There’s a theory that if music streaming wants to grab more listeners and advertising revenues from radio, it needs to become a bit more radio-like. From Spotify’s ‘Your Daily Drive’ playlist blending podcast clips and music to startups like Stationhead and Super Hi-Fi, there have been various moves on this front.
Now another startup is having a go. It’s called Radiant, and its App Store slogan is ‘digital radio hosted by AI’. What’s that? “The hottest digital radio service with your digital host, Rad! Rad knows what music you like (Thanks to his deep integration with Spotify) and plays the sound track to your day,” explains the listing.
“Rad’s not just a DJ, he’s a news anchor, weather man, traffic reporter and music expert. Throughout the day you’ll learn about the backstories of artists, whether today today is a shorts and t-shirt or umbrella kinda day, how much traffic you can expect on your commute and hear the local news stories as they happen.”
The business model is an in-app subscription of $0.99 a month – which could be interesting given some of the restrictions within Spotify’s developer terms of service.
Update: on that last point, Patrick Quinn from Radiant got in touch to clarify that there’s no problem here. “We’ve set up our app with a commercial agreement from Spotify,” he confirmed.
@stuartdredge Hey Stuart! Thanks for the write up on Radiant! Much appreciated. To clarify your final point, we've set up our app with a commercial agreement from Spotify (You have to declare wether you're using it commercially when getting API access) 😃 Hope this help!
— P Q (@patrickjmq) February 10, 2020
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