Mechanical Licensing Collective receives $424M for unmatched royalties from streaming services

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) has received $424-million in royalties from Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Google, Pandora, and 15 other streaming entities from Aspiro to Xandrie. With funds in hand, the MLC starts its US government mandate to accurately distribute payments to songwriters, composers, and music publishers. Click for the list streaming services by dollar amount. Continue Reading

Jeff Umbro: Content Moderation: Twitter, YouTube, Podcasts?

by Jeff Umbro

In this week’s column, The Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro grapples with the often-overlooked, always-challenging topic of podcast content moderation. Should podcasting undergo the level of scrutiny that social networks do? Along with these ruminations, the column catches up with news from Spotify, Apple, and elsewhere. Continue Reading

SoundCloud (unsurprisingly) picks AdsWizz for exclusive ad-repping in 14 Euro markets

AdsWizz is trumpeting a major get — Berlin-HQ’d global streamer SoundCloud has chosen the U.S.-HQ’d global ad-tech company AdsWizz to exclusively represent digital audio ad sales in significant European markets. This deal has an in-house feeling; AdsWizz is a subsidiary of Pandora, which is owned by Sirius XM, which also owns 30% of SoundCloud.  Continue Reading

Global Top-20 streaming +5% in October, and longterm U.S. streaming trend (Triton Digital Webcast Metrics

U.S. stream listening in September was steady as a month-over-month metric following August, according to Triton Digital’s Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker. While group leader Pandora dipped by about one percent, gains for iHeartRadio, RADIO.COM, and ESPN helped keep the overall ship on an even keel. Click through for RAIN’s long-term trend chart from 2009 to present. Continue Reading

As listeners flock to Xmas stations, Pandora launches holiday PR campaign & features

Pandora launches its end-of-year promotional campaign today, following internal research which showed that 7% more listeners tuned into holiday stations between October 15 and November 15 than during that stretch last year. Pandora launches its end-of-year promotional campaign today, following internal research which showed that 7% more listeners tuned into holiday stations between October 15 and November 15 than during that stretch last year. Click through to see the video, and for more of P’s brand marketing details. Continue Reading

Stream listening flat in Sep., ESPN gains (Triton Digital Webcast Metrics)

U.S. stream listening in September was steady as a month-over-month metric following August, according to Triton Digital’s Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker. While group leader Pandora dipped by about one percent, gains for iHeartRadio, RADIO.COM, and ESPN helped keep the overall ship on an even keel. Click through for RAIN’s long-term trend chart from 2009 to present. Continue Reading

How long is an audio impression? Pandora prepares Audibility initiative

When is an impression an accountable impression? The answer isn’t as simple as you might think, especially for audio ads which play out with duration. Pandora is stepping into potential standardization with an “Audibility initiative,” which it plans to launch in collaboration with Moat, a division of Oracle Data Cloud which measures consumer attention across media channels. Continue Reading

Commercial or branded podcast? Dove and Pandora create a new thing

We got word that Dove was advertising on Pandora in an unusual way that seems to interestingly straddle categories. The bath care company (that’s Dove, not Pandora) worked with Studio Resonate, a division of Pandora that self-describes as “An audio-first creative consultancy […] at the crossroads of creative and data, science and sound.” The outcome is something between a music track and a podcast episode. Continue Reading