TuneIn is bringing its catalog of over 90,000 live radio stations, podcasts, audiobooks and other audio content to Vizio’s smart TV platform, the companies announced on Tuesday.
The partnership will see Vizio offer TuneIn as a pre-installed option on its SmartCast-enabled smart television sets in the United States. The app supports TuneIn Premium, the subscription-based service that offers commercial-free access to certain news, sports and music channels as well as play-by-play of major sporting events from college and professional teams.
“As the TV is the focal point of the home, Vizio users can continue to enhance their streaming experience by accessing music, sports, news, podcasts and more through services like TuneIn,” Seta Goldstein, the Senior Director of Business Development and Partnerships at Vizio, said in a statement on Tuesday. “We are excited to offer our users an expanded range of 90,000-plus radio stations quickly and easily from their Vizio TVs.”
The app supports TuneIn Premium, the subscription-based service that offers commercial-free access to certain news, sports and music channels as well as play-by-play of major sporting events from college and professional teams. Vizio TV users can get a seven-day free trial of TuneIn Premium through the app, which also includes unlimited, ad-free streaming of thousands of audiobook titles as well.
“Vizio has built a true entertainment center for consumers with a tremendous user experience that makes it easy to navigate and access content,” Rich Stern, the Chief Executive Officer of TuneIn, said on Tuesday. “This new integration puts TuneIn in the homes of millions of Vizio owners to explore the full breadth of our offerings. We are constantly elevating our programming to bring listeners the latest and most popular content from stars like Garth Brooks and Tom Hanks to their local radio stations, so there is no shortage of entertainment to choose from.”
The addition of TuneIn on Vizio comes at a time when more Americans are choosing to use their smart televisions to stream audio-first content. Industry research from Hub Entertainment that was cited by the companies this week showed nearly half of Americans surveyed used their TV sets in such a manner last year, a figure that was nearly double the number of respondents who said the same in 2020.
Beyond Vizio TVs, TuneIn is available as a standalone app on a number of other streaming TV platforms, including Roku, Amazon’s Fire TV and Android TV (Google TV), and users of Apple TV devices can stream most content from TuneIn via AirPlay. TuneIn also powers live radio stations on smart speakers utilizing the Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, and TuneIn streams are available through the Apple Music app on iPhones and iPads.
