For years, Germany was one of the staunch holdouts, a market that continued to favor music listening on CDs rather than digital formats even as most markets become dominated by streaming. A recent survey shows that the region’s views are slowly changing, mostly among its younger generations. Continue Reading
Triton Digital announced an expansion of its partnership with One Media Sales. As a result of the new arrangement, OMS will operate Triton’s a2x programmatic audio advertising marketplace in the Netherlands, which gives advertisers and agencies their first opportunity to buy digital audio ad inventory programmatically. Continue Reading
XAPPmedia, one of several companies which provide technical assistance to radio station presence in smart speakers, is today launching a self-serve solution for Amazon Alexa. Continue Reading
July webcast listening slipped 4% compared to the month before, in a pattern we saw last year in June and July. Every one of the top 20 brands measured by Triton Digital saw a reduction in listening during July. The year-over-year view shows that the tide was higher even as the summer waves got a bit smaller. Continue Reading
B2B music provider 7digital has entered a partnership with famed guitar brand Fender. Under this deal, 7digital will collaborate with Fender to help the company grow its offering of online and mobile products. Continue Reading
NPR and Edison Research have released the second part of their study on smart speakers and voice control. The first part was released during RAIN’s Podcast Business Summit in New York this June. The latest presentation of The Smart Audio Report focused on the specific activities and details of how and why people are using this new product segment. Continue Reading
Amazon’s Alexa voice control system can now be used to control the Amazon Music app on both Android and iOS mobile devices. This mobile integration is being rolled out in the U.S., UK, Germany, and Austria. Alexa can respond to the same range of queries as on the smart speaker of an Amazon Echo: asking for music from a certain artist, album, genre, time period, or activity will bring up songs that meet the criteria. Continue Reading
The Fair Play Fair Pay Act has two new co-sponsors. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) have joined as co-sponsors of the current bill, which has been spearheaded by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). musicFIRST issued a statement supporting the new backers of the legislation centered on radio and performance royalties. Continue Reading
Vox Media is making more moves to shore up its leadership as the company moves into new directions for journalism and reporting. The media operation is working with Midroll Media on a daily news podcast, a large undertaking, slated to begin in 2018. In light of these plans, Vox has announced that Lauren Williams will be its new editor-in-chief. Continue Reading
YouTube has adjusted its approach for how content creators can get paid by their fans. Last week, the video platform announced that it is ending its paid channels initiative, a program that allowed channel owners to directly sell access to their videos to individual subscribers. In its place, YouTube is broadening its sponsorship model. Continue Reading
Taking advantage of U.S. investing regulations started in 2012, electronic music streaming specialist Digitally Imported (DI.FM) has launched a crowdfunding campaign for non-institutional investing. With a current valuation of $12 million, the company is looking to raise as much as $1.07 million on the Wefunder platform. Continue Reading
In a month of shifts in its show rankings, Podtrac’s publisher rankings followed suit, with a new face joining the August 2017 lineup. WBUR dropped out of the top 10 for the month, making room for newcomer Barstool Sports at No. 9. This publisher made its debut on the show rankings for August with its Pardon My Take podcast. Continue Reading