AOL links up with Last.fm to enhance youth appeal

by Andrew McCormick, Media Week 07-May-08, 07:30

LONDON - AOL has taken another step in its bid to become a portal destination, by creating AOL Radio through a deal with social music site Last.fm.

AOL is focusing increasingly on ad sales and moving away from the internet access business, following the sale of several of its ISP businesses around the world.

The Time Warner-owned firm has run radio in the past, based on in-house technology, but has opted for a partnership with Last.fm to bring a youthful audience to its site.

Users of AOL Radio will be able to listen to artistes, create custom radio stations and listen to recommended stations without having to sign up.

Most of the features of Last.fm will be available to AOL Radio listeners, bar some social media tools.

AOL will sell ads around the service, hoping that the nature of music and social media leads to young people spending more time on its portal, thereby increasing the value of its inventory.

With the ink barely dry on AOL's acquisition of Bebo for £417m - the proposed acquisition is still to officially go through - the dual developments are firm evidence that AOL is aggressively pursuing a youth audience.

Last.fm, a UK site founded in 2003 to fulfil a growing desire to listen to music online, claims to reach 20 million users. CBS Radio, owned by Time Warner rival Viacom, paid £140m for Last.fm in May 2007 and has now embarked on a drive to generate more income from the social media site.

Last.fm has signed deals with tabloid newspaper titles Der Spiegel and Bild in Germany and supports BBC Radio's pop music charts. The AOL Radio deal is, however, Last.fm's biggest partnership to date. The social music site may as much as double its UK reach following the deal.

The new AOL Radio is expected to be announced this week. Last.fm and AOL declined to comment.

Comments

james smith - 07/05/2008

CBS Radio is not owned by Viacom It is owned by CBS funnily enough

Paul Lomax - 07/05/2008

From Wikipedia: In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, which coincidentally had begun as a spin-off of CBS in 1971. In late 2005, Viacom split itself and reestablished CBS Corporation with the CBS television network at its core. CBS Corporation and the new Viacom are controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, the parent of the two companies. So same difference really :)