Summary
My Playlist was not playable for more than 98% of iHeartRadio users because they didn’t have a subscription. Free users collected songs in My Playlist but would hit an upsell when trying to listen and 1.9M Free Users had at least one track in My Playlist. Our hypothesis focused on driving higher CUME (cumulative unique streams) and overall retention if these free users could curate and listen to My Playlist, actively returning more frequently and listening for longer periods of time.
MVP Launched
We launched My Playlist MVP which enabled all free users the ability to curate their own playlist experience that generates a “smart backfill” of song recommendations powered by data science.
Frontend
Play My Playlist
Playback of My Playlist for free users will consist of DMCA compliant songs generated and based on the songs they’ve saved
Save songs to My Playlist directly from Full Screen Player
The ability to upgrade from several new touchpoints on My Playlist
Backend
Each time a song is added, the client sends that information to server
Each time the server receives information about new song added or removed, a data-science model generates new backfill tracks
Playback possible through DS-generated list of backfill tracks (DS backfill)
Backfill will be tailored based on songs added by user (similar)
Playback will be DMCA compliant
We expanded this functionality in July allowing users to create “unlimited” number of playlists and will be rolling out this experience to international markets in Canada, Australia and New Zealand in November.
Outcome
900% increase in monthly CUME (unique streams) in less than 6 months
15% increase in My Playlist 7-Day retention over ~2.5 months
200% increase in ASTL (average time spent listening) in less than 6 months