Simulcast

Simulcasting means airing identical content across multiple distribution paths at the same moment. A radio station simulcasts its terrestrial FM signal to its own web stream, mobile app, smart-speaker skills, aggregator platforms like TuneIn, and often into branded podcast feeds. For the listener, the experience is the same content regardless of device.

The ad-inventory implications are genuinely complicated. Terrestrial FM commercials are broadcast to everyone tuned in via radio; the digital simulcast may serve a different ad set because of rights restrictions, targeting capabilities, or publisher choice. Broadcasters often operate entirely separate programmatic stacks for the simulcast stream, even though the programming is identical to the broadcast signal.