Two rival companies are amicably teaming up to get in on the daily deal bandwagon that seems to be proving much success for other companies of that ilk.
Clear Channel Radio, along with Cumulus Media, Inc. are in an agreement in which Clear Channel will take on 570 of Cumulus’ stations and add it to its iHeartRadio service and, in quid pro quo fashion, Clear Channel will share some of the financial successes of its SweetJack daily deal business.
The Associated Press reports that this agreement will give the two media giants a leg up in the daily deal competition, taking on others in the space such as LivingSocial and Groupon.
Clear Channel, according to the New York Times, will run ads to promote the Cumulus SweetJack daily deals program. And, in return, Cumulus will put its radio stations on iHeartradio. Cumulus has introduced SweetJack in 16 cities so far with more cities to follow.
Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman was quoted in the paper saying the deal represented “one more data point that proves radio is not a laggard, that we do see the future, and that we’re moving toward it in a smart and fast way.” Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey said “What has happened in the daily deal space is that heavy users tend to have multiple sites they will look at on a daily basis. We found this an excellent opportunity for radio to enter that space and compete for the long tail of advertising.” By teaming with Clear Channel, Cumulus plans to take the service to 120 markets by the end of next year the paper says.
While online daily deals have become nearly a $2 billion business, companies are popping up every day, with different models to compete for those dollars, saturating consumers.
iHeartRadio is Clear Channel’s free digital radio service that offers more than 800 broadcast and digital-only radio stations from 150 cities.
Cumulus said it will still stream its stations on its own station websites and mobile apps, but the New iHeartRadio platform will serve as the sole digital aggregator for Cumulus stations
In other daily deal news, last week we saw an employee of Groupon Korea get caught writing phony reviews on the Groupon site, a South Korea antitrust watchdog is saying.
The Korea Herald reported that Groupon Korea has since corrected the wrongdoings of the false reviews, as the incidents happened before August of this year.
In spite of that, daily deal services are on the rise in South Korea, so much that Groupon is up against more popular companies Coupang and Ticket Monster.
Michelle Amodio is a TechZone360 contributor. She has helped promote companies and groups in all industries, from technology to banking to professional roller derby. She holds a bachelor's degree in Writing from Endicott College and currently works in marketing, journalism, and public relations as a freelancer.Edited by
Carrie Schmelkin
