Cumulus Launches Custom Amazon Alexa Skills Network

Cumulus Media announces it has launched Amazon Alexa skills for 300 local radio stations, popular Westwood One brands, plus the leading dedicated Christmas Radio Skill, Christmas Radio. This is the largest collection of custom skills available with Amazon Alexa in the U.S. 

This week marks the kick off of a national consumer marketing campaign designed to educate listeners on how to find and enable skills, fueled by local on-air, video and social promotion. Individual stations will create localized messaging that speaks directly to their unique listenership. The custom skills can be enabled vocally by using unique key phrases for each radio station; top Cumulus markets including New York City, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Dallas stations are now available.

“Voice-interactive technology is bringing radio listening back into the home and office, and will enable interactivity with our stations in the connected car,” said Mike McVay, EVP, Programming and Content, Cumulus Media. “Our strategy to create a custom skill for individual radio stations and programs, while educating consumers, is critical as smart speakers have created an entirely new, and rapidly growing platform to consume audio content.”

Mike McVay

“At an aggregated network level we will have access to valuable data and insights on this rapidly-evolving audio ecosystem,” said Suzanne Grimes, EVP, Corporate Marketing, Cumulus Media and President, Westwood One.  “We are dedicated to educating, testing, and learning to evolve the listening experience for our listeners and brand partners.”

Grimes says XAPPmedia was the clear choice to collaborate on this groundbreaking rollout, given the company’s expertise in Voice and AI technologies, strong relationships with radio broadcasters, and the XAPPmedia One Voice AI™ SaaS platform that automates deployment and management of voice apps for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Microsoft Cortana. It took just a couple of weeks from the project kick off to launching hundreds of stations live on Alexa; across the board XAPP was efficient, organized, and adept.

Suzanne Grimes

“Cumulus Media has a track record as media innovators. It is a pleasure working with executives with a long-term vision for how voice interaction will change radio. Cumulus challenged us to move quickly because they wanted to have an immediate impact; no company has brought hundreds of media properties as individual and local custom skills to Amazon Alexa with this speed and at this scale,” said Pat Higbie, CEO and co-founder of XAPPmedia. “Their Amazon Alexa skills network will yield tremendous insight into listener behavior. We are excited to be a part of this important milestone that’s defining the direction for the voice interactive radio era.”

To sample a Cumulus local station skill, follow these simple steps, using the legendary rock station KLOS as an example.

1. Just ask your Amazon device, "Alexa, enable Ninety-Five Five, K-L-O-S skill.”
2. After it is enabled, access the skill by saying "Alexa, open Ninety-Five Five, K-L-O-S."

Cumulus Media will be rolling out new national and local audio experiences, as well as sharing new insights on skill discovery and usage as their Amazon Alexa skills network continues to grow in 2018.