• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, July 6, 2005

Yahoo! Music and Chrysler on Monday released the details of a sponsorship deal initiated last month whereby Chrysler car brands will sponsor four of Yahoo!'s Listen Now! radio stations. This month, the stations and brands line up as follows: The Chrysler SRT on Today's Big Hits; the Chrysler 300 on Smooth Jazz as well as Adult Alternative; and Chrysler convertibles on the Classical station.

Last month, Yahoo! launched a new radio program called Listen Now!, with Chrysler as the first sponsor. The initiative marked Yahoo!'s first radio marketing 'program' and one of the company's largest radio buys to date, according to Yahoo! The Chrysler sponsorship will last until December 2006.

The sponsorships are part of Chrysler's aggressive pursuit of online marketing opportunities (See "Slate To Offer Podcasts" in today's OnlineMediaDaily). "We are always looking for new opportunities to communicate with consumers in a way that's meaningful for them, and the Internet and Music are currently it," company spokeswoman Suraya DaSante said.

Yahoo!'s online radio service LAUNCHcast drew slightly more U.S. listeners than the AOL Radio Network--2,074,400 to 1,995,700--during an average week in January, according to recent reports by comScore Media Metrix and Arbitron. Microsoft's MSN Radio and WindowsMedia.com together drew 473,000 listeners per week, while Web radio community Live365 attracted 438,000 listeners per week in January.