AOL Radio

Slashgear is reporting webcaster Slacker Radio will soon hold an event "to reveal a complete overhaul of the service."

Slacker, one of the country's leading webcasters (after Pandora, Clear Channel's iHeartRadio, and now Cumulus stations), has made the effort to widen access to its service (see RAIN here), including deals with Microsoft for the Xbox 360, Sprint for the "Entertain Me" app bundle on mobile devices, and Chrysler with Uconnect. Yet Slacker hasn't seen major audience growth since it picked up the Aol Radio channels (see RAIN here), in October of 2011.

"A PR representative for Slacker told us that the company will launch a major overhaul of the radio service in order to better compete with Spotify and other popular music-streaming services," Slashgear reports. "The service will see a refocusing of its efforts, and the redesign and restructuring will be completely different than what the service is currently all about."

Read more here (and, h/t to Tom Taylor, who covers it today here).

ABC News Radio has partnered with TargetSpot to deliver online advertising on ABC News audio content. TargetSpot will deliver in-stream audio, video and display ads within ABC News Radio's web content.

"This new relationship gives advertisers the opportunity to sponsor audio versions of Good Morning America, Nightline, World News with Diane Sawyer along with our comprehensive coverage of news and entertainment," said ABC News Radio GM and VP Steve Jones (who recently spoke at RAIN Summit West 2012).

ABC News Radio also has digital partnerships with Slacker and AOL Radio (RAIN coverage here).

AOL today relaunched AOL Radio, now powered by personalizable pureplay webcaster Slacker. AOL Radio announced in late June it would migrate away from CBS Radio and partner with Slacker (RAIN coverage here).

The new AOL Radio includes about half the audio advertising it previously had, now playing about 3 minutes of advertising per hour. The cut was announced by AOL Radio General Manager Lisa Namerow at RAIN Summit Chicago. (read more here)

Microsoft is enticing consumers to try its Windows Internet Explorer 9 web browser with free trials of premium music services like Slacker Radio, Aol Radio, Pandora, and Grooveshark (and other premium services).

Right now, U.S. consumers who download and install IE9 can get 3 free months of Slacker's and AOL Radio's subscription services. Over the coming weeks, the offerings will expand to include a free month of Grooveshark and Pandora, plus free trials of video services Hulu and Vimeo, and more (see image). 

You'll need to have the Windows 7 operating system (necessary for IE9), and you need to be a U.S. resident to get the deal. Go to BeautyoftheWeb.com to download Windows Internet Explorer 9, click on the prize of your choosing and follow the instructions, including pinning the icon to the taskbar and sharing on Facebook or Twitter.

AOL today relaunched AOL Radio, now powered by personalizable pureplay webcaster Slacker. AOL Radio announced in late June it would migrate away from CBS Radio and partner with Slacker (RAIN coverage here).

The new AOL Radio includes about half the audio advertising it previously had, now playing about 3 minutes of advertising per hour. The cut was announced by AOL Radio General Manager Lisa Namerow at RAIN Summit Chicago (find video coverage here).

The service also now offers Slacker's personalization features, non-music content from ESPN Radio and (soon) ABC Radio, plus subscription plans that remove ads and offer on-demand features (read more on Slacker's subscription services here).

Namerow told Bloomberg the new features and reduced ad-load is aimed at "reversing a 25% drop in AOL Radio users from a year ago." AOL Radio attracts around 3 million users a month, according to Namerow (more here).

The new AOL Radio can be found online here. AOL Radio also released a new iPhone app, with an Android version due before the end of the year.