Clear Channel looking at Playlist.com assets

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Clear Channel is one of the companies taking a serious look at the assets of Playlist.com, the once promising digital music service that filed for bankruptcy last summer, according to a CNet story. Apparently Clear Channel is interested in the user interface and other technology belonging to the defunct Playlist.com, once known as Project Playlist. The likelihood is it would add it to radio station websites and its iHeartRadio platform.


CC Radio recently bought Thumbplay’s cloud-based music service with a plan to incorporate its custom ‘radio station’ service (The “Playlist Genie”) into iHeartRadio to allow listeners to create a Pandora-like personalized listening stream. The combined technologies are expected to accelerate development and growth of the next generation of iHeartRadio digital products in general. Perhaps Playlist.com could be part of it.

Playlist.com, which enabled users to create and share music playlists with friends, filed for bankruptcy protection in August, and at the time company leaders suggested Playlist.com might manage to reorganize and re-emerge. Records show that there was little hope of that.

In the company’s Chapter 11 filing on August 6, it reported $2.2 million in total assets (only $203,000 in cash). Playlist.com owes the four largest record companies a combined $25 million, said CNet.

RBR-TVBR observation: It looks like Clear Channel would basically be paying the company’s debt to acquire. But with the company’s broad connections in the music and record business, perhaps some kind of a JV could be worked out with the labels, in exchange for the debt owed.