Clear Channel offers content for sale to competitors

Clear Channel is the market leader in the Radio segment in the United States. And in an unusual move, they are now offering their content that can be purchased by rival broadcasters. The move is primarily to counter the effects on its revenues by emerging technologies like the internet and High Definition Radio.

Content is of utmost importance for the radio stations as they cannot afford dead airtime. Clear Channel claims that they developed its audio, video, and text programming in secret at its Content Research & Development unit based in New York, Dallas, Denver, and Cincinnati.

They call this initiative Format Lab and it has helped them create content for Internet channels, HD Radio multicasts, iPods, satellite broadcasts, and in-vehicle navigation systems.

John Hogan, president and CEO of Clear Channel Radio said in a statement on this new initiative: “The massive amounts of programming needed to feed rapidly growing numbers of HD2 multicast channels, Internet streams, and other near-term opportunities dwarf the real estate that our industry had to fill with the advent of FM.”

He added: “By making extraordinary programming available even more broadly, the radio industry will be able to fully capitalize on the opportunities we are creating for ourselves daily”.