• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, August 11, 2009

While the media marketplace in general is still slumping, online radio is jumping. This week brought news of another deal: Ando Media, which specializes in online radio measurement and ad-serving for mostly terrestrial radio stations, is merging with Spacial Audio, which handles automation and ad insertion for streaming audio for mostly online-only broadcasters.

The merger will give the companies a broader combined portfolio of both terrestrial and online-only radio groups. Spacial also has a broader international footprint, in contrast to Ando's mostly domestic business.

Ando CEO Bob Maccini remarked: "Together, we now are working across the entire spectrum to drive the streaming audio category to new levels." Spacial CEO Josh Ray echoed the sentiment: "The complementary nature of our technologies will allow each company to offer expanded capabilities to our established customer bases." However, for the time being, the two companies will continue to operate independently, while management works out the details of integrating their operations.

This is the second big piece of news from the online radio arena in as many weeks. Last week, Pandora Media said it signed a deal with Katz 360's Katz Online Network, giving the latter responsibility for a large part of the online music emporium's audio advertising sales. The deal allows Katz to aggregate Pandora's roughly 11 million monthly unique visitors with the other large online properties in its list of affiliates --- including sites for traditional radio stations as well as pure-play Webcasters, like AccuRadio.com, Digitally Imported, RadioIO and 977Music.com -- offering advertisers a single point of purchase for campaigns covering multiple networks.

Last October, TargetSpot acquired Ronning Lipset Radio, creating what they said was the country's largest online radio ad network. Since then, TargetSpot has signed up big networks, including AOL Radio, Entercom and CBS Radio, which owns Last.fm.