Clear Channel Tunes into Thumbplay

Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008

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Thumbplay® has announced a relationship with Clear Channel Radio to roll out customized mobile content stores across more than 650 of its local music stations' Web sites, plus several more news and sports stations, throughout 2008.

Thumbplay's content is contextually featured in areas including the 'Just Played' box and 'Top 20 On Demand' lists on all participating local radio stations' home pages. In addition, links to the mobile content store are found in the 'Last 10 Played' playlist on each site. This enables listeners who like songs heard on these stations to purchase them as ringtones for more than 2,000 supported handsets across all major U.S. wireless carriers.

Thumbplay's mobile content stores have already launched on more than 100 stations' Web sites across the country, including those in such large metropolitan markets as Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas, Boston, Washington, DC, Atlanta and Houston. Among the first stations to launch the new mobile content stores are KIIS-FM 102.7 (www.kiisfm.com), Los Angeles' #1 hit music station (Contemporary Hit Radio), WJRR-FM Real Rock 101 (www.wjrr.com) in Orlando (Rock) and WGCI-FM 107.5 (www.wgci.com), Chicago's #1 station for Hip-Hop and R&B (Urban).

As part of the integration, each radio station site will host a customized store featuring format-appropriate mobile content. Thumbplay also developed a customizable widget allowing DJs at each station to choose their favorite ringtones and update those selections themselves online.

"Many of our listeners first discover their favorite songs on radio," said Larry Linietsky, Vice President of Business & Product Development for Clear Channel Online Music & Radio. "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' websites."

"For radio stations, the discovery of relevant mobile content, whether ringtones or music videos, is a natural extension of the listener experience," said Are Traasdahl, Thumbplay's CEO and founder. "Thumbplay gives radio stations and their personalities the ability to sell mobile content and to quickly tap into new revenue while requiring minimal resources for implementation."

With more than 80,000 pieces of mobile entertainment content under license, including ringtones, wallpapers, games, videos, voice tones and text-based services, Thumbplay has built a strong consumer following and gained broad recognition as a leader in the direct-to-consumer mobile content space.