Internet radio provider Slacker is bulldozing the thin line dividing itself from subscription-based music services today, with the launch of Radio Plus. The new pricing tier joins the existing gratis Basic Radio and ad-free Premium Radio plans, adding an all-you-can-eat music model akin to services like Rhapsody and Rdio. Subscribers who shell out $9.99 a month receive all of the features of the $4.99 Premium Radio users, plus unlimited access to eight million songs, letting them listen to what they want, when the want, and generally play god with the site's existing radio services. Radio Plus also gives you on- and offline access to music on a number of mobile devices, including the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android, and BlackBerry handsets -- not to mention unlimited bragging rights to all of your broke friends who are still rocking the Basic Radio plan. Don't feel too bad for 'em, though -- at least they didn't get suckered into slotRadio.
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Slacker Radio Launches Slacker Premium with On-Demand Access to Slacker Music Library
SAN DIEGO – May, 17 2011 – Slacker, Inc. today launched Slacker Premium Radio,
a new tier of service that provides music lovers with on-demand access to the Slacker music library including individual songs, albums, top charts, station playlists, single- artist radio stations and more. Slacker Premium takes the power, functionality and music discovery that Slacker Radio provides and combines it with the flexibility of integrated on-demand access for a new tier of service that provides the best of all worlds. Slacker Premium is available today on the web, and as new applications for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android and BlackBerry smartphones. The new applications deliver features for all listeners, including free listeners, subscribers to Slacker Radio Plus and now subscribers to Slacker Premium Radio.
With the launch of Slacker Premium Radio, Slacker becomes the first music service to deliver three complementary tiers. From the entirely free Slacker Basic Radio service, to the ad-free and feature-rich Slacker Radio Plus and now on-demand access with Slacker Premium Radio, Slacker meets the needs of all music fans. Whether listeners prefer a superior free personal radio experience or the power of a fully-loaded music subscription service, Slacker is the only offering to provide the full suite of options.
Slacker Premium Radio enables listeners to search, play and replay specific songs and entire albums from the Slacker library, which features over 8 million songs, as well as easy access to top songs and artists from each of the 150+ expert-programmed Slacker genre stations. Listeners also have the ability to create specific playlists both on mobile and on the web, and even experience off-line playback through the ability to cache stations, playlists and entire albums.
A new Slacker station creator provides all listeners the ability to quickly and easily create multi-artist stations, with custom fine-tuning features for the perfect radio experience. All Slacker listeners also have the ability to create a radio experience ranging from stations based on a single artist to stations created by entering hundreds of hand-picked artists. In addition, Slacker Premium listeners can create and enjoy stations that will only play songs from a single chosen artist or band.
In addition to the ability to search the entire Slacker catalog, the new Slacker Premium Radio service gives listeners more ways to browse stations than ever before, allowing an even deeper music discovery experience. Listeners can now browse expert hand- programmed genre stations to search and play top artists, view and play top songs and albums, allowing behind the scenes access to the "Top 50" charts for every station. The Slacker Premium Radio interface also includes all-new artist pages, featuring the artist biography, all songs by the artist, discography and related artists in addition to displaying on which Slacker stations each artist is programmed, for the ultimate artist access.
"Up until this point there has been an array of 'Internet radio' and 'on-demand'
services with much debate about which is better from a content, experience and
technology perspective," said Jonathan Sasse, senior vice president of marketing
at Slacker. "Slacker Premium Radio provides music lovers with the best of both. We
believe the combination of a world class radio service providing music discovery up front with on-demand access to any song and entire albums is the winning combo."
Slacker Radio offers a fully customizable and personal online radio experience that
includes the most varied and compelling range of content offered by any Internet radio service. The Slacker Radio experience includes over 150 expert-programmed music stations, ABC news, comedy, custom artist-hosted showcase stations and leading music festival stations along with personalized ESPN Sports content integration coming soon. With a music catalog that is over ten times larger than the leading radio competitor, Slacker Radio gives listeners the ultimate music discovery resource.
Slacker Premium Radio:
• Search, play and replay specific songs or entire albums
• Create specific playlists on mobile and on the web
• Off-line playback of stations, playlists and albums on the iPad, iPhone and iPod
touch, Android and BlackBerry smartphones
• Replay specific songs on programmed and custom stations
• Browse and play "Favorite" songs, now collected in one location
• Unlimited song skipping
• Ad-free listening
• Complete song lyrics†
• Browse Top Charts on all Slacker genre stations
• "Peek Ahead" artist, album and song preview
• Ability to skip forward and backward
