Thursday April 20, 9:03 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: ClickRadio, Inc.
ClickRadio Granted First Interactive Radio License by Universal Music Group
ClickRadio's Free, Personalizable Internet-Enhanced, Digital Radio Service to Deliver CD-Quality Music and More to Music Fans Offline and On
NEW YORK, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- ClickRadio, Inc., a free, personalizable Internet-enhanced, digital radio service offering CD-quality music both offline and on, today announced that it has been granted the first interactive radio license by Universal Music Group, the world's largest music company. Hank Williams, ClickRadio's CEO and founder, made the announcement.
Under the terms of the agreement, ClickRadio will license music content from Universal Music Group. The interactive license allows ClickRadio programmers to provide consumers with its exciting new interactive listening experience while protecting the rights of copyright holders.
Set to launch this Spring, ClickRadio enables listeners to customize the music they hear by clicking thumbs up (I want to hear this more often), thumbs down (I'd like to hear this less) or skip (later). Listeners pick their music by genre -- Hip-Hop, Jazz, Eclectic, Alternative, Country, Latin, Blues and a dozen others -- to create personalized stations.
ClickRadio also offers music fans superior sound quality. Listeners don't hear streamed music with all its flaws; rather music -- as well as lyrics, track info, artist bios, links to artist sites and other information for each song -- is cached to consumers' hard drives, providing CD-quality fidelity. Whenever a listener is connected to the Net, ClickRadio will add and delete songs from the cache based on his/her preferences.
Said Hank Williams, ``We're thrilled to be working with Universal to create a service that meets the needs of the music industry in the Internet age while satisfying the demands of music fans for whom FM radio is less and less satisfying. They want high fidelity music now, they want to hear their favorite music and be introduced to new music, and they don't want all the hassles associated with streamed music.'
``ClickRadio gives consumers the power to hear more of what they want when they want it,' said Larry Kenswil, President, eLabs, Universal Music Group. ``We see the ClickRadio service as one of the many ways that technology can improve people's experience with music. ClickRadio has been careful to respect the needs of the creators of music, especially with regard to sound quality and compensation.'
David Benjamin, ClickRadio Vice Chairman and veteran entertainment attorney, said: ``The agreement is a milestone for the entire recording industry and we're proud to be leading the way. ClickRadio's patent-pending technology conforms to copyright law while offering listeners a superior, interactive, personalized digital music experience.'
Through an exclusive agreement with Lucent Technologies, ClickRadio uses the patented ePAC (Enhanced Perceptual Audio Coding) compression system to deliver the highest quality sound while protecting artists' rights.
About Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is the world's leading music company with wholly owned record operations or licensees in 59 countries around the world. Its businesses also include Universal Music Publishing Group, one of the industry's largest global music publishing operations.
Universal Music Group consists of record labels A&M Records, Decca Record Company, Deutsche Grammophon, Geffen Records, Interscope Records, Island Def Jam Music Group, Jimmy and Doug's Farmclub.com, MCA Nashville, MCA Records, Mercury Records, Motown Records, Philips, Polydor, Universal Records, and Verve Music Group as well as a multitude of record labels owned or distributed by its record company subsidiaries around the world. The Universal Music Group owns the most extensive catalog of music in the industry that is marketed through two distinct divisions, Universal Music Enterprises (in the U.S.) and UM3 (outside the U.S.).
Universal Music Group is a unit of The Seagram Company Ltd., a global entertainment and spirits and wine company.
About ClickRadio
ClickRadio's free, personalizable, advertiser-supported, Internet-enhanced, digital radio service delivers CD-quality music in 35 popular categories. Music fans can customize programming put together by ClickRadio's all-star team of MusicGuides.
ClickRadio works whether listeners are offline or on. Music -- and fan-friendly information about the artists -- is stored efficiently on listeners' hard drives and updated automatically when an Internet connection is detected.
Based in New York, and founded in 1998, ClickRadio has received funding from respected venture capital firms including Sierra, Telesoft and iHatch. The service will launch in May and its software will be widely distributed.
Hank Williams, the Founder and CEO of ClickRadio, developed ClickRadio's patent-pending, proprietary technology. Veteran music industry attorney, David Benjamin, is Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of ClickRadio. For more information about ClickRadio, visit clickradio.com or e-mail info@clickradio.com.
Contact: Stuart Fischer, 212-484-7758, Sfischer@rlmnet.com; or Cristina
DelSesto, 212-381-9009, cristina.del.sesto@clickradio.com, both
for ClickRadio; or Bob Bernstein of Universal Music Group,
818-777-0589, bob.bernstein@umusic.com.
SOURCE: ClickRadio, Inc.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
