The audio streams for Cumulus Media‘s 405 broadcast radio stations are available to all who select the TuneIn app as their preferred connection point for bringing live AM and FM stations to their digital devices.
That’s not going to change anytime soon, thanks to a new agreement between the two companies. In fact, more Cumulus content is on the way to TuneIn users.
With a renewal of their content partnership comes an agreement expansion that adds 325 podcasts from the Cumulus Podcast Network to the TuneIn platform.
Selections include “The Ticket Top 10” (Sports); “Second Date Update” (Comedy); The Chris Plante Show Podcast (News/Talk); “The Michigan Insider” (Sports) and “Murph & Mac” (Sports).
Brian Philips, Cumulus’ Chief Content Officer, commented, “This is an ideal time to expand our relationship with TuneIn. Listeners win as we offer more ways for them to discover Cumulus’ premium audio content, custom- delivered on their terms and timelines. This partnership advances our audio-first content strategy, as we deliver our best shows and podcasts to TuneIn’s 75 million active monthly users.”
TuneIn CEO Richard Stern, who has been highly visible as part of a concerted effort to make TuneIn as friendly as possible to broadcast radio — despite companies such as Townsquare Media and Audacy Corp. refusing to stream their stations on third-party platforms — add, “TuneIn aims to be anywhere listening is occurring. This partnership … is a milestone for TuneIn and we are looking forward to building this relationship and giving our listeners the best listening experience.”
Unlike iHeartRadio or Audacy, TuneIn is a global platform; while iHeartRadio is in countries such as Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand, geotargets are in place preventing global consumption of Canadian radio stations. But, unlike the Radioplayer platform, TuneIn makes its money from pre-roll advertising and premium ad-free subscriptions. Furthermore, TuneIn offers exclusive content it can monetize.
This perhaps explains the reticence of Audacy Corp., which acquired the Radio.com app and rechristened it as Audacy, to have any of its stations available on TuneIn. For iHeartMedia, a return of its stations and a branded partnership with TuneIn came July 2021 — a major shift in distribution philosophy for the nation’s No. 1 owner of radio stations.
Globally, TuneIn can be accessed in 100+ countries and can be found across 200 different major platforms and devices. TuneIn partnerships in the voice assistant space include Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, Samsung Bixby and Cortana, as well as key integrations with Sonos, Bose, and Tesla.
