Personalization Features include Recommendation Engine, Searchable Audio, Playlists, Play/Pause/Rewind Functionality for up to Three Hours and More

On Friday, ESPNRadio.com introduced a new digital audio player allowing fans the ability to build their own custom sports audio experience through ESPN Audio NOW.  Driving the core of its personalization features is the new ESPN Audio recommendation engine.  Leveraging ESPN’s searchable audio, the new player will record fan’s preferences based on previously listened to content and offer suggested content without any user interaction.  As a fan continues to interact with the new player, it will learn more about a fan’s favorite content and become more accurate in its offerings.

“ESPN Audio NOW is our latest and most advanced offering in the evolution of our digital audio platforms,” said Marc Horine, Vice President, Digital Partnerships & Sales Development, ESPN.  “Keeping personalization features at the core of this new player in addition to enhancing audio quality, we aim to reach sports fans at work with our most innovative audio experience, while also collaborating with advertisers to deliver new and unique experiences and treatments.”

In addition to news, stories, columns, videos and photos, searchable audio allows users to find specific audio content by matching search terms from hundreds of tags on the latest sound bites marked daily for a particular topic.  The biggest news headlines and topics are timestamped within the digital audio segments so that fans can automatically access the start of a specific search topic, keeping the content relevant, to the point and easy for fans to consume.  By searching specific audio content, fans are able to build a personal playlist.  Additionally, Search Trends also offers the most popular search terms available for a quick and easy way to access new and relevant content.

Featured podcast content will also be available from both an Editors’ Picks section and a PodCenter module.  Additionally, listeners who may have missed the beginning of their favorite programs will now be able to use Instant Rewind, a unique DVR-like functionality feature that allows the user to rewind up to 3 hours without having to pre-record the program.

Other features in the new ESPN Audio NOW player includes:

• 30 live streams including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Cleveland, Milwaukee and more;
• Access to over 100 podcasts including the award-winning B.S. Report with Bill Simmons and Fantasy Focus Football; and
• Social media integration with Facebook and Twitter;

The new ESPN Audio NOW player is now available at https://espn.go.com/espnradio/play.

ESPNRadio.com is the most listened to live stream of any terrestrial broadcaster in the world – reaching almost two million unique listeners per month, more than double what it was the previous year (source: Ando Media).  It was also the largest, most listened to talk format stream, both terrestrially and via Internet-only streaming, generating nearly 10 million total sessions per month, up 33%.  Most recently, the ESPN Radio app was named Best Radio App by Radio Ink Magazine at the Digital Convergence Awards in May 2011.

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