TuneIn is partnering with Amazon Alexa to bring TuneIn Premium to all Alexa-enabled devices. It’s part of Amazon’s strategy to take on Spotify with live radio and sports.
Alexa customers will have access to the entirety of the TuneIn Premium content library. That includes live sports, commercial-free news, commercial-free music, and more. Sports fans can hear their favorite team’s games just by saying, “Alexa, listen to sports.” To celebrate the partnership, all Alexa device owners are eligible for a free three-month trial.
After the trial period, customers can become TuneIn subscribers for $9.99/month to continue accessing TuneIn Premium content. Existing TuneIn Premium subscribers will be given the option to link their accounts to take advantage of the Alexa partnership.
“TuneIn aims to be anywhere listening is occurring. In launching TuneIn Premium on Alexa, we deliver on this mission and enable TuneIn and Alexa customers easy access to an expansive catalog of premium content to stay well-informed and entertained,” says Richard Stern, CEO of TuneIn.
“This is just one of the many developments we have in our product pipeline in the smart home device space as we look ahead,” Stern adds. “Through this collaboration with Alexa, listeners can easily listen to their favorite TuneIn Premium shows and stations with a simple voice command.”
Ben Shepherd, Audio Director for Amazon Alexa adds, “We’re excited to bring TuneIn’s robust catalog of premium audio to Alexa customers, giving them even more ways to interact with their favorite audio content from all around the world. Just in time for baseball season, customers can now easily find and listen to live games simply by asking Alexa.
TuneIn is available in more than 100 countries across the globe on a variety of connected devices. This partnership will expand its library of content to Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem – which is the dominant smart speaker ecosystem. It will be interesting to see how this partnership helps Amazon tackle Spotify’s dominance. Spotify recently relaunched its Greenroom app as Spotify Live to focus on live radio shows.