Steereo Works With 15,000 Rideshare Drivers to Promote Music in Ubers, Lyfts

Like that song that’s playing in your Uber? Chances are, your driver is being paid to play it to you.That’s if you are in Los Angeles, New York, Austin, Philadelphia or DC, where a startup called Steereo has been recruiting rideshare drivers to become mobile music promoters. Steereo has teamed up with 15,000 drivers thus far, according to company CEO Anne Kavanagh, and is getting ready to expand to a slew of additional cities in the coming months. “The rideshare economy has now become a real thing,” she said.Steereo’s founders got the idea to use ridesharing as a vehicle for music promotion while sitting in a Lyft after CES 2017, according to Kavanagh. Their driver was very enthusiastic about the music he was playing, and the founders realized that they were his captive audience. They asked the driver if we would accept money to promote music in his car, and he was ready to sign up. Steereo started testing the idea with a small pilot program in September of 2017, and began operating in earnest last year. The interest from drivers has been huge, said Kavanagh, prompting plans to expand to San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Nashville, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, and Chicago by March.The startup currently charges labels and managers $0.05 per minute of music played to rideshare passengers, with drivers receiving a $0.03 of it. Drivers play Steereo’s music through a dedicated app, which promotes tracks with voice plugs, and also tracks whether the car is actually in motion