When you listen to WLNK(FM)’s app on an iPhone or Blackberry, you just don’t hear the song; you see the lyrics.
That’s because AirKast, the company that created this app for this Charlotte, N.C., station and sister WBT(AM), has integrated the app with a song lyric database.
“The words of the song scrolls down the screen as you listen to it live,” says Jonathan Mauney. He is interactive director for Greater Media Charlotte, which owns WLNK and WBT.
Jonathan Mauney “A lot of stations jumped on the iPhone apps because they were easy to build, but we liked Airkast because of their commitment to launching Blackberry apps as well; more of our listeners are on that platform.”
Greater Media Charlotte also chose AirKast because of plans to tie directly into the Ando Media platform for targeted ad insertion.
“We’re just getting started, but there’s so much potential here for revenue as mobile streaming grows in popularity,” he says.
Jonathan Mauney’s dream is to evolve WLNK’s app to becoming a user-configurable application.
“We want something like Pandora, which lets you customize your music choice,” he said. “As I see it, we have a wealth of exclusive content that we can offer to our app users on demand. Say you love the ‘Bob & Sheri’ morning show, which we syndicate from WLNK. You could use the app to listen to ‘Bob & Sheri’ shows from the archives 24/7 if you wanted to. That’s our vision for this app, to make it more than just a simulcast of radio.”
WLNK’s app has been downloaded 10,000 times since being released in late 2009. The app for news-talk WBT was made public in late January. It has been downloaded 9,000 times.
This is one in a series about how radio station managers are putting new media tools to use.
