iHeartRadio, the streaming radio product owned by Clear Channel, has today announced integration with BandPage to bring artist profile data to the service.
BandPage offers musicians and artists an easy way to create and sync profile websites, including widgets, to offer listeners access to bios, photos, tour dates, etc. BandPage currently has over 500,000 artists on the platform.
Before integrating with BandPage, iHeart used to pull from other metadata sources, which left artists with little to no control over what artist content was shown alongside their music. With BandPage, artists have total control over all their content, meaning they can push tour dates or include interesting profile information to increase listener loyalty.
iHeartRadio now has more than 243 million listeners, which is a new (and large) audience for BandPage. BandPage also powers Vevo and Xbox Music profiles.
iHeartRadio has made some big changes over the past year. Along with the launch of a Songza-style feature for choosing a playlist, the company also launched a Talk radio product, letting brands (and even the average Joe) create a recorded radio show. Listeners can subscribe to these shows the same way they do to other radio channels.
Moving forward, it’s all about keeping an increasingly complex product simple.
“This year we’re focusing on further simplifying and personalizing the experience in a consistent way across an ever growing set of devices including pc, smartphones, tablets, televisions and in-home entertainment, cars and now wearables, said Brian Lakamp, head of digital at Clear Channel. “Two big challenges for a product developer today are supporting an exploding universe of platforms and elegantly adding new features across those devices. Specifically, its critical to add features that grow the consumer experience, but keep the overall product simple, standard and easy to use across all these new platforms at the same time.”
The BandPage roll out will begin this summer.