The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Rogers Launches New App For All Its Radio Stations & More

**Posted by RadioActive** September 10, 2024 11:34 am

It's called Seekr, and like other station owners, its aim is to congregate all their audio and podcast material into one spot on your phone. Their services also remain on the Radioplayer Canada app.

Rogers Sports & Media launches Seekr app

**Posted by Binson Echorec** September 10, 2024 11:37 am

Corus recently signed on with iHeart - I was expecting Rogers to maybe do the same. Guess not.

**Posted by brian451** September 10, 2024 12:17 pm

I wrote about this last week on my website

https://nwbroadcasters.com/2024/09/04/rogers-launches-new-app-seekr/

**Posted by tdotwriter** September 10, 2024 12:18 pm

Originally the Canadian iHeart Radio app was entirely limited to stations owned by Bell Media when it launched in the mid-2010s. I had a feeling that might not have been sustainable or worthwhile for them in the longer term. It seemed at the time like the RadioPlayer Canada app had the streams for the lion's share of terrestrial radio stations in Canada, including Corus properties and many stations from the U.S as well. It's interesting how things are still being somewhat fragmented between different apps with carriage agreements between different station owners.

**Posted by RadioAaron** September 10, 2024 12:18 pm

It's a very good execution of a bad idea.

**Posted by TheWiz** September 10, 2024 1:31 pm

I installed the app and quickly uninstalled it when I realized it contained only content from Rogers.

This is one of the big problems with the industry right now. Content on apps and streaming services is determined by who owns the rights to which content, and not what the consumer might want to watch or listen to.

The radio industry needs to come together and create a system that benefits the listener. Radioplayer was a decent attempt at this few years ago. Most radio stations/companies signed on to RP with Bell being the lone holdout going with iHeart. Most Canadian stations and podcast content have now signed on with on iHeart. I wish Rogers had done the same.

Now we have the "Seekr" app. Which of course is not spelt the way you'd think. If you have to explicitly tell people how to spell your product, you've already lost the marketing war.

I agree, the Seekr app looks slick and is designed well. I'm not a fan of the iHeart radio app, the layout seems to confusing and chaotic. But it seems to be the location where all content could be in one place.

**Posted by Radiowiz** September 10, 2024 2:47 pm

Bell and Rogers are in court with each other at this time. (Bell has issues regarding rights to WB content)
Therefore, it does not surprise me that Rogers is doing their thing (with Seekr) and Bell is doing theirs (with iHeart)
I think Bell and Rogers will forever try to do their own thing separately as much as possible moving forward into the future.

**Posted by ED1** September 10, 2024 3:05 pm

I regularly use both iHeart and RadioPlayer, and I find the iHeart app is much more stable and functional than RP. I guess Rogers having their own radio app is no different from Bell (initially), Stingray, and CBC having their own apps for radio and exclusive podcasts.

As long as Rogers doesn't gatekeep their radio streams from common platforms like RP and TuneIn, then it's fine.

**Posted by TheWiz** September 10, 2024 3:35 pm

ED1 wrote:
As long as Rogers doesn't gatekeep their radio streams from common platforms like RP and TuneIn, then it's fine.

I think Bell did this very briefly a few years ago but quickly realized it's apps like TuneIn that feed all the smart speakers, so they had to reverse that decision.

**Posted by Cheese2RF** September 10, 2024 3:56 pm

some one asked me this morning " have you heard of this new seekr app" and based off the name i thought it was a dating app lol!

**Posted by MonteVideo** September 11, 2024 5:17 pm

TheWiz wrote:
Now we have the "Seekr" app. Which of course is not spelt the way you'd think. If you have to explicitly tell people how to spell your product, you've already lost the marketing war.

Rogers has a history of projects, advertised mostly on their radio stations, with marketing names that don't transfer to audio. They used to have a real estate site called "zoocasa.com" which, given how we mostly know this phrase, "mi casa es su casa", is a bit of an issue. Although probably 20 years ago, CORUS had an online product selling platform called "frisbee" or something like that but with a silent "Q" and an accent aigu.

Last edited by MonteVideo (September 11, 2024 5:18 pm)