Posted by Bud on December 08, 2009 at 13:51:30:
In Reply to: John Gehron to work with AccuRadio.com posted by Bud on December 07, 2009 at 20:19:32:
The following comes from Radio-Info's Tom Taylor in his daily newsletter:
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John Gehron joins Kurt Hanson's AccuRadio as it looks for new investors.
Hanson's "angel round" of early investors included Joe Gallagher and Bob Maccini, who founded Ando Media. Also Net Radio Sales, Interep's Ralph Guild, and Canadian group owner Gary Slaight. Now it's time to do the Series A investment round to find cash to build out the management and sales effort and do national marketing. As new management consultant Gehron puts it - "There are really only four meaningful brands of personalizable Internet radio - Pandora, Slacker, [CBS-owned] Last.fm and AccuRadio." John says "while the first three are great for early adopters and music enthusiasts, there's a big opportunity in the market for a brand like AccuRadio that's aimed at a more mainstream, mass-appeal listener base." I recently visited its Chicago offices across from the Merchandise Mart and it's bursting at the seams. Now Gehron ("GEH-run") brings his considerable expertise and charm to the enterprise as "lead management consultant." If you're not familiar with him, he's done radio at every level, from PD (WLS, Chicago in its "WLS Rules" top 40 days) and WCBS-FM, New York to GM (WNUA, Chicago and WODS, Boston) to group executive (American Radio Systems, CBS) and market manager (Clear Channel-Chicago). His most recent job was starting up Oprah Harpo Radio. In addition to presenting millions of pitches to investors, Gehron will be working with AccuRadio's Slipstream Radio project, helping terrestrial broadcasters build Internet radio services that users can customize.