Dashboard divas: Stingray focuses on car karaoke as part of growth strategy

Eric Boyko, president, co-founder and CEO of Stingray Digital, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the company's Q2 results and deal to acquire audio streamer TuneIn

Stingray Digital wants to make your drive into a Billboard Top 10 performance so you’re ready to sing your heart out to Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia” or Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild.”

The Montreal-based company is deploying several strategies to expand its global digital footprint. It includes capitalizing on karaoke in your car as a main vehicle for expansion.

“Twelve companies in the world offer karaoke,” Eric Boyko, president and co-founder of Stingray told BNN Bloomberg in a Wednesday interview. “Tesla, BYD, Ford, GM, Toyota; people think about karaoke in the car. It’s very popular.”

The company released their second quarter financial report highlighting a 16.7 per cent growth in organic traffic year-over-year in broadcast and recurring commercial music revenues. Revenues also grew 21.0 per cent to $113.3 million in the second quarter of their 2026 fiscal year from $93.6 million in the second quarter of 2025.

Tesla’s “Caraoke” feature enables drivers to sing along to songs with microphones and lyrics with the option to adjust main vocals on the car’s touchscreen. BYD offers an in-car karaoke feature, powered by the Stingray Karaoke app. It can be accessed through the vehicle’s infotainment system.

“Our big advantage is, we have worldwide rights on music, so we’re probably the best company for audio music and karaoke, that we’re able to distribute worldwide,” said Boyko, adding Sirius XM and Spotify are the only companies ahead of Stingray for music distribution.

The move follows Stingray’s acquisition of TuneIn, an American live audio streaming platform for US$175 million this week. Stingray will pay US$150 million when the deal is closed and up to US$25 million for 12 months after.

Boyko said TuneIn will be a great machine to sell audio and video advertisements, complimenting existing ads on TV and retail media.

“I’m very confident to say that in the next five years, as Canadians, every car in the world is going to have the Stingray Tune in car player,” said Boyko.

The company also recently purchased The Singing Machine and DMI. Boyko said the company’s strategy also includes fast channels, like free channels on TV and retail media such as audio ads in stores.

Stingray does offer subscriptions but Boyko said their main source of revenue is advertising.

“We’re really excited about advertising,” said Boyko. “Subscriptions for us; it’s a nice business, but the real growth, the 30 to 40 per cent organic sales we’re getting, is from that huge advertising market, and our partners are Google. It’s our friends at Amazon. It’s incredible how the market is sophisticated.”