Listeners across the country can now get a free taste of iHeartRadio’s two new on-demand services: iHeartRadio Plus and iHeartRadio All Access. The official launch of the products will be in January, but iHeartRadio app users will have an opportunity to sample the two new products over the next 30 days. iHeart hopes being able to save songs from live radio, replay them at will and have unlimited skips will give the company an advantage over all other streaming companies now in this space. The question is will consumers pay $5 or $10 per month for those features?
The company also announced it will be collaborating with Napster to power the two new services, and the monthly fee for both tiers has also been revealed. Here are the details.
iHeartRadio Plus will cost $4.99 a month.
Here are the features:
– Replay: Giving subscribers the ability to instantly replay songs from the radio and then return to the live radio station in progress;
– Live and custom Artist Radio stations: now equipped with a save button, allowing subscribers to instantly save songs from the radio directly to their My Music playlist for playback any time;
– Search: Search and play any song from a library of millions of tracks;
– Unlimited skips: Subscribers listening to custom Artist Radio stations will no longer have a limit on the number of songs they can skip.
In the $4.99 tier, listeners will be able to save up to 40 songs on a single playlist. After 40 songs, users will be asked if they’d like to upgrade to All Access. All Access subscribers can save as many songs as they’d like on as many playlists as they create.
iHeartRadio All Access will cost $9.99 a month.
Here’s what subscribers will get:
– Build subscribers’ personal music libraries: Completely create, control, and curate playlists from a library of millions of tracks;
– Give subscribers total flexibility to listen to their music the way they want, when they want: With no playback cap and the ability to reorder, delete, and sequence their playlist experience as well as
manage unlimited playlists;
– Access offline listening: Subscribers can enjoy offline listening and take their music and playlists with them everywhere they go, even when they don’t have a data connection.
iHeartRadio President Darren Davis tells Radio Ink the main focus of the new products has always been to strengthen iHeart’s radio stations, and he’s hopeful these two new products will create a new segment of listeners who will interact with radio in a new way as they’re given more control. “iHeartRadio Plus and iHeartRadio All Access powered by Napster are revolutionizing how we think of live radio,” he said. “With features such as personal music libraries and playlists, the ability to search and play any song instantly, and the option to save and replay songs directly from live and custom radio listening, our new iHeartRadio on demand offerings are fundamentally changing the way consumers interact with live radio at an unprecedented level.
“We are introducing a service like no other to tens of millions of consumers across dozens of devices, and also driving massive awareness of the new service to more than a quarter of a billion Americans a month through our broadcast stations alone, which presents a major revenue growth opportunity for our very important strategic partners — artists and the music industry.”
uh, no.