Clear Channel is adding new media riffs to its online radio formula, enabling listeners to access lyrics and producing video spots for advertisers.
Lyrics are offered online through the Gracenote Lyrics service. It’s integrated into the media player for online listeners, who can now click on an icon on any of the 800 Clear Channel Radio station sites to access lyrics while a tune is playing. The top 20 tunes on any given station are also archived on the sites.
“Lyrics are one of the most requested features from our listeners and our program directors,” said Paul Miraldi, vice president of programming and marketing for Clear Channel Online Music & Radio. “We try to integrate into our site to make it easier to find and put it at their fingertips.”
Miraldi considers the feature one that has appeal across all demographics, from top 40 listeners to classic rock fans and alternative rock adherents.
In a relatively new feature of the “Stripped” music performance series on Clear Channel sites, listeners can now take videos of artists’ acoustic studio performances—up to five tunes—and move them with a widget to their own Web sites on Facebook or MySpace. The Jonas Brothers have drawn 6,000 takers since the feature was incorporate on Clear Channel sites in March.
“It just virally spreads,” Miraldi said.
In small and medium-sized markets, Clear Channel is offering stations a new feature for advertisers from StudioNow: 15 seconds of professional quality pre-roll video integrated into on-demand programming packages.
The service is incorporated into the cost of the ads. Miraldi said the new advertising video service responds to needs of both advertisers and stations in more moderately sized markets.
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