Song Skipping For Online Radio Streams

RADIO ONLINE | Thursday, February 7, 2013

New technology from Abacast means listeners will now be able to skip songs they don't want to hear while listening to live radio stations online. Abacast says the service brings to market a feature that listeners have desired since the dawn of radio.

The patent pending song-skipping technology is code-named "Hammer." Jim Kott, Abacast's Senior VP of Products and Marketing explains, "If someone wants to skip a song when listening to live radio, up until now they would simply switch to a different station. Abacast's live stream song skipping technology lengthens listening times and should grow audiences on stations that utilize it. Abacast plans to release detailed metrics regarding average listening time and audience growth shortly after the skip feature is released in Q2 2013."

Basically, when a listener chooses to skip a song that is currently being played, another song from the station's playlist will be played immediately and in its entirety. Hammer's individualized buffering and insertion functionality ensures that the rest of the stream, including songs, DJ's, and commercials, is played seamlessly and in its entirety as well.

The technology also opens the door for unique advertising opportunities to the listener being engaged with the player when choosing to skip songs.

Federated Media will be the first to test the service and James Derby, Chief Strategy Officer said, "We are excited to participate in the beta release of live stream song skipping. With consumers having more choices than ever today, we feel that song skipping will differentiate us from our competitors and more importantly provide our customers and clients a better listening experience."