By Aaron Radin

Earlier today we announced that we are partnering with Radio One to help them distribute their content and increase the reach of their advertisers on mobile devices.  Radio One is one of the largest radio station groups in the country, with 54 stations in 16 markets, specifically targeting the African-American community. The company has a fascinating history, having been started by Cathy Hughes in 1979, when she bought an AM radio station, and is now run by her son, CEO, Alfred Liggins.  They have an extraordinary management team, with President Barry Mayo running the stations and GM Dan Shelley running their digital business that regularly outperforms their competition. 

African-Americans over index in their use of smartphones and consumption of content on mobile devices, so Radio One is keenly focused on making sure that both they and their advertisers can efficiently distribute their content on mobile.

Both my co-founder and I have a background in the local media space and think that there are enormous opportunities for local media companies to embrace and exploit the rapid content consumption that is occurring on mobile devices.  Scale is always, and will continue to be, the greatest challenge for distribution and sales at a local level, but local media companies already have the infrastructure in place to enhance their relationships with their audience and advertisers through mobile.  They just need to be able to do so in an efficient and cost-effective manner.  This is where we are confident that Toura is providing an elegant solution to help our partners capture increased audience and revenue through the mobile distribution channel.

We expect that our relationship with Radio One will provide an early blueprint for the ways that mobile can be exploited at the local level by enabling the ability to deliver unique local content from their stations and their advertisers to their loyal local listeners. Perhaps the strongest asset that any local media company has is its sales team and their relationships with local businesses.  These businesses have come to rely on and trust their local media partners to guide them through an ever-increasingly complex world of media distribution and promotion.  By embracing the opportunity to help guide their clients in the mobile space, Radio One is wisely enhancing its role of a trusted partner and advisor to its clients.  A perfect example is in the first app that they have helped enabled for their client, the CIAA, which is the oldest African-American athletic conference in the country. They have worked with Radio One to design an app, which profiles its historically black college and university members, promote its conference tournament and highlight the businesses that help to sponsor their continued success. 

We look forward to enhancing the mobile presence of many more of Radio One’s clients in the coming days, as well as to help share their content with their loyal audience.  We expect that we will have some new ways soon to share that Radio One, alongside other local media entities, are helping to shape the future of local and mobile.