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The weekly update of the streaming audio industry, from RAIN News. THIS WEEK: “Serial” wins a Peabody; Apple Watch launch day — what can you listen to?; new iHeartMedia podcasts; Tidal reaches out to indies; Norway targets FM switch-off. Continue Reading
Two streaming services operating out of Asia announced new integrations or partnerships that add a live music angle for their listeners. India-based streaming service Saavn announced plans for a series of live acoustic shows and musician interviews. KKBox, a music streaming service from Taiwan, has invested in ticket vending startup WalkieTicket and is now its largest institutional shareholder. This could be a new business trend for the streaming market. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web. Continue Reading
“I’m excited to speak with you regarding our strong start of the year.” So began Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews’ quarterly address to investors as he reported first-quarter earnings. He discussed financials, audience metrics, size of the sales force, data management, and future guidance. Continue Reading
Rich Dalton, a 45-year radio veteran known in St. Louis as “Radio Rich,” whose picture appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, has signed on as Program Director and anchor host of Our Musical Roots, a St. Louis pureplay Internet station. We spoke with Dalton about his motivations. Continue Reading
We’re always looking for new podcasts to add to our listening queue, and so today we took a listen to a new program called Musonomics. It’s a twice-monthly podcast about the music and culture industries that just debuted its first episode last week. Larry Miller is the host, and the program has backing from the NYU Steinhardt Music Business Program, where he is a professor. The first episode includes an in-depth discussion about Record Store Day and the resurgence of vinyl. Continue Reading
Borrowing the model of Upfronts from the television industry, where new shows are introduced to advertisers and agencies, iHeartMedia hosted its first Soundfront to preview new on-demand audio programs. Gayle Troberman, iHeart’s CMO, evangelized for audio and podcasting. “In the age of… Continue Reading
The German Music Publishers Association held its annual meeting yesterday and royalty rates from streaming services were a hot topic. President Rolf Budde had some strong words about the state of compensation for songwriters. “The 60,000 composers, lyricists and music publishers must not be sacrificed on the altar of digital music,” he said. Continue Reading
Tidal is continuing its efforts to get more musicians on board with its premium streaming service. The latest plan is for a new feature called Discovery that bypasses the third-party distribution model for independent artists. Instead, those musicians will be able to directly upload their tracks to Tidal. Continue Reading
Nielsen held its quarterly earning call for Q1 yesterday. While much of the reporting pertained to non-audio products and initiatives, CEO Mitch Barns anwered questions about audio measurement, and the progress of Nielsen’s stream measurement initiative. “We are right where we thought we would be.” Continue Reading
Canada is extending the copyright term for sound recordings from 50 years to 70 years. The change is happening as part of the country’s 2015 budget. Many other countries, including the UK and Australia, have copyright terms of 70 years, while the U.S. term is 95 years. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Loudr officially teams with CD Baby; Bop.fm tracks embeddable in Facebook posts; Tidal iOS downloads plummet. Continue Reading