• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 25, 2012

The threat of competition from new online audio services like Pandora is forcing the traditional radio industry to close ranks. Salem Communications, which owns 97 Christian and conservative opinion format stations, is joining Clear Channel Media and Entertainment’s iHeartRadio platform.
 
Streaming audio content from Salem’s FM and AM stations, located in 37 markets around the U.S., will become available on iHeartRadio in September of this year, including the iHeartRadio mobile app for smartphones and tablets.

The stations will continue to stream audio on their own Web sites, and will also promote iHeartRadio on the air.
 
The Salem deal comes not long after Clear Channel struck similar partnerships to bring streaming audio from stations owned by Cox, Emmis, and Cumulus to the iHeartRadio platform.

The deals cover 86 Cox stations in 19 markets, with formats including music, sports, news and talk; 18 Emmis stations in six markets, including New York City, Los Angeles, and St. Louis; and 570 Cumulus stations from across the U.S. The latter deal also brought Cumulus’ SweetJack daily deal service to Clear Channel station Web sites.
 
Also in June, Yahoo struck a deal with Clear Channel to incorporate iHeartRadio into Yahoo’s digital radio service. Clear Channel and Yahoo will promote each other’s content on iHeartRadio.com, local radio station sites, and the Yahoo Media Network.

Yahoo will also become the exclusive Web and mobile destination for the upcoming iHeartRadio Music Festival, scheduled to take place Sept. 21-22 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, as well as live Webcasts from a concert series planned for other cities.