While on vacation last summer, Howard Robertson listened to smooth jazz that was being broadcast by an Atlanta-based radio station. Robertson, however, wasn’t in the Georgia capitol. He was 1,700 miles away, overlooking the beach on the island of St. Martin.
And he was listening to the station through his app, Play Ode.
“For somebody who comes out of radio — and a radio dinosaur like me — that's most amazing,” he said. “I cannot tell you just how gratified and proud I was to be listening to some wonderful music, which I love anyway, on a platform that came out of my imagination.”
Play Ode
Robertson is the creator and CEO of Play Ode, an app that aggregates Black-owned radio stations and podcasts from across the country so that people can listen wherever they are.
A division of Trust Marketing & Communications — which is led by Robertson and his wife Beverly — the app has about 15 stations and 20 podcast available for listeners. And they have a variety of focuses.
For example, there are hip-hop and rap radio stations. There are R&B, classic R&B, and smooth jazz stations. There are both traditional and contemporary gospel stations. There are reruns of the famous radio soap opera “It’s Your World,” which was originally part of the "Tom Joyner Morning Show." There is the national show "The Breakfast Club," the podcast "The Smoke" — which centers around cigars, wine, bourbon, and whiskey — and the podcast Robertson co-hosts, "Riffin’ on Jazz."
The app also has a partnership with iHeart Radio, which allows it to offer the company’s BIN: Black Information Network — a 24/7 news service that provides continuous news coverage with a Black voice and perspective.
The goal, Robertson explained, is to have something for everyone.
“We were trying to offer a broad selection of things,” he said. “Folks that are into jazz, we’ve got that. Folks that are into sports, we’ve got that. Folks that are into current events, we've got that. Folks that are into lifestyle, we’ve got that.”
And Play Ode is poised to offer listeners even more radio stations and podcasts in the future, as there are plans to continue incorporating additional ones into the app. But don’t expect them to come all at once.
“We're going to add to the number of radio stations, no doubt, but the user experience … is very important to us,” Robertson said. “We didn't want to go entirely glut the market with an overwhelming number of radio stations.”
'Monetizing now'
Play Ode also has a streaming partner, the software company Futuri Media, and it’s refining the app, while growing the number of people who have downloaded it. It’s begun to monetize, too, by having some visual ads appear on screen and a 30-second audio ad play when someone first clicks on a radio station.
“That's [monetizing] among the last things that so many apps and technical companies end up doing. They do everything else first, but they don't start making any money until much later,” Robertson said. “We’re monetizing now.”
The developments are all meaningful ones for Robertson, as radio has played a major role in his life and career. Growing up, it was more than just a prominent form of news and entertainment for him and many in the Black community. Black radio, he explained, was "formed to super-serve African American communities."
And harkening back to this age is one of the objectives of Play Ode.
“That's what I'm so excited about because that's what this app is. It's great radio,” he said. “It's radio, in the tradition of what Black radio was built and meant to be — and that's an integral part of your lifestyle."
