With all the attention that Pandora and Spotify get as the leaders of the music streaming market, it’s easy to forget about smaller services like iHeartRadio. The word “smaller” is barely even applicable too, especially now that iHeartRadio has more than 70 million registered users. It’s important to note that “registered” doesn’t necessarily mean these users pay any money, in fact, it doesn’t even mean that they’re active. Even so, that number is nothing to sneeze at, and it’s good to see that even the smaller music streaming services are growing.
Services like Pandora, Spotify and whatever Apple is working on tend to get most of the headlines, but iHeartRadio says it has been building a big audience of its own — specifically 70 million registered users. The streaming music service was created by radio giant Clear Channel, which rebranded as iHeartMedia last year. iHeartRadio allows users to listen to live radio stations, as well as creating their own custom stations. One point of pride: The fact that it only took less than four years (1,361 days, specifically) to reach the 70 million number, which it says is faster than any other streaming music service. It’s only been six months since iHeartRadio announced that hit 60 million users. iHeartRadio’s General Manager Owen Grover said one of the big sources of growth has been “eating our own cooking,” namely promoting the app on iHeartMedia’s traditional radio stations. He argued that this illustrates the personal relationship that the company and its on-air personalities have developed with listeners.
