iHeart’s TikTok Trending expands into radio segment on The Edge
The partnership between ARN and TikTok has expanded, with TikTok Trending getting a slot on The Edge.
TikTok Trending launched in April as a pop-up music station on ARN’s iHeartRadio. It endeavoured to showcase the music and artists taking off on TikTok, as well as the tracks experiencing a revival due to viral trends or rediscovery from different generations.
At the time, iHeartRadio’s local content director, Brett ‘Nozz’ Nossiter, said no radio consultant on the planet would make a radio station out of the “beautiful, chaotic, cacophony of music” that emerges from TikTok – but that’s what made the prospect so exciting.
Yet the “radio teppanyaki”, as Nossiter described it, now has a spot on traditional radio, with ARN’s The Edge set to feature the program each Friday morning.
The segment will premiere in the Mike E & Emma Breakfast Show, and feature “some of Australia’s hottest DJs”, including Paris Lawrence. The segment will aim to deliver weekend vibes and the official music trends each Friday, and encore versions will be features across the weekend and into the following week.
In addition, trending tracks from TikTok will be played on KIIS 106.5 each weeknight.
The station has also launched in New Zealand in collaboration with NZME.
ARN’s head of digital audio, Corey Layton, said TikTok Trending on iHeartRadio has already been a hugely successful collaboration, delivering audiences the hottest content straight from creators.
“We’re excited to extend the partnership with the launch of TikTok Trending on The Edge and the expansion in New Zealand with NZME,” he added. “The Edge is a proven launchpad for new music and artists – we know that the audience will love kicking off the weekend with this content.”
Ollie Wards, director of music at TikTok Australia and New Zealand, said: “TikTok Trending on iHeartRadio is a great listen when you want to stay on the TikTok buzz, but your eyes are busy. We’re excited to now bring our best trending tracks to The Edge each week, plus to all my whānau at home in NZ.”
Wards previously told TMN that ARN and iHeart were the perfect partners, because they’re leaders in digital audio and have unmatched experience in creating pop-up stations and music streaming content.
He also noted he’d always believed creators, tech platforms, social media giants and traditional media outlets should work together more to get the best out of each other and reach more potential consumers.
“I’ve always said that I think every platform creates an environment. And, all of the different platforms provide something towards that environment that has some synchronistic relationship. And it’s better to engage with audiences in a multi-platform context where you’re reaching out to them and they’re able to engage in you and lots of different touchpoints, and this is just a reflection of that. It’s good practise from iHeart’s point of view, and it’s good practice from TikTok’s point of view to deepen the relationship,” he told TMN.
“So I’ve always been a proponent of not putting up a fence around your platform and pretending that your users don’t exist in the world where they’re interacting with other platforms. It’s just an opportunity for us to, when they’re wanting to listen to the radio, they’ve got a TikTok-style station to engage with.”
The Edge has also been flagging its intentions to do things a little differently in recent months.
The station hired Emily Copeland as general manager in August in a bid to “inject some fresh, strategic energy” into the brand.
At the time, ARN noted it and Copeland had a “tone of exciting things planned” for the station.
Last month, it further bolstered the youth-focused station, bringing music industry veterans Marty Doyle and Andy Walsh on board as head of content and head of commercial strategy, respectively.
Doyle said he was looking forward to creating a new vision for The Edge “that is rooted in innovation and discovery”.
TikTok Trending debuted on DAB+ in Survey 4 with a cumulative audience of 128,000.