Carl Chery has departed his role as head of artist curation for hip-hop and R&B programming at Apple Music. He’ll be joining the team at Spotify, which recently had its own big curator departure when Tuma Basa relocated to YouTube. Variety first broke the news. Continue Reading
iHeartRadio has made a tactical change to its feature set, moving its thousands of curated music playlists out from behind a subscription firewall. Calling the collection Playlist Radio, these lists are now visible and playable to all iHeartRadio users — previously they had been a selling point for the Plus and All Access subscription tiers. Continue Reading
Netflix has launched an interactive audio drama on Google’s smart speakers to promote its reboot of Lost in Space. The audio experience, which was produced in collaboration between Google and Netflix, gives listeners a branching narrative with multiple-choice questions and answers that lets them aid key characters from the program. Continue Reading
Mixcloud announced that it has closed its first-ever fundraising round. The audio platform received an investment of $11.5 million from holding company WndrCo, which specializes in businesses in media and technology. The money will go toward global scaling of the company, expanding the team, and diversifying the platform. Continue Reading
Wondery is making ad partnerships in multiple markets. Along with announcing a deal with DAX in the UK, the podcast host has also inked agreements with two new partners to sell its ad inventory in Canada and in Australia. Continue Reading
Westwood One is announcing today that it has obtained exclusive representation to advertisers of the second season of In the Dark, an investigative crime podcast. The APM-produced show won a Peabody Award in its first season, and has served over 12-million downloads.
Australia posted a 10.5% increase in its recorded music industry, reaching value of A$391 million in 2017. Last year marked the first time that streaming music revenue, at A$213 million, exceeded more than half of the music market, according to the stats from the Australian Recording Industry Association. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Spotify’s possible plans for a car player. A three-day weekend schedule at BBC Radio 1. Much more. Continue Reading
Blubrry teased a new ad-insertion feature to dynamically put advertisements in future and already published podcast episodes. The podcast company said this feature is currently being tested and will roll out “very soon” to its pro hosting customers. Continue Reading
Fruit Punch Music is a new subscription streaming service billing itself as “Spotify for kids.” The iOS app is focused entirely on children and family-friendly programming, promising a multipoint approval process to vet content. The ad-free, unlimited music service costs $3.99 per month of $24.99 for a year-long subscription. Continue Reading
The Triton Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker has seen Spotify’s listening metric streak upward since the music service joined the Ranker in January, 2015. Three years later, in January of this year, Spotify overtook Pandora for the first time. Continue Reading
Spotify has acquired mechanical licensing company Loudr, a move that could bring more expertise and technology into the streaming company to tackle that thorny topic. Loudr offers services to help content creators, aggregators, and music services to identify and pay mechanical royalties to publishers. Continue Reading