There is so much talk in the e-streets about TIDAL vs. Spotify vs. (now) Apple music, yet Dash Radio is not only free but curated by real DJ’s opposed to a generic algorithm as well. Just saying.
The newly launched app is now one million users strong and they’re turning the page on the takeover.
Read the fine print below.
Renown radio and TV host DJ Skee today announced that his Dash Radio network has emerged from beta and is now officially live, backed by 1 million listeners, more than 60 curator-led channels, and an impressive stable of investors and advisors. Dash Radio is available now on iOS and Android.
Dash Radio is a curator-led digital broadcast platform that merges the best of terrestrial radio and Internet radio to create an entirely new category targeting the $18 billion radio broadcast market. Replacing radio towers and satellites with smartphones and apps, Dash Radio draws on the democratizing power of the Internet to bring radio back to its roots, benefitting both artists and fans alike.
“Both corporate radio and Internet radio alike have made the mistake of replacing the element of human curation,” said DJ Skee. “Terrestrial radio did so with politics and money, Internet radio with algorithms and playlists. Broadcast radio is meant to be both curated and communal; where real humans dictate the music played for millions of listeners who experience it together, at the same time, in real time. That is the promise that Dash Radio delivers.”
Dash Radio draws on the power of terrestrial radio’s origins by handing control over programming to the curator… the DJ. Featuring more than 60 different channels from the likes of Snoop Dogg, Odd Future and Mac Miller, among others, each Dash Radio curator has 100% control over the music played on that channel.
Unlike most Internet radio services, Dash Radio uses no algorithms, no playlists, no simulcasts. Each channel, broadcast live over the Internet, is heard by all listeners at the same time, in real time, ad free. It requires no special equipment, and has no subscription fee.
The result is a commercial-free music platform that is to radio what multi-channel networks (MCNs) are to video. Dash operates as a radio MCN that provides a direct connection between artists, DJs and fans. Dash Radio is doing to broadcast radio what Uber is doing to the taxi business.
This vision has drawn a powerful lineup of investors and advisors with $2 million in seed funding, with a Series A planned for the near future. They include Facebook alumni Kevin Colleran, Dave Morin, & Sam Lassen’s Slow Ventures, former Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow, artist Ryan Leslie & DMM, influential attorney Orin Snyder, Start It Labs, Backplane co-founder Matt Michelsen, NFL MVP Adrian Peterson, NBA star Ronny Turiaf, and the law firm of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati. Advisors include music manager and former Interscope head of marketing Chris Clancy, G.O.O.D. Music president Che Pope, East Village Radio GM Peter Ferraro, music publicist Kathryn Frazier, Skee TV’s Ryan Tomlinson, and radio imaging company Benztown.
“Radio is statistically the most powerful way music is consumed and remains the No. 1 way to discover music,” said DJ Skee. “Although 96% of the country still listens to radio, nearly 80% are dissatisfied with the experience. Dash Radio aims to rekindle radio’s power by removing the corporate forces that ruined it and placing control back into the hands of those responsible for radio’s early success-the DJ.”
Download Dash Radio for iPhone and Android here.
