Audacy sells Radio.com domain

[Theater of My Mind]

Several media sources report that Audacy has sold the Radio.com domain. The buyer and price have not yet been disclosed.

I always thought it was a huge mistake for Audacy to distance itself from the best app & domain name in the business for a radio company. Their fear of the word 'radio' outweighed every shred of common sense, and perhaps it tells us a lot about the company's ultimate trajectory.

I know some of the usual suspects will disagree with me on that, but hopefully we will soon see what another broadcaster does with it, and how well it works. Of course, it would have to be a company creating good broadcast radio content in order for us to know. If it's a two-way radio communication company, then that would be another field altogether. Let's see what happens!

 

[TheBigA]

I know some of the usual suspects will disagree with me on that, but hopefully we will soon see what another broadcaster does with it,

You're assuming it's a broadcaster. Right now it's still forwarding to Audady.

The last time I sold a domain, it took a month for the transfer to go through.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

I've owned a radio friendly domain name for 17 consecutive years... had it for a few years right after HS, dropped it and got it back.

I havent done anything with it lately cuse I dont have the patience or time for building the website back up.. but i want to.

onairdj.com is my name.. anyone wanna buy it? lol

 

[Jean Luc]

Several media sources report that Audacy has sold the Radio.com domain. The buyer and price have not yet been disclosed.

What sources? Without citing specific sources, this is still a questionable rumor.

 

[TheBigA]

What sources? Without citing specific sources, this is still a questionable rumor.

How's this:

Audacy Unloads Radio.com Domain.

Audacy originally placed the Radio.com domain up for auction in December 2022 with a minimum bid of $2.5 million. The auction closed in March of 2023 without a successful bidder,

www.insideradio.com

 

[Jean Luc]

How's this:

Audacy Unloads Radio.com Domain.

Audacy originally placed the Radio.com domain up for auction in December 2022 with a minimum bid of $2.5 million. The auction closed in March of 2023 without a successful bidder,

www.insideradio.com

Insideradio doesn't cite any sources either and we all know how reliable the Internet can be. If true, it still leaves unanswered questions. Audacy station streams often show up on PPM ratings, Radio.com is already a valuable piece of Internet real estate and likely to become more valuable as streaming and on demand supplant broadcasting. Why wouldn't Cumulus want to hold onto to it? OK, Audacy needs money but a take-over solves that problem. Why decrease the value of the company with a merger in the works?

 

[MarkW]

The domain namesake of a dying industry is probably nowhere nearly as valuable as you're assuming.

 

[lanceventa]

Insideradio doesn't cite any sources either and we all know how reliable the Internet can be. If true, it still leaves unanswered questions. Audacy station streams often show up on PPM ratings, Radio.com is already a valuable piece of Internet real estate and likely to become more valuable as streaming and on demand supplant broadcasting. Why wouldn't Cumulus want to hold onto to it? OK, Audacy needs money but a take-over solves that problem. Why decrease the value of the company with a merger in the works?

While I have been unable to verify the sale... the rest of your comment makes zero sense.

This has no effect on Audacy station streams as Radio.com was rebranded as "Audacy" over four years ago. The app and website haven't used the name since then and it has been in Audacy's divestment holdings for two years now...

What Is Audacy’s Atlas? And Are Divestitures Coming?

EXCLUSIVE: Over the past few months, Audacy has been transferring some of its assets into a new holding company, Audacy

radioinsight.com

 

[Kent]

I always thought it was a huge mistake for Audacy to distance itself from the best app & domain name in the business for a radio company. Their fear of the word 'radio' outweighed every shred of common sense, and perhaps it tells us a lot about the company's ultimate trajectory.

I've said many times that radio will always be around, though the delivery system and what we perceive as radio will likely change. One of my friends who worked for the company when Entercom became Audacy had a similar take to yours. He said he really felt like the company was turning away from its bread and butter and what was still responsible for the vast majority of its revenue. I would've held onto the domain if I ran the company, but Audacy's bigger problem, to me anyway, is its lack of solid branding. I can't imagine the average person who sees the Audacy branding in the wild, especially at a sporting event, knows what it is. Even if it put up the Audacy logo with the slogan, "On your radio, on your phone, online," people would have some idea what it was and where to find it, but it usually just shows a logo. Maybe regular listeners to Audacy stations would know what it was, but it doesn't seem to do much to make people who don't listen aware of the brand.

Insideradio doesn't cite any sources either and we all know how reliable the Internet can be.

InsideRadio is one of the most reliable sources for news in the radio industry in the US, period. If it's wrong, it will issue a retraction and/or correction. Also, if you automatically dismiss internet sources as unreliable, I'm not sure where you would find any reliable information on the radio business today. Almost every radio and broadcasting publication that has ever existed has either gone out of business or moved online.

 

[lanceventa]

InsideRadio is one of the most reliable sources for news in the radio industry in the US, period. If it's wrong, it will issue a retraction and/or correction. Also, if you automatically dismiss internet sources as unreliable, I'm not sure where you would find any reliable information on the radio business today. Almost every radio and broadcasting publication that has ever existed has either gone out of business or moved online.

Except when they simply delete a story that they got wrong like they did twice last week...

 

[kevtronics]

Everyone knows how to spell "radio". But even years later, Audacy still has to spell out "A-U-D-A-C-Y" in their ads so you don't confuse them with Odyssey. It's proof they hired "corporate synergy" consultants who are too young to have ever actually listened to the radio.

 

[TheBigA]

As I said, it can take about a month for a full domain transfer to take effect. The domain is now registered to Audacy Atlas. Perhaps they've simply moved it to another Audacy sub-company. Atlas was a company they created prior to bankruptcy for the properties they wanted to sell. In the meantime I haven't seen any reporting on the story with more details or attribution.

 

[davideduardo]

InsideRadio is one of the most reliable sources for news in the radio industry in the US, period.

Look at who owns it and try to say that again without smirking.

 

[lanceventa]

As I said, it can take about a month for a full domain transfer to take effect. The domain is now registered to Audacy Atlas. Perhaps they've simply moved it to another Audacy sub-company. Atlas was a company they created prior to bankruptcy for the properties they wanted to sell. In the meantime I haven't seen any reporting on the story with more details or attribution.

DOMAIN INSIGHT: That is not true. A domain transfer at most takes 72 hours to update in Whois... What is more likely is that a deal was agreed to and announced (somewhere as there's no press release and only IR had the story with others who reported simply copy/pasting), but has yet to be finalized and submitted.

Also whois shows when a domain was last updated, which in the case of Radio.com was July 8, 2023 when it was moved into Audacy Atlas.

 

[TheBigA]

DOMAIN INSIGHT: That is not true. A domain transfer at most takes 72 hours to update in Whois... What is more likely is that a deal was agreed to and announced (somewhere as there's no press release and only IR had the story with others who reported simply copy/pasting), but has yet to be finalized and submitted.

That's what I meant. I had a domain take about a month to go from agreement to the final stage, and then it was a couple days. In the meantime, the domain was still officially registered under the name of the seller.

 

[TheBigA]

Radio.com no longer forwards to Audacy. It is now teasing the next generation of Radio.com

THE BEAT DROPS SOON.​

Get ready for the next generation of​

The all new Radio.com is where new music gets discovered

The Whois still says Audacy Atlas.

The logo in this story is the one on the page now:

Audacy Unloads Radio.com Domain.

Audacy originally placed the Radio.com domain up for auction in December 2022 with a minimum bid of $2.5 million. The auction closed in March of 2023 without a successful bidder,

www.insideradio.com

 

[TheBigA]

So what's happening here? From what they're teasing, this will be a new music streaming service, or perhaps a subset of an existing one.

It doesn't appear to be built on existing radio stations or programming. So the connection to radio as we know it is pretty loose.

There are many ways to do the same thing. One who is still trying to improve on streaming is Tim Westergren:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90494948/pandora-broke-my-heart-tim-westergren-digital-radio-pioneer-returns-to-break-the-music-industrial-complex

Pandora Cofounder Says, 'We Should Have Done What Spotify Did'

Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren stated in a recent interview that his company "should have done what Spotify did."

www.digitalmusicnews.com

 

[TheBigA]

It's been a few days since I noticed that Radio.com no longer forwards to Audacy. However, the WhoIs still says the domain is owned by Audacy Atlas.

My guess now is that this new site will originate from Audacy. Today, they announced their Chief Technology officer is leaving. They hired a new Chief Information officer from SESAC, a music industry PRO. Perhaps someone thinks they can create a business competing with Spotify. There certainly is a big chunk of money that is being left unchallenged by anyone right now. It would be very different from what iHeart is doing. Perhaps this is one of the outgrowths from the bankruptcy. If they can find a way to fund this, it would be very exciting.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

Perhaps someone thinks they can create a business competing with Spotify.

I don't think you do that with "Radio" as the brand name, though. I know we've debated whether people consider Spotify radio, but I'm telling you it's not the right brand.

They need to do something that more strongly resembles radio, with a hosted presentation and/or talk shows. And hopefully a compelling twist that provides a unique value proposition.

Sure, they could add Spotify-like features, but then they would compete more directly with iHeart which does offer paid premium tiers with Spotify-like functionality. I don't know anyone who uses it, though. I doubt most people even realize it's there. Spotify wins that contest every time.

There certainly is a big chunk of money that is being left unchallenged by anyone right now.

You mean anyone besides Amazon, Apple, YouTube Music, Tidal, Deezer, Qobuz, and the above-referenced iHeart?

 

[TheBigA]

They need to do something that more strongly resembles radio, with a hosted presentation and/or talk shows. And hopefully a compelling twist that provides a unique value proposition.

They're already doing that with Audacy.com. The tease is about new music discovery. Not about hosted presentation.

Unless they're going to ditch the Audacy and revert back to Radio.com.

You mean anyone besides Amazon, Apple, YouTube Music, Tidal, Deezer, Qobuz, and the above-referenced iHeart?

Spotify has more users than any of them.