Clear Channel Launches ‘Videos on Demand’
By L.A. Lorek, San Antonio Express-News
Jan. 9–Clear Channel Radio wants to become the video star.
The San Antonio-based company’s online music and radio division Monday announced a trial launch of “Videos on Demand” on 16 of its radio station Web sites including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis.
Clear Channel is making available videos from thousands of artists from most major labels, including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, EMI Music and others. The service goes live on Tuesday.
Clear Channel is the nation’s largest radio station owner with more than 1,200 stations. Lately, Clear Channel has faced increasing competition from portable music players such as the iPod, so the company has made a big push into offering more services on the Internet. It began streaming live music on several hundred of its stations last year.
This latest push into video comes on the heels of Apple’s launch of its video iPod late last year and the more recent announcement of the Apple iTunes phone, the Motorola ROKR E1, which will feature a 100-song capacity and a color display and built-in camera.
“As our audience grows, we must grow with them,” Evan Harrison, executive vice president of Clear Channel Radio and head of the company’s online music and radio unit said in a statement. “We see Videos on Demand as a powerful complement to our on-air programming and the next natural step in serving our audience’s growing appetite for on-demand content.”
Clear Channel’s video on demand service will offer features such as “Video Challenge,” which lets people vote for their favorite artist video.
Eventually, Clear Channel plans to expand its video service to other Clear Channel radio-station Web sites nationwide.
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