says, “as opposed to so much time being spent on processing information, which is a reality in the current marketplace.” Field also believes it will play to radio’s strengths, most notably its massive reach. “I think it will enable us to compete more effectively toe-to-toe in a data driven environment with television, with digital and with other media,” he told analysts. In the coming months Entercom, and other Jelli ad platform users, are expected to integrate their current programmatic efforts into Katz’s Expressway. Entercom: we’re ‘highly frustrated’ over DOJ delays. Will Entercom be able to buy all of Lincoln Financial Media’s 15 stations? Only the Department of Justice knows for sure, and what had seemed like an easy walk through the antitrust review process has become a tough climb, punctuated by a multimillion dollar bill. The company is in the final stages of putting together the reams of documents requested by government lawyers. Entercom expects to spend as much as $2.5 million during just the second quarter on lawyers and various other fees tied to the deal’s review. CEO David Field says he’s “highly frustrated” with the DOJ but has no second thoughts about pressing forward. “We feel very confident we’re going to get this thing done,” he told analysts on a conference call. Entercom calculates it will have a 32% share of the Denver radio market under the proposed deal, second to iHeartMedia’s 40% share. And when you consider that radio has a 7% share of the overall ad market, Entercom has said that would mean its proposed Denver cluster would control 2% of the city’s ad market overall. The company has already told the FCC and DOJ that it plans to put “Sports Radio 104.3 The Fan” KKFN into a trust until a buyer is found. “Our worst case we believe is that there might be some adjustment in terms of what we are [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 2 NEWS insideradio.com TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2015 able to keep in Denver, but we don’t see that jeopardizing the certainty of the transaction,” he said.