I OH YOU, UNFD, Mushroom team with Rdio for Label Stations feature

In March, Rdio quietly introduced a series of Label Stations in the US, UK and Canada. Curated by labels themselves, the feature proved to be a powerful tool for brand awareness and discovery. Last night, the streaming service announced the official launch of Label Stations, adding Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil and territories in Asia.

Rdio’s nine label and influencer stations in Australia are Create /Control, Def Jam, DewProcess, Domino, I OH YOU!, Liberation, Mushroom, Rice Is Nice and UNFD.

Speaking to TMN, Rdio’s Head of Artist & Label Relations Joe Armenia said that while other streaming services, including Rdio, feature label profiles, exclusiveplaylists and sharedcontent across their social channels, Label Stations offers a point of difference.

“This opportunity for our label partners is more than justmaintaining a profile or makingplaylists on a service – it’s ultimately a tool for the labels themselves to market their content to all users, including free users, and to maintain their position as arespected tastemaker totheirfollowers.

“We expect to grow these stations into even bigger platforms for labels to offer original and unique content, promote timely releases, and, above all, become a real extension of their brand.”

Brisbane-based label Dew Process said in a statement: “Label stations are a great way for fans to get a taste of a label’s personality. It gives them a chance to discover music ranging from the most established acts to exciting up-and-comers.”

Rdio plans to add the feature in all of the 85 territories where the service is available on an ongoing basis. It will also feature a new tool called Rdio DJ, developed for creating and curating Internet radio stations and sharing them with listeners.

Armenia told TMN the focus is on consumer brands and because of this, Label Stations won’t feature the major labels.

“Each of the majors has their own branded playlist franchise, and we work with those as well, but stations are a bit different, most especially for those new to streaming or online radio,” Armenia said. “For those people, the entire concept of streaming is a bit intimidating, so we think there is a lot of value in being able to offer them stations that are curated by their favourite and most respectedmusicbrands.

“For some labels, their name alone is synonymous with a genre or aspecificsound,” he added. “That’s the appeal of global names like Def Jam or Domino; people trust them and understand their brand and to some extent, their legacy. Then you have local partners like Dew Process because that kind of name means a lot to music fans in Australia. Above all, we wanted tointroducelabel stations that felt really credible and authentic.”

The US launch of Label Stations in March saw Rdio partner with 20 labels including Astralwerks, MUTE, Sub Pop and Warner Music Nashville. Armenia told TMN the US ‘soft launch’ formed the blueprint for last night’s global launch.

“Because radio was very new for us, we didn’t have a way to measure success. We also couldn’t adequatelyestimate the level of involvement and commitment needed from the labels,” he said. “We needed to have real-time feedback on what it meant for the labels to actually have an ‘official’ radio station and to determine best practices for promoting them to our shared fans.

“Initial reaction from many labels was really positive, and they really rallied around promoting the stations and the idea of growing audience,” Armenia continued. “Once a handful of really invested label partners started seeing the possibilities, we had a common vision for what these could become. And then we set out to make this a global priority.”

Label Stations is available across all of Rdio's tiers, including free, Rdio Unlimited and Rdio Select.