• by Gavin O'Malley , April 19, 2005

Faced with mounting competition from MP3, satellite radio and Webcasts, Infinity Broadcasting said it plans to broadcast radio programs to mobile devices in the United States by mid-2006.

The radio broadcasting giant, a unit of Viacom, said it's working with Hewlett-Packard and Nokia to release the service, called "Visual Radio," which will not only transmit music to cell phones, but also will send album art, concert dates, plus buy-this-album or ring-tone features.

Infinity, which has about 180 primary stations in the Top 40 markets, is considering exactly which stations will be available to "Visual Radio" listeners, said David Goodman, president of marketing for Infinity. Each station will be responsible for creating its own visual content that will be served over the service.

The "Visual Radio" system - a free service - works by allowing broadcasters to create and publish interactive visual content to accompany their existing FM broadcasts. Consumers will need "Visual Radio"-enabled handsets, which Hewlett-Packard and Nokia are developing. Users will be able to listen to radio via the FM receiver in the phone, while the visual channels will be delivered over a GPRS mobile network.

Infinity, a unit of Viacom Inc., along with rival Clear Channel are intent on creating new advertising and revenue sources by revamping their traditional radio business with new distribution outlets. Last week, Clear Channel announced its own plans to offer clips of its programming via mobile device by the end of 2005.

Both Infinity and Clear Channel have announced plans to move content online, and eventually digitize their terrestrial radio transmissions.