Rdio has likely been feeling the squeeze from the launch of Apple Music, and is today adding live streams of 460 traditional AM/FM radio stations, reports the Los Angeles Times.
The rollout, which starts Wednesday, includes 460 stations owned and operated by stakeholder Atlanta-based Cumulus Media Inc [including] long-running stations such as Cumulus’ KLOS-FM (95.5) in Los Angeles and KFOG-FM (104.5) in San Francisco, along with talk radio and sports outlets …
Some talk shows will also be archived for later on-demand play.
Tracks played by traditional radio stations are still identified by the app, allowing paid subscribers to download them for later listening, while free subscribers are able to favorite them and use them to start standard Rdio radio stations. Rdio says that more U.S. stations will follow, expanding out into other countries at a later date.
The SF-based company tweeted a welcome message when Apple Music launched, mimicking the ad Apple created when IBM belatedly joined the personal computer market.
Rdio is a free download from iTunes, with in-app purchases available for the paid Unlimited service.
Apple is expected to launch up to five more Beats radio stations to supplement its existing Beats 1 station.
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Rhapsody has offered traditional radio stations for a couple of years, and even has the track identification feature.
Now what would be cool is for anyone to be able to “define” a radio station, where the playlist and talk is generated by an individual, but where the music stream is delivered via Apple Music.
That way I can define “Stanley Ardpull’s Jazz Club Radio Station” or some such with no infrastructure costs, but which leverages Apple Music.
Business model TBD.
I dunno, maybe they do that already, or maybe that’s been patented.
You CAN add songs you don’t own to your playlists using Apple Music. Spotify works much the same way, but I never really adopted it because I like to ‘own’ my songs, not just rent them until I cancel a subscription.
Read OP.
There’s a guy talins, making the DJ-ing and that’s not a playlist playing…
Think podcasts, but with commercial music, and all legal.
This is for RNC below. So, what you’re telling me is you’d rather spend $120 to buy 100 songs or less….or pay a monthly sub and get well over that amount? I’m using Apple Music, and for the amount of music I have offline, it would well be over $600…and I’m not finished. Seems like the SMART thing to do is subscription based.
I dropped Rdio for Apple Music. Deal breaker was the iPhone app. It malfunctioned so many times I lost count. It was hazardous to my health in the car.
Quality over quantity. Also, I wonder how I HEART RADIO feels about this. They’ve been providing live feeds of radio stations for years. Live streams of radio stations also means lots and lots of commercials. Likely way more than free-tier streaming.
Apple already has a huge advantage because rather than relying on local DJs across 400 stations they can focus on Beats 1 and the small collection of celebrity shows from Dr. Dre, Elton John, Pharrell, WRTJ, Q-Tip, Disclosure, Jaden Smith and others.
Clearly Apple is doing things none of these other streaming services were thinking about a few months ago and that has them scrambling to find comparable features.
For all of Apple Music’s faults (mainly with the iOS and OS X apps) it’s leading the industry.