Sonos has opened its first physical retail location in New York City’s tony Soho neighborhood. The store places a high value on creating listening environments to best showcase its speaker products. In addition to the usual shelves of merchandise, the store has seven listening rooms designed to look like real rooms in houses. Continue Reading
Spotify is a hit with Mexican listeners, according to data from The Competitive Intelligence Unit. More than 60% of Mexicans who use streaming platforms listen to Spotify. The next closest service is Google Play at just 12.3%. Continue Reading
Omnifone’s business and assets are being purchased by an unknown party. The joint administrators accepted a bid of $10 million from a U.S. source, but the document did not disclose a name. Continue Reading
Google piracy report 2016 music has released its annual piracy report. The analysis highlights YouTube’s role both with the still-growing creator community and to the music industry. It is also well-timed as a response to the label and artist critiques that YouTube doesn’t do enough for the industry. Continue Reading
Teens and young adults are a desirable demographic for most businesses, and a new report from the Music Business Association and data partner LOOP examined their music listening and buying habits. On-demand streaming accounted for 51% of total listening time on a typical day for the 15-19 age group, compared to the 24% average across ages. Continue Reading
The National Music Publishers’ Association said that a large number of its members have signed on to participate in the $30 million settlement with Spotify over publishing royalties. “The vast majority of our members have opted into our settlement,” President and CEO David Israelite said of the arrangement. Continue Reading
Canadian listeners are continuing to shift to streaming, with total music consumption up 7.4% on year in the first half of 2016. Nielsen’s mid-year report for Canada found that total on-demand streams from audio and video platforms reached 18.6 billion songs. Continue Reading
Google Play is rolling out a new feature for expanded sharing across multiple people. The Family Library supports up to six individuals sharing a single account. All members will have access to every app, game, movie, TV show, and book added to the joint collection. Continue Reading
Mobile game Pokemon Go has taken the world by storm. Spotify announced today that the game has triggered a spike in listening too, with more than triple the streams of Pokemon songs logged in the past week. Continue Reading
DAB+ has an audience of 3.52 million listeners in Australia’s five metropolitan capitals, according to data from GfK. Just over a quarter (26.3% of Australians listened to DAB+ digital radio in the first three radio survey periods of the year. Continue Reading
ESPN Audio and FiveThirtyEight are planning a new podcast project, and are hiring staff for it. The show is based on the sports documentary series 30 For 30, and will be spearheaded by Jody Avirgan. Continue Reading
Australia-based Whooshkaa announced that it will be using new audio sharing technology from Facebook, so its shows can be played directly from the social network’s main feed. “After months working with Facebook, we’re delighted to be the world’s first podcasting platform to take advantage of this new audio sharing technology, joining the likes of Spotify and the United States’ National Public Radio,” founder Rob Loewenthal said. Continue Reading