Yahoo! and CBS Radio have signed for CBS Radio to power Yahoo! Music’s LAUNCHcast Radio. The move is driven by the new higher royalty fees for streaming music online. AOL Radio made the same move to CBS Radio in June for its streaming audio.
Beginning in early 2009, LAUNCHcast’s 150 stations and more than 150 CBS Radio stations will be combined, with CBS Radio assuming sales responsibility for the entire portfolio. A newly-created CBS RADIO player will be integrated into the Yahoo! Music site and for the first time, LAUNCHcast will be available to Firefox, Mac and Safari users. In addition, Yahoo! News and Sports will incorporate dedicated CBS RADIO players into their respective sites, featuring a wide range of local and top-rated sports, news and talk stations including WFAN (New York), KNX-AM (Los Angeles) and WPHT-AM (Philadelphia), respectively."
“CBS RADIO has clearly demonstrated its commitment to streaming media – one of the hottest spaces on the web – and this announcement along with our relationship with Last.fm, and other distribution partnerships, reinforces our Company’s position as the No.1 internet radio company in the world,” said David Goodman, President, Digital Media and Integrated Marketing, CBS Radio. “LAUNCHcast Radio stations have grown a sizeable and loyal following and we’re thrilled to expose them to an ever greater depth of content offerings. Partnering with Yahoo! ensures advertisers will be able to reach the greatest possible audience as we leverage our local and national sales force, as well as TargetSpot, to create distinctive campaigns and one of a kind integrated opportunities.”
