The rumors are true and Beatlemania begins anew! A special splash page on the official Beatles website confirmed that the band’s music will land on nine interactive streaming services at midnight local time. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: BitTorrent 2015 artist survey; Cumulus CEO Berner’s plans for stability, programming; Apple rumored to explore high-res; the Drake Effect and the Nicki Effect. Continue Reading
Pandora announced breakthrough content licensing deals this morning with ASCAP and BMI, the two largest Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) representing songwriters, publishers, and composers. With two separate multi-year agreements, Pandora puts to bed acrimonious lawsuits that have troubled its key relationships for two years. Continue Reading
At the start of the year, annual tech show CES signaled heavy interest in at-home wireless speaker systems. And that trend has indeed been an undercurrent of the music and tech worlds through this year. Despite the arrival of more competition, Sonos is still one of the top choices in the field. Continue Reading
Rdio’s closure meant some scrambling for an unusual partner. The now-shuttered streaming service was the music partner for Tesla’s Model S series of electric cars. Rdio has now been replaced by Spotify for the vehicles in Europe, Australia, and Hong Kong. Current Tesla owners in those markets will see Spotify replacing Rdio through an over-the-air software update. Continue Reading
The year kicked off with a flurry of new companies trying to carve their niche in the music business. And the year is ending with many of those companies closing their doors. The latest one to shut down is Domino.fm. Continue Reading
Pandora has signed another direct deal, this time with Downtown Music Publishing. The rights management firm has music by writers ranging from The Beatles to Hans Zimmer and Jewel to One Direction in its catalog. The press release contains the same type of language that was in the announcements of Pandora’s recent licensing agreements with publishers such as Warner/Chappell, Sony/ATV, and SONGS Music Publishing. Continue Reading
Kickstarter has hired Molly Neuman as its head of music. Neuman steps into the newly created role from A2IM, where she was interim president following the departure of Rich Bengloff. Adding a new high-level leader to the management team shows that Kickstarter isn’t just looking to remain static in music. Continue Reading
While albums fade as commercial products, and radio is challenged by streaming audio, is there a new power product that drives listens and accelerates hit-making? U.K.-based consultant and founder of New Slang Media, Chris Price, has emerged as a specialist in identifying the power of playlists, and quantifying their influence. Listomania is his new research study. Continue Reading
SoundCloud has inked a multi-territory licensing deal with PRS for Music, a UK-based organization representing songwriter and publisher rights. This arrangement will cover SoundCloud’s use of PRS’ repertoire since the audio service launched. Continue Reading
Christmas may come early this year for fans of The Beatles. Billboard’s sources couldn’t come together on an exact date, but a hard day’s night of negotiations could see the lads from Liverpool arriving on interactive, on-demand services by Dec 24. Continue Reading
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Online marketing is growing fast. Businesses will allocate approximately 30% of their marketing budgets to online marketing in 2016, and 77% of businesses plan to increase their digital marketing budgets from last year. Kelly Shelton, VP of Marketing at Boostability, explains why this trend represents a growing opportunity for radio stations. Continue Reading