Today, Yahoo! and CBS Radio announced a partnership that has CBS agreeing to provide Yahoo! users with more than 150 radio stations for free. Millions of Yahoo! users will benefit from new music, news and sports information as the partnership will kick into effect at the start of 2009. A new CBS radio player will be integrated in the Yahoo! Music website and, as a premiere, Launchcast will be available for Firefox, Mac and Safari users.

 

The vice president Yahoo! Sports and Entertainment said today that, “LAUNCHcast powered by CBS RADIO expands Yahoo!'s extensive media portfolio, which already includes many of the leading print and video providers in each category, to include one of the largest providers of radio on the Internet.” Stressing on the fact that the agreement was a great one for Yahoo! users, the VP further said, “Our agreement with CBS RADIO will deliver Internet radio's most comprehensive and diverse collection of music, news and sports programming to Yahoo!'s massive audience.”

 

David Goodman, president of Digital Media and Integrated Marketing, CBS RADIO, also applauded the partnership between the two companies. Goodman stated that the move from CBS Radio was a clear indication of support for streaming media, as well as for “one of the hottest spaces on the web - and this announcement along with our relationship with Last.fm, and other distribution partnerships, reinforces our Company's position as the No.1 Internet radio company in the world.”

 

“LAUNCHcast Radio stations have grown a sizeable and loyal following and we're thrilled to expose them to an ever greater depth of content offerings. Partnering with Yahoo! ensures advertisers will be able to reach the greatest possible audience as we leverage our local and national sales force, as well as Target Spot, to create distinctive campaigns and one of a kind integrated opportunities,” Goodman added.

 

Paul Verna, senior analyst at e-Marketer, stated that the Internet and terrestrial radio stations had reached a point where they needed each other, because those affected the most by the current situation were advertisers, a segment of the market that has already started to slowly spiral downwards.