TuneIn is a global
audio streaming
Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...
service delivering live news, radio, sports, music, and
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...
s to over 75 million
monthly active users
Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and m ...
.
TuneIn is operated by the company TuneIn Inc. which is based in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. The company was founded by Bill Moore in 2002 as RadioTime in Dallas, Texas. Users can listen to radio on the TuneIn website, use a
mobile app
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
,
smart speaker
A smart speaker is a type of loudspeaker and voice command device with an integrated virtual assistant that offers interactive actions and hands-free activation with the help of one "hot word" (or several "hot words"). Some smart speakers can al ...
, or another supported device. , TuneIn was also available on more than 55 vehicle models. In 2013, the company raised more than $47 million in venture funding from
Institutional Venture Partners
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a US-based private equity investment firm focusing on later-stage venture capital and growth equity investments. IVP is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1980.
History
While Reid W. Denn ...
,
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...
,
GV,
General Catalyst Partners
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...
, and
Icon Ventures
Icon Ventures is an American venture capital firm located in Palo Alto, California, United States.
History
Icon Ventures was founded by Joe Horowitz in 2003 in Palo Alto, California under the name Jafco Ventures. The company rebranded as Icon Ve ...
.
In November 2020, TuneIn appointed Richard Stern as Chief Executive Officer and Rob Deichert as Chief Revenue Officer, with a new investment led by Innovation Endeavors.
With premiere distribution across 200 platforms and connected devices, TuneIn empowers listeners to 'hear' what they love wherever 'here' might be. TuneIn Premium subscribers get exclusive access to commercial-free news from top networks like CNN, Fox News Radio, CSPAN, MSNBC, CNBC and Bloomberg, as well as live MLB, NFL, NHL and college sports programming and commercial-free music channels.
Function
As of 2019, the TuneIn website and apps allow users to listen to more than 100,000 radio stations from around the world including
AM,
FM,
HD,
LP,
digital and
internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
stations, along with podcasts. TuneIn's directory lists various sports, news, talk, and music broadcasts from around the world. TuneIn's website is available in 22 languages, each with its own content tailored for the specific language or region. TuneIn also offers 5.7 million on-demand programs.
In March 2018, TuneIn launched another premium live audio subscription called "TuneIn Live," which offers play-by-play calls from thousands of live sporting events, plus access to premium news stations, talks shows and other content. The company launched the subscription-based radio service exclusively for Alexa-enabled speakers and subscribers can prompt Alexa to stream news programs as well as play-by-play broadcasts of MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL games. TuneIn Live marked the first time TuneIn premium content was available over a voice platform. In October 2018, the company launched a commercial-free news offering through TuneIn Premium, which included new programs from such as
CNBC
CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...
,
Fox News Talk, and
MSNBC
MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...
, as well as news podcasts from Progressive Voices,
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
, and
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
.
In 2017, the company raised $50 million and was valued at $500 million.
In August 2015, TuneIn launched a premium service, "TuneIn Premium", that includes audiobooks, sports content from MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA, news content from MSNBC, Al Jazeera, and more. Subscribers had been able to record anything played through the TuneIn service, the feature was first discontinued in the UK in early 2017, and the rest of the world on September 14, 2020, citing legal issues. However, that feature remains on older versions of the TuneIn Pro app.
Content
The platform has deals with various broadcasters of sports, news, talk, and music worldwide like
ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio, which is alternately platform-agnostically branded as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN". ...
,
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
,
Public Radio Exchange
The Public Radio Exchange (PRX) is a non-profit web-based platform for digital distribution, review, and licensing of radio programs. The organization is the largest on-demand catalogue of public radio programs available for broadcast and internet ...
(PRX),
CBC / Radio-Canada,
C-SPAN Radio
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
,
All India Radio
All or ALL may refer to:
Language
* All, an indefinite pronoun in English
* All, one of the English determiners
* Allar language (ISO 639-3 code)
* Allative case (abbreviated ALL)
Music
* All (band), an American punk rock band
* ''All'' (All a ...
,
Emmis Communications
Emmis Communications is an American media conglomerate based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Emmis, based on the Hebrew word for Truth (Emet) was founded by Jeff Smulyan in 1980. Emmis has owned many radio stations, including KPWR and WQHT, which hav ...
,
Hearst Radio,
iHeartMedia
iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...
,
Urban One
Urban One, Inc. (formerly Radio One) is a Silver Spring, Maryland-based American media conglomerate. Founded in 1980 by Cathy Hughes, the company primarily operates media properties targeting African Americans. It is the largest African-American-o ...
,
mvyradio
WMVY (88.7 FM; "Mvyradio") is a non-commercial community-oriented adult album alternative radio station based in the town of Tisbury, Massachusetts and licensed to serve Edgartown, both on the island of Martha's Vineyard. The station is owned ...
, Wu-Tang Radio (Wu World Radio),
ABC Radio and Regional Content
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-owned ...
(Australia),
Bonneville International
Bonneville International Corporation is a media and broadcasting company, wholly owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) through its for-profit arm, Deseret Management Corporation. It began as a radio and TV network ...
,
Sport Your Argument,
talkSPORT,
and
Westwood One Podcast Network.
On June 25, 2018,
Audacy, Inc.
Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...
(then known as Entercom) announced that it would move online streaming of its stations from TuneIn to its then-named in-house
Radio.com
Audacy, previously known as Radio.com, is a free broadcast and Internet radio platform owned by the namesake company Audacy, Inc. (formerly known as Entercom). The Audacy platform functions as a music recommender system and is the national umbr ...
platform, with legacy stations removed July 6, and former
CBS Radio
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...
stations removed on August 1. In turn,
Cumulus Media
Cumulus Media, Inc. is an American broadcasting company and is the third largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States behind Audacy and iHeartMedia. As of June 2019, Cumulus lists ownership of 428 stations in 87 ...
joined the TuneIn platform on August 9, 2018.
On July 26, 2021, iHeartMedia owned-radio stations were added into TuneIn after the two sides agreed on a deal. The deal would also allow TuneIn to gain advertising from IHeartMedia's local sales.
In January 2022, TuneIn launched TuneIn On Air, a new service for non-profit broadcasters, podcasters and long-tail content creators to access the company's apps and connected devices for digital distribution of their content.
Music
In May 2018, the company announced it would exclusively stream concerts from several summer music festivals including
Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival
The Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is a music festival held annually in San Francisco, California, at Golden Gate Park. The festival is produced by Another Planet Entertainment, Superfly Presents, and Starr Hill Presents. It is the l ...
in San Francisco, the
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hire ...
in Newport, RI, the Hangout Fest in Gulf Shores, Alabama, the Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware and the
Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America, and remains a foca ...
.
Two months later Cathleen Robertson, better known as DJ Carisma of
KRRL
KRRL (92.3 FM) – branded ''Real 92.3'' – is a commercial urban radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, serving much of the Greater Los Angeles area. Owned by iHeartMedia, KRRL serves as the flagship for ''Big Boy's Neighborhood'' ...
, joined TuneIn to head Hip-Hop/R&B curation and artist relations initiatives. During the winter of 2018, the company announced that John Legend and several other top musicians would take over its "Holiday Hits" station during the season.
Sports
In August 2015, TuneIn announced deals with
MLB
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
and
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
and the
Bundesliga
The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...
for live play-by-play coverage. This also includes the ability to cover the minor league affiliates. In October 2015,
NFL announced a deal with TuneIn to broadcast live, play-by-play coverage of all NFL games to its premium subscribers.
On December 22, 2015, the
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
(NHL) announced that TuneIn would gain radio rights to the NHL. TuneIn would create an individual station for every NHL team to simulcast their home market broadcasts on. Additionally, TuneIn would create a replay channel for each team so fans could listen to the games archived. They would also create a 24/7 NHL Channel, and the NHL would embed TuneIn's player onto the NHL.com website. All TuneIn NHL items would be made available to the public for free. The first broadcasts for TuneIn began January 1, 2016. On September 22, 2022, the
Anaheim Ducks
The Anaheim Ducks are a professional ice hockey team based in Anaheim, California. The Ducks compete in the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division, and play their home games at Honda Center.
...
announced that TuneIn would become the home for all of their game broadcasts, and launched a 24/7 station called Ducks Stream to broadcast team-related content.
On February 15, 2019, the
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The te ...
of Major League Baseball announced that TuneIn would be launching a 24/7 exclusive A's station which would include free streaming of all the team's games within the team's market as well as exclusive team programming. In 2020, it was planned for TuneIn to become the exclusive home of the A's in the Bay Area after the team abandoned radio in the market however the team later stuck a deal with
iHeartMedia
iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...
to have
KNEW
KNEW may refer to:
* The ICAO code for New Orleans Lakefront Airport, located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
* KNEW (AM), a radio station on 960 kHz, licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, that carries the KNEW call s ...
serve as the team's flagship station and A's Cast moved to the iHeartRadio app.
In August 2020, TuneIn removed MLB and NBA content from its platform with no explanation given. The next month, TuneIn also removed NFL content from its platform without explanation.
As of August 2021, NFL content returned on TuneIn's platform.
In March 2022
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
content returned to TuneIn's platform giving Premium users access to all games in English and Spanish..
On August 5, 2022, TuneIn announced they would have all
English Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...
matches.
Audiobooks
In August 2015, the service launched deals with book publishers including
Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House.
On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...
and
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
to provide an audiobook library. In December 2017, TuneIn announced that it would remove audiobooks as of January 15, 2018.
Partnerships
In October 2018, TuneIn partnered with MSNBC to exclusively represent the sales rights of podcast, ''
Bag Man: A
Rachel Maddow
Rachel Anne Maddow (, ; born April 1, 1973) is an American television news program host and liberal political commentator. Maddow hosts ''The Rachel Maddow Show'', a weekly television show on MSNBC, and serves as the cable network's special eve ...
Original Podcast''. TuneIn also partnered with Adobe Advertising Cloud in June 2018 to integrate targeted audio ads to consumers via smart speakers.
In January 2019, TuneIn announced a partnership with professional golfer
Greg Norman
Gregory John Norman AO (born 10 February 1955) is an Australian entrepreneur and retired professional golfer who spent 331 weeks as world number one in the 1980s and 1990s. He won 89 professional tournaments, including 20 PGA Tour tournament ...
to integrate its audio streaming platform into his line of connected golf carts called 'Norman's Shark Experience.'
In November 2021, TuneIn partnered with News Corp-Owned News UK to bring UK-based news, music and sports coverage to the streaming platform.
In April 2022, TuneIn partnered with Amazon to bring its TuneIn Premium subscription service to all
Amazon Alexa
Amazon Alexa, also known simply as Alexa, is a virtual assistant technology largely based on a Polish speech synthesiser named Ivona, bought by Amazon in 2013. It was first used in the Amazon Echo smart speaker and the Echo Dot, Echo Studio and ...
-enabled devices. Users can access premium content, including live sports, commercial-free news and commercial-free music, from their Alexa-enabled devices.
Listenership
TuneIn shared that it had generated more than half a billion hours of listening during December 2018 and that overall listening hours had risen 31% year-on-year. Also,TuneIn shared that its partnerships with third-party devices and apps increased unique listeners by more than 40%.
Legal issues
In 2017, TuneIn was sued by
Sony Music UK
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...
and
Warner Music UK
Warner Music Group's labels include the following.
Flagship labels
* Atlantic Records
* Elektra Records
*Parlophone Records
*Warner Records
Atlantic Records Group
* 1st & 15th Entertainment
* All Money In
* Artist Partners Group
* Asylum Re ...
, alleging
copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
by offering access to international radio stations not licensed for distribution in the United Kingdom. The companies also took issue with a feature in its premium tier (which was later disabled in the country) that allowed users to record broadcasts. In November 2019, the English
High Court ruled that despite its arguments that it was merely an aggregator similar to a
search engine
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
, the TuneIn service infringed the labels' rights by making streams not licensed in the country available to its users (an infringement of the exclusive right to communicate a work to the public, under
EU copyright law). The court granted a request for an appeal.
In September 2020, TuneIn began to
geoblock
Geo-blocking or geoblocking is technology that restricts access to Internet content based upon the user's geographical location. In a geo-blocking scheme, the user's location is determined using Internet geolocation techniques, such as checking t ...
all international radio stations for users in the United Kingdom, citing the earlier court order.
On March 29, 2021, the
Court of Appeal
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...
upheld the High Court decision, ruling that TuneIn infringed the right of communication to the public.
In May 2022, TuneIn removed United Kingdom stations that were not registered with the music licensing bodies
PRS and
PPL.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tunein Radio
Internet radio stations in the United States
Android (operating system) software
BlackBerry software
IOS software
Windows Phone software
Multilingual websites
2002 establishments in California
Universal Windows Platform apps
Android Auto software
Music streaming services
Podcasting software