The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) shows a revenue report for the first half of 2026, detailing revenue details for recorded music in all its packaged forms. The topline measurement is the continued growth of overall revenue, and the headline number is six billion dollars. Click for details and charts. Continue Reading
Magellan AI has released its monthly accounting of top podcast advertisers, derived from the company’s proprietary model. The results are estimates, not confirmed dollar amounts. Always interesting on its own merits, there is also a month-over-month view which adds perspective. Continue Reading
Spotify announces that its Partner Program, which creates monetization pathways for creators, has undergone its largest geographic expansion since its founding in 2025. Good for listeners too, Spotify asserts. Continue Reading
Libsyn scores All Chewed Up network Venerable podcast hosting platform Libsyn has scored an exclusive deal with All Chewed Up, a food and lifestyle digital network. Libsyn will be the official host, and will handle advertising sales for the network’s… Continue Reading
In May of this year we covered an intriguing — and to some, a threatening — experiment. Four AI radio stations were set up, completely staffed by AI models, from DJ to GM. Today we learn what happened. Click for history, details, graphics, and links.
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Label giant Universal Music Group (UMG) has brought a federal lawsuit against digital music distributor DistroKid, on the grounds of deceptive trade practices, and copyright infringement. The “deceptive trade practices” charge appears to focus on AI-created music. Click for details. Continue Reading
RAIN’s Kurt Hanson attends the Sounds Profitable Business Summit — a podcast industry event — in NYC, and sends back a portfolio of photos. We present a selection.
Star rapper and producer Buster Rhymes is stirring attention with a complaint about Spotify payouts. Continue Reading
A hefty percentage of live radio listeners tune in to the venerable format for music discovery. That discovery comes from British audio research firm MIDiA Research. Continue Reading
The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry — the global trade organization of the record industry — is announcing today a new initiative to combat streaming fraud. Named the Streaming Integrity Initiative (SII), the project establishes a set of baseline practices. Click for details. Continue Reading
Radio on 9/11/2001 On this 25th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, we wanted to look back at radio coverage of that catastrophic emergency that nobody was prepared for. (THIS POST CAN BE UPSETTING TO READ.) We found this… Continue Reading
Last week we covered an interesting research finding from Edison Research. We learned that fiction audiobook consumers prefer AI to human narration … some of the time, in some ways. This week we attended a deep-dive webinar produced by Edison and sponsored by Spoken: The AI Audiobook Company. Hosted by Edison VP Megan Lazovick and Spoken founder/CEO Philip Marshall, It provided details of the underlying research conducted by Edison. Continue Reading