iHeartMedia has confirmed that it’s following rival Pandora into the on-demand streaming market. In fact, the strategy closely mirrors Pandora’s plans for a mid-tier ‘radio plus’ product and then a full on-demand service, with deals in place with all three major labels, plus independent distributors The Orchard, Entertainment One, INgrooves, DashGo, Naxos and CD Baby. iHeartRadio Plus will be an “enhanced radio” service that iHeartMedia hopes will be seen as “an addition to other on-demand services, not a replacement” with its replays and playlist-saving features. iHeartRadio All Access will be a full on-demand subscription service, with pricing not yet announced, but expected to match Pandora’s $5 / $10 structure. “The vast majority of Americans don’t subscribe to any music service. And the reason they don’t is because they’re just hard to use,” president Darren Davis told Billboard. “We didn’t just want another ‘me too’ copycat on-demand service. We didn’t want people to say, ‘Oh, they just copied Spotify and slapped it into their app.’ That isn’t what we’ve done at all. We’ve found a way to root it in our core business, which is live radio.”
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Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…