Interactive One and Songza Launch BlackPlanet Radio, the First Social Radio Website for the African-American Consumer

NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Interactive One, the largest digital media company serving Black Americans and a subsidiary of Radio One, announced this week a partnership with Songza, a leading streaming music service, to launch BlackPlanet Radio, the digital industry's first social radio website targeted towards African Americans. BlackPlanetRadio.com allows users to discover new music in a variety of ways, as well as create playlists from a library of more than 14.5 million songs to share with their social network communities.

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"BlackPlanet Radio makes creating music playlists more fun by allowing users to play DJ and share their creations with their online friends, for free from their desktop browser or via our mobile iPhone and Android apps," said Tom Newman, President, Interactive One. "Personal expression and connecting with friends is the essence of BlackPlanet.com and this new extension of the social networking site is a great way for people to connect online through music."

Targeted towards African-American consumers, the new service is integrated with Facebook and BlackPlanet.com, the definitive social network for Black America, allowing users to express themselves and help their friends discover great new music. BlackPlanet Radio will feature digital streams from Radio One's network of 53 radio stations, as well as playlists created by thousands of experts and figures from across the Radio One family of brands including radio station DJs, artists, celebrities, site editors and contributors, and music experts among others.

"For generations, radio has served as an integral part of the Black American experience and BlackPlanet Radio is the digital extension of that cultural pillar," said Barry Mayo, President, Radio One. "We are already leaders in digital streaming as the 12th largest audio streaming company in the country. BlackPlanet Radio will build on this leadership by taking radio's concept of music curated by people and shared with communities, and bringing it to the Web in a way that will connect our audiences more deeply. We believe the best digital music radio services will tap into people and communities -- not just rely on algorithms.  BlackPlanet Radio is all about the users."

Social Music Discovery

BlackPlanet Radio is a community-based site that saves busy music lovers time by making music discovery easy and engaging. BlackPlanet Radio is free and allows users to browse, create and curate music playlists organized by a wide range of activities, genres, moods, decades and more.

BlackPlanet Radio keeps a record of what playlists have been listened to in the past and saves favorite playlists to each account holder's personal and sharable music collection. Collections can be shared with friends and organized by era, activity, mood, genre or any other category. Users who log in to BlackPlanet Radio with their Facebook account can organize their favorite radio stations and playlists all in one place and can see what their friends are listening to in real-time.

A Platform Partnership

Songza offers brands an efficient and effective way to have a social music experience perfectly tailored to their audience. BlackPlanet Radio brings together Songza's powerful music streaming platform, which makes it incredibly easy for users to find an expert-made playlist for anything, and Interactive One's expertise in the African-American digital space including its access to some of Black America's most prominent figures and influencers.

"Music is a powerful way for brands to engage with their audience," said Elliott Breece, Chief Product Officer, Songza. "BlackPlanet Radio leverages Songza's platform and BlackPlanet's trusted brand to deliver an incredibly relevant and compelling streaming experience. We're thrilled to see it go live today."

To experience BlackPlanet Radio, visit www.BlackPlanetRadio.com.

ABOUT INTERACTIVE ONE

Interactive One has more than 15 million members and reaches millions of Black Americans each month. With approximately 3 billion annual page views on its suite of sites, the company has become the definitive social network for Black America through BlackPlanet, as well as a number of leading content sites.  These sites include: NewsOne (http://www.NewsOne.com), which provides up to the minute, comprehensive coverage of newsworthy events relevant to Black Americans across the country and the world; TheGrio (http://www.TheGrio.com), a video-centric interactive community and division of NBC News that provides original content on topics ranging from breaking news and politics to health, business, and entertainment; TheUrbanDaily (http://www.TheUrbanDaily.com), the eyes and ears for Black Americans looking for what's hot online, on the airwaves, in theaters, and on the street; HelloBeautiful (http://www.HelloBeautiful.com), the definitive lifestyle resource for today's Black woman; and Elev8 (http://www.Elev8.com) a site devoted to elevating the mind, body and spirit.

Interactive One was launched by Radio One in 2008 to complement Radio One's existing portfolio of media companies targeting the African-American community. Since its launch, Interactive One has quickly become the #1 online platform for the African-American community.  Interactive One is powered by the mission to create an online community that engages and positively impacts the lives of African Americans.

ABOUT RADIO ONE

Radio One, Inc. (www.radio-one.com) is a diversified media company that primarily targets African-American and urban consumers. The Company is one of the nation's largest radio broadcasting companies, currently owning or operating 54 broadcast stations located in 16 urban markets in the United States. As a part of its core broadcasting business, Radio One operates syndicated programming including the Russ Parr Morning Show, the Yolanda Adams Morning Show, the Rickey Smiley Morning Show, CoCo Brother Live, CoCo Brother's "Spirit" program, Bishop T.D. Jakes' "Empowering Moments", the Reverend Al Sharpton Show, and the Warren Ballentine Show. The Company also owns a controlling interest in Reach Media, Inc. (www.blackamericaweb.com), owner of the Tom Joyner Morning Show and other businesses associated with Tom Joyner. Beyond its core radio broadcasting business, Radio One owns Interactive One (www.interactiveone.com), an online platform serving the African-American community through social content, news, information, and entertainment, which operates a number of branded sites, including NewsOne, TheUrbanDaily, HelloBeautiful, and social network BlackPlanet, and an interest in TV One, LLC (www.tvoneonline.com), a cable/satellite network programming primarily to African-Americans.

ABOUT SONGZA

Songza is a free streaming music service that has expert-made playlists for everything and makes it outrageously easy to find the right one, at the right time. Like a music concierge, Songza helps you discover and save playlists that are the perfect soundtrack for any activity, mood, or occasion. Headquartered in Long Island City, NY, Songza is built by the team that founded crowd-priced MP3 download store AmieStreet.com in 2006 from their dorms at Brown University. Songza is available on the web at www.Songza.com and as an application on the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android platform.

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SOURCE Interactive One