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Univision is expected to announce today to SXSW that it has partnered with Napster to bring more streaming music choices to its new Uforia app. In addition to the live feeds of 58 local Univision radio stations, the app now offers users hundreds of playlists based on Napster's catalog of 40 million songs.
"Univision was a pioneer of Latin music," said Jesus Lara, president of Univision Radio, in an interview with Variety this week. However, Lara admitted that Univision did not have a good reputation for coordinating its efforts on television, local radio and online. This is where Uforia enters the scene, which the company has recently renewed as a brand for all its musical endeavors.
The new Uforia application, described by Lara as being adapted to the Univision audience, is part of these efforts. "The Hispanic market is complex," he said, with Cuban-Americans preferring different melodies than music fans of Mexican or Guatemalan origin.
Napster CEO Bill Patrizio pointed out that these nuances were often missing from Spotify and Apple Music, and that in turn he was ignoring Univision's audience. "They are poorly served by today's major music services," he said.
Uforia's promise to Hispanic music fans is to move forward. "We are contextualizing programming," said Lara, citing the recent International Women's Day as an example. For this day, Uforia curators have created a number of playlists, including one of Mariachi's women's groups and one of Reggaeton's women's artists.
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And there is another difference between Uforia and Spotify, or Apple Music from elsewhere. The Univision Music App is free for all, without any additional plans. "My audience is used to advertising for a free service and does not pay attention to it," Lara said, adding that her company did not have a paid system.
"All roads do not lead to $ 9.99 a month," Patrizio agreed. He compared the streaming market to the pre-Internet world, when record companies were concentrating on CDs and trying to sell the same product at the same price. "It is inevitable that we are seeing more segmentation," he said.
Napster was a pioneer in music streaming by launching the first all-you-can-buy subscription service under the Rhapsody brand until 2001. Faced with fierce competition from Spotify and Apple, the company has further focused about business-to-business commerce, fueling music apps from iHeartRadio, and more. But Patrizio said Napster would continue to capitalize on its brand in the future. "We will not become an unnamed, faceless white-label supplier that no one has ever heard of," he said.
For Uforia, the refitted application with Napster-based streaming experience is available for iOS and Android. The app will soon receive podcasts, and Lara and Patrizio alluded to plans to more directly integrate Univision radio streams into the Napster music catalog. Said Lara: "It's really the beginning of a trip."
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