IHeart Modifying Its App to More Closely Resemble AM/FM Radio

[Barry]

IHeart has made a major redesign of its radio streaming app. The goal is to make it more similar to tuning a conventional car radio. This includes station presets, and a scan function. Perhaps they are addressing concerns that streaming in a vehicle is not as simple as tuning an AM/FM radio.
I wonder whether this could become a trend among other streaming sources.

IHeart App Evolving

 

[Theater of My Mind]

This seems like a great redesign yet here we are well over 24 hours since you posted it without a single reaction, just crickets. I think that says it all.

 

[Kent]

This seems like a great redesign yet here we are well over 24 hours since you posted it without a single reaction, just crickets. I think that says it all.

Funny thing is, I remember iHeart having presets roughly 10 years ago. It introduced the carousel and took them away. It seems more like a case of going back to the future to me.

Having said that, I will be happy to see the presets. I was disappointed to lose them the first time. Plus, I can’t see the full list of my favorites when I access the app on CarPlay. It only shows a certain amount of my most recents.

People here may not be enthused, but seems I was just reading that iHeart logs the most streaming hours of any terrestrial broadcaster. Even if the people here don’t use it much, people are definitely using it. Plus, with TuneIn getting more expensive if you haven’t already been listed in its directory, iHeart would seem to be a more viable platform to use. I understand you have to cede a large portion of your online inventory to iHeart, and the commissions are pretty high, but it's going to cheaper to do that than for smaller operators to do a cash deal with TuneIn.

 

[Jstnpspck]

One feature I miss is a sort of "scan" button that would jump to another station of the same format. I'm curious if iHeart ditched it because more often than not in overnights, if you jumped from, say, alt station to alt station, you could hear all the iHeart alt stations running the same music logs

 

[Miss Tuned]

In various markets including the UK and Canada, Radioplayer is a thing. One app with official support from all broadcasters, so that you can stream different stations, see them on the same carousel, listen to on-demand shows and podcasts, save stations as presets/favorites/etc, regardless of who owns them. It's a really great system, with the largest broadcasters on the same app as small independent radio stations.

It was, of course, the BBC with their ceaseless "not invented here" syndrome and snotty attitude towards non-BBC broadcasters which was the first to break from it - now, if you select a BBC station in Radioplayer, it forces you out of Radioplayer and onto the BBC app, where only the BBC's own stuff is listed, which breaks the whole concept of "one app, all broadcasters". It's notable that it wasn't the private/commercial sector which screwed it.

 

[CentralFL]

Is radio player available in the US?

 

[MarkW]

Their prior app - at least on the platforms I used - was awful. I've not tried using it in at least a year.

The new features sound like a step in the right direction. Can I search radio stations by location, brand name or call letters easily? That task was difficult on the old app.

I remember the scan button feature mentioned a few posts earlier and liked it.

 

[wadio]

This seems like a great redesign yet here we are well over 24 hours since you posted it without a single reaction, just crickets. I think that says it all.

Some of us don't live here. 😉

As I've said in other threads, this is much needed and long overdue!

The next step, IMO, is to include a scheduler so that users could create their own "virtual station."

I've done that at home using a Windows task scheduler. It's mostly helpful for talk shows. We listen to WPHT in the morning, WOR late morning, WLAD early afternoon, WMAL late afternoon, etc. I have different schedules for Saturday and Sunday.

Something like that on a mobile device would be great.

 

[Kent]

Is radio player available in the US?

Not yet. It's supposedly coming, but I haven’t heard any updates in a long time.

I'm curious if iHeart ditched it because more often than not in overnights, if you jumped from, say, alt station to alt station, you could hear all the iHeart alt stations running the same music logs

I can’t imagine that would’ve been a huge reason since it was overnights, and that used to just apply to the streaming product. Today, iHeart has entire stations that run the exact same feeds for long periods of time. When I visit my mom in Oklahoma, I can get a few of the Ft. Smith stations, and I'm told the iHeart cluster there is now just a sales office while the stations are servers at the transmitter site.

 

[radiofan2023]

In various markets including the UK and Canada, Radioplayer is a thing. One app with official support from all broadcasters, so that you can stream different stations, see them on the same carousel, listen to on-demand shows and podcasts, save stations as presets/favorites/etc, regardless of who owns them. It's a really great system, with the largest broadcasters on the same app as small independent radio stations.

It was, of course, the BBC with their ceaseless "not invented here" syndrome and snotty attitude towards non-BBC broadcasters which was the first to break from it - now, if you select a BBC station in Radioplayer, it forces you out of Radioplayer and onto the BBC app, where only the BBC's own stuff is listed, which breaks the whole concept of "one app, all broadcasters". It's notable that it wasn't the private/commercial sector which screwed it.

I really dislike the BBC shepherding everyone towards their Sounds app too, but at least the BBC doesn't geoblock their stations or the Sounds app (at least for the US).

 

[vw86]

I upgraded yesterday and like it. You can have live stations, custom playlist stations and podcasts all as presets. The only thing I don't like is that if you click a podcast on the preset list it starts playing the oldest/first episode rather than either taking you to the list or starting on the episode where you left off.

 

[Mark Roberts]

It was, of course, the BBC with their ceaseless "not invented here" syndrome and snotty attitude towards non-BBC broadcasters [...]

Isn't that pretty much the entire history of the BBC?

 

[KilowattKat]

I upgraded yesterday and like it. You can have live stations, custom playlist stations and podcasts all as presets. The only thing I don't like is that if you click a podcast on the preset list it starts playing the oldest/first episode rather than either taking you to the list or starting on the episode where you left off.

I updated the iHeart app, but I don't see anything different. What's required to get this new version? A subscription fee?

 

[Kent]

I updated the iHeart app, but I don't see anything different. What's required to get this new version? A subscription fee?

If you use iOS, I don’t think the updated app is available yet. I’m hearing the iOS version should be out by the end of this week.

I'm just hoping iHeart updates the webpage since that's how I do the bulk of my listening. At work, I usually open two browser tabs, one to TuneIn and the other to iHeart. I usually use Siri to navigate between radio stations in the car.

 

[Mykel the Radio Fan]

I updated the iHeart app, but I don't see anything different. What's required to get this new version? A subscription fee?

I updated it and got the improved app a day earlier than expected.

 

[boombox4]

I suppose this is a cool revamp, but being that younger demos just bluetooth Spotify into their car's soundsystem through their phone, I am not sure just how much making the IHeart app work like a car radio is going to make much of a difference in gaining new users.

But I'm sure the older listeners like it, especially in the car.

 

[Kent]

I suppose this is a cool revamp, but being that younger demos just bluetooth Spotify into their car's soundsystem through their phone, I am not sure just how much making the IHeart app work like a car radio is going to make much of a difference in gaining new users.

But I'm sure the older listeners like it, especially in the car.

Most everyone knows how to use a radio, even the kids. One of radio's biggest advantages is that it's easy. The real question is whether the people who either aren't using iHeart or aren't using it frequently complain it's too difficult and/or cumbersome to use. My own experience using it with CarPlay is that ease of use isn't usually a problem, but I do have some favorite stations that I don't listen to very often, and those stations tend not to show up when I go to my favorites. Finding those occasional favorites is often quite difficult, and this time of year, when Christmas music is all over the radio, tends to be when I listen to those stations. I'm not sure, however, that being able to save 15 favorites is going to help much when I have 30.