TuneIn adds premium option

LOS ANGELES - TuneIn, the popular radio app, is going premium.

Tuesday it introduced a new paid option for folks interested in sports, audiobooks and commercial free radio stations. The fee is $7.99 monthly, with a free 30-day trial.

CEO John Donham likens his move to taking on satellite radio with an app, without having to link to satellites in the sky.

"It’s a digital version of satellite, that can work worldwide,” he says.

TuneIn Premium has 40,000 audio books, 600 commercial-free music stations and sports from Major League Baseball.

Sports is by far the most popular programming on TuneIn, with top stations including ESPN Radio, New York’s WFAN and digital station talkSPORT.

Donham says sports fans wanted more content from TuneIn, and since most of it is tied up with rights issues, he needed to go premium to get it to his customers.

Users will find Premium from within the TuneIn app, which has 60 million unique monthly listeners, 100,000 streaming radio stations and 5.7 million podcasts. They can also sign up at the TuneIn.com website.

With over 2 billion hours of programming listened to on TuneIn so far this year, Donham says radio is stronger than ever.

“More than 90% of the planet consumes radio every week,” he says. “More people listen to the radio than know how to read.”

(Paste BN has an on-demand channel on TuneIn, and #talkingtechLIVE airs live on TuneIn every Thursday at 8 pm ET.)

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