TuneIn adds Hubbard Radio

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TuneInHubbard Radio and Global streaming destination TuneIn have formed a strategic alignment that extends the reach of Hubbard’s 21 major-market stations to the more than 30 million monthly active listeners on TuneIn. Hubbard Radio owns and operates stations in five key U.S. markets: Chicago, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Louis and Cincinnati.


Bruce Reese, Hubbard Radio CEO, tells RBR-TVBR: “We think this is going to great for us and our audiences. We like the open, aggressive attitude TuneIn has and their willingness to work with us on new initiatives.”

We asked why he chose TuneIn vs. iHeartRadio for this deal:

“I wouldn’t say we chose TuneIn vs iHeart. We chose TuneIn first. We’ve been looking at this for months and have been very deliberate, and John and his team have been patient and great to work with. We all still have lots to learn in this arena.”

“Everyone, everywhere deserves easy access to the best radio in the world and through this alliance, we help bring the incredible quality of Hubbard’s programming to millions,” added  John Donham, CEO, TuneIn. “We’re thrilled that Hubbard, a top-10 U.S. broadcaster, chose TuneIn as the service to power its digital strategies and listener base expansion.”

Listeners can check out their favorite Hubbard stations and discover new programming through more than 150 different TuneIn platforms including smartphone apps, connected vehicle dashboards, Internet home entertainment systems and online.

RBR-TVBR asked Donham:

Tell us how the deal with Hubbard was struck – what sold them, so to speak?

Hubbard chose TuneIn for the same reasons that other radio groups have chosen TuneIn. We believe in “Open Radio,” meaning that anyone can join TuneIn and can expect to get the same level of earnest support, whether it’s through our large audience (over 30 million monthly active listeners), wide distribution (over 150 platforms including every smartphone and several automobiles), or the analytics and ad platform offered via TuneIn Amplifier. We are very transparent with our broadcaster friends, sharing the same listening statistics on their stations via TuneIn Amplifier that we’re able to see. Because we are not broadcasters ourselves, radio groups know that we are a neutral ally who will keep their interests at the forefront. Building a station’s brand is increasingly important in this space, and we work with our broadcaster friends to accomplish this. We’ve also been told that our technology is quite strong, as evidenced by the fact that we can add a station to TuneIn and it can be available to millions of listeners in a matter of hours as opposed to the several months it might take to make the station available through other services.

There are a lot of radio groups and internet-only streamers that are still deciding whether to go with TuneIn, iHeartRadio or both. How do you differentiate yourselves from iHeart and what selling points are you bringing to the negotiating table?

We welcome every and any radio group to join TuneIn. You can reference the points in #1 to support why someone would want to align with our platform.