After Peter Ferraro, co-founder of East Village Radio talked extensively with DJ Skee about
their mutual friends and shared passion for radio in its purest form, a deejay hosting and
curating the latest hits and undiscovered gems for a localized audience, the more he got to
thinking about what East Village Radio’s concept could look like with a more aggressive
business model. Clearly, a desktop website for online radio clearly wasn’t enough to cut it
in the Spotify era -- an Edison Research study conducted earlier this year found that 75%
of 12-to-24-year-olds discover new music through streaming apps like Pandora, Spotify
and iTunes Radio.The result is DASH Radio, an internet-radio platform for Apple iOS, Google
Android and mobile web that combines the niche mainstream and niche genre stations of
Sirius XM with the guerilla sensibilities of EVR and Keeney’s own SKEE 24-7, including
personalities like Caroline D’Amore. Beta-launched on August 19, DASH also comes equipped
with noteworthy investors like L.A. Reid, Matt Michelsen (co-founder of Backplane), Mike Lazaro
(former CEO of Buddy Media), Minnesota Vikings MVP Adrian Peterson, and Ferraro himself.
“A lot of kids think Pandora is radio, but there’s a gross mislabeling that’s happening,” an
energized Keeney (DJ Skee) says on a late July afternoon at the Crosby Hotel in New York.
“Radio was the first social network, the first time people really listened together. And we want
to bring that feeling back, but with more freedom than what FM and satellite can offer. Digital
radio today is not real radio -- it’s like making a mixtape for your friends. There’s still a time
where you just want to listen to curated radio, and we want to be that option.” Reid, the CEO
of Epic Records, came onboard shortly after Keeney's initial pitch. "Radio has always been
the biggest avenue for music discovery," he tells Billboard. "DASH provides an innovative
platform for artists while offering listeners the variety they want, without limitations."
DASH is currently being produced from Keeney’s Skee Lodge studio in central Hollywood,
but later this fall it will add an East Coast location in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn,
on North 7th and Wythe Avenue. The symbolism of that studio space is not lost on Ferraro,
who’s already contemplating moving out of his own Manhattan loft to be closer to his new
Williamsburg workspace. “What we want to do in Brooklyn are things that I was working
toward with EBR, finding someone to do a local news update for us and really immerse
ourselves in the community in a big way.”
Source: Billboard