Spotify, Pandora - none of these companies would have existed if radio hadn’t been so focused on advertising.” Radio is far down the road, and constantly you hear from Bob Pittman or David Field about radio not getting their fair share. “We wanted to say, ‘Why not monetize a consumer and get some advertising via programmatic?'”īut, is radio in the audio entertainment business and not in the “music business?”Ĭox responds, “A lot of people at the ad agencies don’t really appreciate radio for being an ROI tool, or a reach tool. “What we thought is that radio got out of the music business and into the revenue business,” he says. Hariri also believes MyMelo gives radio an opportunity to return to a business some industry observers say Radio was never in. “It’s a pile of things that they don’t pay attention to today,” Hariri says. Is this a realistic option for a radio station? Could it send a false message of an artist endorsement by a radio station that has yet to add the record, and perhaps never will?Īll of this is rather inconsequential to MyMelo’s leadership duo, for they see many station websites that are littered with content fed from services that a radio station’s listeners don’t care about. Instead of promoting the artist through an on-air spin or two, a website sale via promotion of the artist online could be had. Rather than have this happen, they believe monetization for both the recording artist and the radio station is possible. Hariri and Cox also believe that independent recording artists, who are “constantly sending things to radio stations,” are largely ignored, with their EPKs and digital copies of their songs sitting in an unopened email folder. Instead, he suggests, a radio station could sell the concert tickets through its own website, and then give away an “enter to win” featuring a VIP experience at the event the listener has purchased entry to. “Typically this is seen around concert tickets, and this consistently drives listeners to their websites,” Cox says. Take, for instance, its “enter to win” promotional activities. Before that, he was a top tech architect for health care provider Humana and, earlier in his career, in the financial services sector, working with UBS, Bank One and JPMorgan Chase.Ĭox sees radio as forgetful of its opportunities to make a few extra dollars. MyMelo’s foundation is based on Cox’s prior experience as the architect of global technical operations at TiVo. MyMelo is currently live with four radio groups: Federated Media, McKenzie River Broadcast, Michigan-based McDonald Garber, and Montana-based NMBI. It is also in-use at online radio station ISOUL Radio, and aims to be live in the next few weeks with a company with stations in Northern California and Southern Oregon, and three national players. Another major Hispanic-targeted radio station operator is in negotiations with MyMelo.Ĭox launched MyMelo in September 2015 under the premise that radio’s “power of the tower” could flourish in a digital environment, with one solution resting in a website replete with relevant content that a radio station may monetize. The company behind the tool is MyMelo, led by President, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Chris Cox and Chief Revenue Officer Reza Hariri. That’s the mindset employed by a Bay Area technology outfit that’s presently rolling out a platform designed to transform the staid radio station website into a digital retailer focused on music and events.

Isoul radio