FEATURE/AccuHolidays Launches World's First Multichannel All-Christmas-Music Internet Radio Station

Business Wire, Nov 25, 2003

Entertainment Editors/Feature Editors

FEATURE...

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 25, 2003

Showcasing a breadth and depth of music that only Internet radio is technically capable of offering, "AccuHolidays" (www.accuholidays.com) launches on Thanksgiving Day (11/27), offering a banquet of 26 different channels of Christmas music.

Artists featured on AccuHolidays.com range from legends like Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald to contemporary performers like Christina Aguilera, the John Pizzarelli Trio, and Coldplay.

The 26 channels include an all-rock channel, an all-pop channel, all-R&B channel, an all-jazz channel, and an all-country channel.

Furthermore, in a unique twist to radio programming, AccuHolidays offers several "song-specific" channels -- for example, a station that plays nothing but dozens of versions of "Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!" by artists ranging from Chet Atkins to Wynton Marsalis.

Another channel, "Blue and White Christmas," mixes dozens of different versions of "Blue Christmas" (including Elvis's) and "White Christmas" (including Bing's).

AccuHolidays is a spin-off of AccuRadio.com, which was launched in 2002 by radio industry veteran Kurt Hanson, who also publishes a daily trade publication about Internet radio "RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter" (www.kurthanson.com).

"It's incredibly fun to program a radio station where you can have a virtually unlimited number of programs going on simultaneously," noted VP/Programming Paul Maloney. "Hopefully, we've created channels that are fun to listen to as well!"

AccuHolidays is ad-supported (playing two commercials per hour) and thus 100% free to listeners.

"But that's the challenge for Internet radio stations right now," Hanson observed. "All the data shows that listeners are embracing Internet radio, but advertisers haven't yet. Hopefully, creative programming concepts like AccuHolidays -- which theoretically should have an audience that's appealing to advertisers -- will encourage advertisers to give the medium a try."

Hanson noted that Internet radio is an area in which record labels and music fans are now working cooperatively: "Through our Amazon links alone, we know we'll sell tens of thousands of CDs," he predicted.

Most Internet radio listening currently takes place at work, but with the fast rate of adoption of residential broadband connections, Hanson noted that this may be the first Christmas season that a significant amount of Internet radio listening takes place at home.