{"id":34421,"date":"2016-03-03T17:14:12","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T23:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=34421"},"modified":"2016-03-03T17:14:12","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T23:14:12","slug":"a-riveting-enterprise-rivet-radio-inc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/a-riveting-enterprise-rivet-radio-inc\/","title":{"rendered":"A Riveting Enterprise: Rivet Radio Inc."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> By Poroma Pant <\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"dropcap\">\u201cThere\u2019s an audio renaissance coming,\u201d said John MacLeod, chief executive officer of Rivet Radio Inc., a Chicago-based digital news radio broadcaster that aims to replicate Pandora\u2019s success with online music streaming but for news.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>What started as an idea formulated in MacLeod\u2019s garage is now a thriving business and pioneer in online radio news. Launched in December 2014, Rivet obtained investments\u00a0from friends and family\u00a0totaling $20,000 in its first year of operation, according\u00a0to Terri Lydon, vice president of sales and marketing.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-34730\" src=\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/03\/FullSizeRender-24.jpg\" alt=\"Rivet Radio 2 \" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/WP%20Media%20Folder%20-%20medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/03\/FullSizeRender-24.jpg 600w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/WP%20Media%20Folder%20-%20medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/03\/FullSizeRender-24-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Rivet Radio&#8217;s editorial team works around the clock to produce relevant stories. (Poroma Pant\/ MEDILL)<\/div>\n<p>Rivet Radio specializes in providing long-form, narrative news in audio form, covering a variety of topics &#8211; sports, politics, sciences, entertainment and current events, said Geneen Harston, vice president of audio production.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Rivet Radio Inc. by MedillReports\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F250045179&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxwidth=800&#038;maxheight=1000&#038;dnt=1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen a story breaks, a lot of times you will get bombarded with several push notifications on your phone from other news outlets. Instead, here at Rivet, we&#8217;ll wait a few minutes to see what develops and once we have a new interesting fact about the story, then we will make the decision about whether to push the story or not,\u201d Harston added.<\/p>\n<p>Personalized user experience is important to the company, so Rivet can be\u00a0seen as the &#8220;Tinder&#8221; of audio news, following a Tinder-inspired &#8220;swipe&#8221; interface, according to Harston.<\/p>\n<p>[vimeo 157638960 w=500 h=281]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/157638960\">Rivet Radio Inc.<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/user33062839\">Medill Reports<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While other on-demand digital radio services and podcasts exist, such as music streaming website Deezer\u2019s Stitcher Radio, Rivet distinguishes itself from its competitors by producing original content.<\/p>\n<p>Harston said, &#8220;While Stitcher only does podcasts, we do podcasts, some original content and we have content from our partners. While Stitcher is a good competitor, we are not all created equal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rivet&#8217;s revenue\u00a0surged to\u00a0$600,000 in 2015. A significant contributor is its &#8220;Intercall Conferencing Center&#8221; described by Harston as playing news on-hold during conference calls instead of \u201cboring&#8221; music. Rivet creates and produces the\u00a0content for these conference calls.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the company\u2019s business model and strategy includes content partnerships with outlets including the Associated Press, Market Place and American Public Media, aimed at driving consumer acquisition and promotion of the brand.<\/p>\n<p>While Rivet Radio has raised $4.8 million\u00a0through sales of\u00a0convertible notes, like all small businesses the company has faced several challenges since its creation.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-34764\" src=\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/03\/IMG_8328_600x450.jpg\" alt=\"Rivet Radio 4 \" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/03\/IMG_8328_600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/03\/IMG_8328_600x450-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Rivet Radio&#8217;s main studio, where most interviews for news content take place. (Poroma Pant\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe main challenge we\u2019ve faced is determining on which business opportunity to focus in the near term. While consumers in cars, home an on mobile devices are our long term big opportunity, it is going to take time and capital before we see significant revenue from these efforts,\u201d said Lydon.<\/p>\n<p>The company is focusing on accelerating advertising revenue through its business and media costumers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCustomers running on our platform will generate millions of monthly ad impressions and we\u2019ll participate in that revenue. Plus, we\u2019ll be able to leverage our customers\u2019 advertising volumes to monetize Rivet\u2019s direct distribution,\u201d said Lydon.<\/p>\n<p>With an increasing demand for podcast and digital radio services, founder John MacLeod believes in the future of audio news. He aptly says, \u201cIf you are inside someone\u2019s ear, you are in someone\u2019s head.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">A listener catches up with news of the day on Rivet Radio&#8217;s mobile app. (Poroma Pant\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Poroma Pant \u201cThere\u2019s an audio renaissance coming,\u201d said John MacLeod, chief executive officer of Rivet Radio Inc., a Chicago-based digital news radio broadcaster that aims to replicate Pandora\u2019s success with online music streaming but for news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":34736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,27,28,585],"tags":[1961,1960,688,1962,1959,1958,2013,2014,171],"class_list":["post-34421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-business","category-general-interest","category-winter-2016","tag-audio","tag-audionews","tag-business","tag-innovation","tag-radio","tag-rivetradio","tag-smallbusiness","tag-startup","tag-technology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - 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