Dive Brief:

• When Apple announced its plans for advertising on iRadio last summer, industry analysts predicted it would struggle to gain any significant portion of the streaming radio audience because of a saturated market let by Pandora and Spotify. 
• This week, the tech giant announced it would add "locally targeted" ads to its real-time bidding exchange for in-app buying on iRadio. 
• Local ads put Apple in more direct competition with Pandora for ad inventory. 

Dive Insight: 

While Apple may be modeling its iRadio ad inventory after Pandora and other streaming radio services, it is forgetting one very important thing advertisers are looking for — users. Spotify and Pandora seem to still rule the space in that respect. Unless Apple can covert more people to switch to its service, ad buys won't be that lucrative.