CBS Adds Last.FM Personalized Radio To Player

Pandora gets competition on radio.com player

Taking advantage of the pioneering technology of Last.fm, the world's leading music discovery and recommendation service, the CBS Interactive Music Group today announced it will now offer consumers the ability to create their own online stations via one-click functionality integrated into its Radio.com player.

Featuring any of the more than 4.5 million artists in Last.fm's library and nearly 12 million tracks, the player will provide listeners, for the first time, an infinite number of free streaming experiences across broadcast, online and personalized radio, according to a CBS press release.

Last.fm is a global music service that exposes its community of over 40 million users worldwide to new and relevant music through its proprietary "scrobbling" technology.  Scrobbling allows the audience to track the music they play on Last.fm, Radio.com and on more than 600 music applications.  Last.fm then uses the collective intelligence to recommend the songs and artists that power its personalized radio stations.

Using the "create a station" button now available within the player, a listener can simply enter an artist and hit the play button to hear their personalized radio station.  Related music will populate the station with the ability to love, ban, and skip tracks as appropriate.  Just as easily, the user can create a different station, or return to their favorite CBS Radio station, or one of its streaming partners.

"CBS is in the unique position of programming to consumers who appreciate high quality local radio stations both on-air and online, but also value the ability to experiment with their own musical tastes," says David Goodman, President, CBS Interactive Music Group.  "We can easily accommodate the listener's needs as a result of combining our breadth of assets, and by using them in a way that complements their inherent strengths and value proposition.

"Premium content from major market brands like KROQ and WXRT, for example, is in high demand and will continue to foster growth online for many years to come.  But in a world where consumers expect more and more control over their audio consumption we're pleased to provide them with the best of both worlds."

Re-launched in July 2010, the Radio.com player is populated with hundreds of professionally programmed stations from CBS Radio, and its streaming partners.  Additionally, consumers can immerse themselves in an abundance of music related news and information, bios and photo galleries of their favorite artists, concert dates and ticketing details, as well as blog posts, and audio and video clips from CBS RADIO's 130 stations.

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