Friday’s announcement by iHeartMedia that it will enter the subscription-based on-demand audio streaming services business with the January 2017 launch of “iHeartRadio Plus” and “iHeartRadio All Access” also came with the concurrent announcement that, for the first time, consumers could benefit from interactive features such as repeating a song, or replay a song, and save it to a user-generated playlist.
RBR + TVBR asked iHeartRadio to elaborate on the customization it’s tying in to its array of O&O AMs and FMs, and partner radio stations, to gain a fuller understanding of how iHeart’s offering is unique compared to NextRadio, the Android-based app that activates an FM chip already installed in the smartphone, and subscription-based audio services such as Spotify, Pandora, Tidal and Apple Music.
