Who needs stuffy old traditional radio in this exciting new world of on-demand music streaming and short-video apps, eh? We’re in the TikTok era now, nobody wants to tune in to a radio station where someone else controls the mus… Oh. Wait! News just in: TikTok is launching a radio station.
Not within its own app though. This is a partnership with US satellite-radio provider SiriusXM. TikTok Radio will be a “full-time music channel” (none of your part-time shirking here!) with TikTok stars as the DJs.
“The channel will feel like a radio version of the platform’s ‘For You’ page,” promised SiriusXM. “The TikTok Radio channel will feature a diverse group of TikTok creators showcasing trending music and stories behind the songs throughout each day, as well as a weekly music countdown dedicated to TikTok’s top trending tracks.”
There’s also a tie-in with SiriusXM’s streaming subsidiary Pandora, which has launched a series of playlists curated by popular TikTokers including Bella Poarch (of ‘M to the B’ fame) and Christian Shelton.
The crossover between TikTok’s core audience and SiriusXM-equipped car owners may not seem obvious, but the crossover between the parents of that core audience and SiriusXM subscribers is more relevant here. We look forward to endless squabbling over who gets to pick the station. “You’re SO UNFAIR, Howard Stern’s just for boomers…”
More seriously, it highlights the silliness of writing off ‘old’ media in favour of the new, as in our spoof intro to this piece. Of course the radio industry will want in on the new stars and music trends of the TikTok era. But as the SiriusXM deal shows, the companies at the forefront of that era also see benefits in getting their brands into broadcasting.
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Perhaps more importantly, this announcement comes after TikTok partnered with a traditional radio group in Australia (ARN) to launch an outlet there–which, in turn, came some months after that group’s main rival (SCA) launched one with SoundCloud.