With most people listening to talk radio on the go,
iHeartRadio -- the digital arm of radio giant Clear Channel -- figured its
mobile apps should make finding the talk easier.
According to cnet.com, updates to the apps Monday add a
directory for talk content so users can browse and select from drop-down
categories; a side navigation pull-out screen; and the ability to customize and
access Live and Custom Station preset favorites. The updates get talk content more quickly to
listeners' ears where people are looking for digital radio most -- on their
phones.
Unsurprisingly, with most online radio listening is moving
to mobile devices, 60 percent of people listening to iHeartRadio Talk since its
beta launch in late July are doing so with a portable device, the company said.
iHeart Radio's app updates will be available for iOS on
Monday and on Thursday for Android, including the Kindle.
It's the latest maneuver by an online radio challenger to
Pandora that tests out weak spots in the armor of the biggest online radio
service in the US .
With about 72 million active users a month, Pandora dominates online radio
listening. By comparison, the monthly unique visitors to iHeartRadio are less
than one-fourth that level, according to figures from ComScore, and iHeartRadio
is one of the closest competitors.
Yet Pandora's strongest suit has always been music, going
back to its origins with the Music Genome Project that catalogs songs by their
musical DNA to make recommendations. Clear Channel's long history with talk
radio provided iHeart a way to attract an audience that the online leader in
radio wasn't as well equipped to woo.
And that audience was already tuning in: Before the
dedicated talk feature launched, talk content already accounted for 25 percent
of iHeartRadio listening, compared to about 16 percent of terrestrial radio
listening.
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