Corus Radio has launched podcasts of its popular music doc programs ‘The Ongoing History of New Music’ and ‘Legends of Classic Rock,’ which are now available for download across Corus’ new rock and classic rock stations.
Chris Sisam, VP of sales, says the company’s goal is to match listeners and downloaders with advertisers. ‘However with new technology, we are also going to be developing new ways of advertising. We’ll work with advertisers to do what’s appropriate for their program. For example, we might do opening and closing billboards.’
He says no advertisers have signed on yet. Since the service only launched April 8, he says Corus has been focusing on making sure everything works. The next step is to meet with key advertisers.
As for pricing, Sisam says: ‘We’ll work with our advertisers to figure out what’s fair,’ as different clients will probably have different programs. ‘At first it will probably be based on the metric of the number of people who download a podcast but we don’t know what those metrics are yet. What’s great is that it’s very easily measurable. We’ll be watching those metrics closely and price accordingly.’
Corus will be driving listeners to the podcasts just as they’ve been driving them to their sites. Developed by Corus’ in-house interactive team, podcasts can be accessed through the sites of Vancouver’s Classic Rock 101 and CFOX, Calgary’s Q107, London’s The Hawk and FM 96, and Toronto’s 102.1 The Edge and Q107.
‘Corus Radio’s podcast offering really hits the sweet spot in terms of matching technology and content to the relevant audience [of 18-34s],’ said Ross Winters, national program director, Corus Radio, in a release. He said the company’s rock stations are ‘number one and two with [that] group, in virtually every market we’re in.’
With plans to expand the service to include more syndicated spoken-word content, Corus says these initial podcast offerings are just the beginning.
Adds Sisam: ‘We’ll continue to try new innovations to enhance our listeners’ and Web browsers’ experiences and hopefully to enhance the advertising experience for our advertisers too.’
