Woolworths will have its own radio station from today, similar to Coles’ partnership with Nova (Coles Radio). According to radioinfo, Woolworths will stream specially curated, exclusive Pandora stations in more than 970 supermarkets every day of the week. The new digital station will be known as Woolworths Radio - powered by Pandora.
Hardly surprising as Mood Media have a dedicated Pandora Streaming Device the Profusion iO that has been available in the USA for sometime. Their existing Profusion iS players can also be upgraded for Pandora support.
The Profusion iS can also offer iHeartRadio but according to the website it doesn’t appear to be available in Australia.
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Apologies if this has been posted before, but a look at Coles Radio 
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I get that this article has its tongue sitting in its cheek, but you’d think even a beginner journalist could perform a simple google search. Surely NOVA are going to give you more interesting answers, and IMO overall makes for a more interesting article - a traditional radio company dedicating resources to supermarkets, and programming with the same thought and precision that they do Sydney or Mebourne’s biggest radio stations.
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I noticed today that Supercheap Auto’s in-store radio plays ABC bulletins.
I walked in right at 11am and thought they were playing the ABC News Channel over the speakers.
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A mate sent me these recent pics of a Mood Media Profusion iS background music player that a particular Woolworths is using (assuming all Woolies are using the same) that still sports instructions from the Pandora licensing venture from a few years ago…
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You use to be able to change between woolworths and bws radio on those units. Woolworths have since switched to Stingray. Dan Murphys for example have 2 channels to choose from both. One is a Buddha style playlist and the other one is a classic hits format with both playing Dan Murphys Radio IDs.
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Woolworths and Mood Media will be partnering with ARN to deliver an expanded and improved in-store radio service. The new Woolworths Radio will tailor music to customer demographics with consideration given to location of store and time of day. The station will also be heard on ARN’s iHeartRadio streaming service.
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Surely Woolworths, Mood Media and ARN would all have to be seriously thinking about putting the new “Woolworths Radio” on DAB+ especially with the success Nova has had with Coles Radio in recent years?
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Wonder who’s bright idea it is at Woolworths to spend money on something that doesn’t need fixing?
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How will that work if it’s a tailored radio service for any given store and yet still be heard on iHeartradio? Will each store’s stream be available on iHeart or will it just be a state based stream (like Coles)?
Sounds to me like Woolies will continue to use the existing Mood Media ProFusion players in store for program delivery and yet also offer a state or national branded stream on iHeartradio (like Chemist Warehouse & Club Lime Radio).
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Or it’s just PR jargon and by demographic and location they mean state.
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It was on iHeartRadio last night.
Not currently available on DAB+ (at least in Sydney), but it’s probably only a matter of time.
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Regarding Woolworths radio, I was in my local Woolies this morning and checked the iHeartradio app and Reef’s Place your hands was playing on both the app and over the PA so I’m assuming local spots are just inserted for localisation.
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Was anyone in a store today where they broadcast a Remembrance Day announcement? My place of work certainly did, a large well attended community facility. We broadcast a special announcement. I play it out manually via a PA rack.
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Where’s the benefit for ARN to sell 30secs of airtime when you could sell the 15secs for the cost of 30secs as a premium campaign?
As a regular patron of Bunnings, I’ve become familiar with their in-store music which has been popular classic hits from very familiar artists like Elton John et al.
Recently, however, there has been a change. On my visits, I haven’t heard any popular songs by popular artists. There has been an occasional track I recognise, but not necessarily the singer.
In short, I am guessing this is a cost cutting exercise and that a lot of this music is lower royalty cost or even royalty free if that is possible.
Last year I was tasked with finding a BGM provider for a large Public building and solicited proposals from several of the leading suppliers. The “covers” type channel offerings were significantly cheaper than the major label licensed ones so multiply that across all the stores for a national chain and that’ll be a huge saving for them. And let’s be honest those 360° dome speakers most Bunnings feature are seldom loud enough to even properly make out what’s being played anyway (at least the ones I’ve frequented).
As a side note I went with the cheapest overall with the most diverse channel offering which happened to be Mood Media.
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