You undoubtedly heard about Clear Channel’s much-anticipated press conference, held yesterday morning, in which Ryan Seacrest and Jennifer Lopez announced a major upgrade to the iHeartRadio experience and a major multi-artist event to promote the site.
Even radio broadcasters who compete with Clear Channel need to stand up and applaud the company for taking a leadership position against Pandora, just weeks after Pandora’s IPO and the ensuing buzz about the company.
Short term, the key is to take the buzz away from Pandora and get people talking about your radio station. The ‘iHeartradio Music Festival’ does exactly that. This could be the concert event not only of this year but in history, with a huge lineup including Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez, BEP, Alicia Keys, Kenny Chesney, and even Usher and Sting. Wow. Talk about leveraging the power of the company’s record company relationships. It is brilliant marketing warfare, taking attention away from the ‘shiny new coin’ (Pandora).
Long term, Clear Channel is leveraging their resources to combine what some consumers have enjoyed about Pandora and adding what listeners love about the local radio stations broadcasting in cities nationwide. It is a smart strategy to differentiate from Pandora with a product that seems to be even more relevant as a destination while tying it into their iconic radio brands.
Naturally, today’s announcement benefits Clear Channel the most but think about the message it sends to consumers that radio stations ARE moving forward, ARE relevant, and are adapting their content to the ways listeners want to consume it. To a certain extent, ‘the rising tide lifts all the boats in the harbor’.
Other broadcast companies need to follow suit but for today, we should say ‘bravo’ to Clear Channel for its answer to Pandora and what it does for radio’s position in consumers’ minds.