Clear Channel Radio opens mobile content stores

By Mickey Alam Khan

March 25, 2008

Clear Channel Radio's mobile content store for KIIS FM

Clear Channel Radio confirmed a deal with Thumbplay Inc. to debut customized mobile content stores across more than 650 of its local music stations' Web sites.

Thumbplay's content will run contextually in areas such as the "Just Played" box and "Top 20 on Demand" lists on all participating local radio stations' homepages.

"Many of our listeners first discover their favorite songs on radio," said Larry Linietsky, vice president of business and product development for Clear Channel Online Music & Radio, in a statement. "We can now connect the dots by delivering a broad selection of mobile content, including exclusive station-created ringtones and graphics, right to our listeners via our stations' Web sites."

Also, the broadcaster will run links to the mobile content store in the "Last 10 Played" playlist on each site.

This will allow listeners who hear songs on these stations to buy them as ringtones for more than 2,000 supported handsets sold by all key U.S. wireless carriers.

Clear Channel Radio this year plans to open more customized mobile content stores across Web sites affiliated with its news and sports stations, too.

The Thumbplay mobile content stores have already launched on more than 100 Clear Channel Radio stations' sites in markets such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas, Washington, Atlanta, Orlando, Houston and Boston.

Each radio station site will host a customized store featuring format-appropriate content, Thumbplay said.

In addition, Thumbplay also created a customizable widget for DJs at each station to choose their favorite ringtones and update those selections themselves over the Internet.

Thumbplay offers more than 80,000 items of licensed mobile entertainment content such as ringtones, games, wallpapers, videos, text-based services and voice tones.

"For radio stations, the discovery of relevant mobile content, whether ringtones or music videos, is a natural extension of the listener experience," said Thumbplay CEO Are Traasdahl in a statement.