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iTunes Radio to Debut in September with Multiple High-Profile Advertising Partners

Tuesday August 20, 2013 11:17 am PDT by Juli Clover

Apple's iTunes Radio will debut in September with a number of brand partners including McDonald's, Nissan, Pepsi, and Procter & Gamble, reports AdAge. Under the terms of the deal, Apple's launch partners will get exclusive ads within their industries through the end of 2013.

The deals range from the high single-digit millions of dollars to tens of millions of dollars and include a 12 month advertising campaign to run within the streaming music service for each of the participating brands.

First introduced at WWDC, iTunes Radio is Apple’s upcoming Internet radio service that functions similarly to Pandora, offering up personalized radio stations based on artist or song selections.

iTunes Radio is free, but is supported with both interstitial audio and video ads along with standard mobile ads. iTunes Match subscribers, however, can enjoy an ad-free experience.

Advertisements on iTunes Radio will come in three forms: interstitial audio and video ads and "slate" ads; interactive display ads that will take over whatever screen the consumer is using. That includes iPhones, iPads, all desktops and laptops loaded with iTunes (including Windows PCs) and Apple TV, the Apple device that brings Internet connectivity and apps to TVs.

iTunes Radio listeners will hear one audio ad every 15 minutes and will see a video ad each hour. While initial ads will run on all devices, advertisers will later be able to target ads to specific devices. Launch partners will also have the opportunity to create sponsored stations that have fewer ads than standard radio stations.

According to reports, Apple's iAd staff is responsible for securing the advertising deals that support the streaming music service. iTunes Radio represents a new opportunity for iAd, which was originally envisioned as a way to help developers earn money on the iOS platform. iAd has been historically unsuccessful in terms of attracting both developer interest and revenue, but with the new audio ads, Apple will be able to keep 90% of the money it earns instead of shelling out a large portion to developers.

iTunes Radio is bundled into iOS 7 and will likely debut during Apple's September 10 iPhone event.

Top Rated Comments

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GSPice

12 months ago

ill stick with pandora. i use the jailbreak tweak that lets me get unlimited skips and have no ads.

Well then it's not Pandora, is it? It's a jailbroken hack to steal free streaming.

Rating: 37 Votes

Tyler23

12 months ago

Mandatory video ad every hour? That wont be popular for those with low cap data plans...

Why would someone with low cap data plans be streaming audio when not on wifi to begin with?

Rating: 13 Votes

chabig

12 months ago

I guess the thought today is : Why listen to internet radio for FREE on itunes today when you can pay a fee to listen soon? Is that the thinking of everyone?
Sorry, this is nuts...

Those are canned radio stations. You have no choice of songs. iTunes radio is customized for you alone. You can choose music and skip songs you don't want to hear. It's a big difference.

Rating: 8 Votes

Quercus Alba

12 months ago

and "slate" ads; interactive display ads that will take over whatever screen the consumer is using

That sounds fantastically horrible and completely wrong. Are we sure this is correct?

I'm an iTunes Match subscriber so I'll never see or hear these ads, but wow.

Rating: 7 Votes

Lostanddamned

12 months ago

How do you steal something that is free ?

It isn't free. The price you pay is that you spend some of your time listening to advertisements that are paying for the bandwidth you use.

Rating: 7 Votes

BMcCoy

12 months ago

Why haven't we got FM radio on the iPhone?

Rating: 6 Votes

kilcher

12 months ago

Why haven't we got FM radio on the iPhone?

There are apps for that. :)

Rating: 5 Votes

gnasher729

12 months ago

How is it unusable? Like I said I use match alot and I haven't had any issues so I'm surious what issues you have encountered.

It has matched about 17,000 songs for me. Quite a lot that were imported from LPs. And the songs that it didn't match, it uploaded without problems.

When I buy music, I check where it is cheapest. If it's cheaper at Amazon, download from Amazon, wait a bit, and it's up in iTunes Match without a fail.

Rating: 4 Votes

Roy Hobbs

12 months ago

Not interested and iTunes match is unusable.

Unusable? I use it almost daily on muliple iOS devices without issue.

Rating: 4 Votes