Clear Channel Tries To Revive Ringtone Sales
By Mark Levy CEO of MaxxoMedia
In the midst of recent pronouncements that ringtone sales are in decline, Clear Channel Radio announced that mobile content offerings will be integrated into the websites of over 650 stations within the chain. The service, offered in partnership with Thumbplay, a leading mobile content retailer, will offer listeners direct access to purchase the tones for their cell phones.
Ringtone sales are projected to drop over 7% to $510 million in sales for the US in 2008. BMI says this is the second year of the declining sales trend. Some of the reasons blamed for the decline include high or complex content pricing models, advanced handsets that allow consumers to side-load content, mobile content sharing websites, social networks and the waning novelty factor.
Despite the decline in sales, marketing for ringtones is everywhere. Run a search for a music artist on Google or log on to your favorite social network, music artist website even brand sites like Purina (they sell the Fancy Feast ‘Ping” as a ringtone) … and ringtones are there.
New York-based Thumbplay is the power behind many of these offerings. Their partners include AOL, iLike and MSN. These partnerships give Thumbplay increased visibility in a very competitive market.
Clear Channel has been adding digital goods and services to their websites over the past few years in an effort to find and keep connected to listeners moving away from traditional radio. Their efforts include social networks where listeners can connect, streaming music videos and selling iTunes downloads. Now they are entering the ringtone market.
“Many of our listeners first discover their favorite songs on radio,” said Larry Linietsky, VP/ Business & Product Development for Clear Channel Online Music & Radio. “We can now connect the dots by delivering a broad selection of mobile content, including exclusive station-created ringtones and graphics, right to our listeners via our stations’ websites.”
Evan Schwartz, Thumbplay’s Chief Marketing Officer, said, “We’re seeing new consumers buying through the Clear Channel ringtone offerings.” This is encouraging news for the market. It seems that providing options to purchase the ringtone directly in connection with the latest station playlist or the Top 20 is working.
“Given that Clear Channel’s stations run a wide variety of programming formats, we’re seeing increased sales in ringtone categories that haven’t done well historically, like Country,” said Schwartz. Each of the stations has the ability through Thumbplay’s tools to program their its ringtone offerings based on the format.
The mobile content stores have already launched on more than 100 stations’ websites across the country, including those in such large metropolitan markets as Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas, Boston, Washington, DC, Atlanta and Houston.
Among the first stations to launch the new mobile content stores are Top 40/Mainstream KIIS/ Los Angeles, Active Rock WJRR (Real Rock 101)/Orlando and Urban WGCI/Chicago.
Sphere: Related ContentIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Stumble it!
