We’ve been hearing whispers about SoundCloud and its outlook for months, with people across the industry questioning whether the audio platform is hovering on the brink of glory or disaster. The latest hints point to positive news, as rumors circulate that it is on the cusp of agreeing to a licensing deal with longtime critic Universal Music Group. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: New gadget selects Spotify music by tempo; Napster critiques Spotify, Apple; Forbes believes in radio; Billboard reviews the web radio landscape. Continue Reading
India-based streaming service Saavn has launched a campaign aimed at curbing music piracy in the country. The push uses the #SaavnVsPiracy hashtag and features videos by prominent Indian actors discussing the damage caused by piracy. Saavn said that 90% of total music revenue in India is generated by pirated music sites. Continue Reading
Curation is one of the biggest buzzwords in the radio business these days, and Sirius XM has hopped on the bandwagon. The satellite radio company announced the launch of four new music channels. Continue Reading
Commercial Radio Australia announced the launch of a report on DAB+ stations in the country. The data from market research firm GfK marks the first release of audience numbers for DAB+ stations since the technology launched down under in 2009. There are currently 3.16 million people in the DAB+ audience across Australia’s five main metropolitan cities. Continue Reading
When a big success hits the start-up world, it typically spawns a series of clones. In this case, we have a new service positioning itself as “the Snapchat of music.” Msty is a mobile app that lets its users send song clips via message to their friends, accompanied by images and snippets of text. The unusual name stands for “my song to you.” Continue Reading
Columbia House, the company of 1980s mail-order music and movie fame, is no more. Parent company Filmed Entertainment filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy this week and is looking to sell off the parts of its business still in operation. Continue Reading
UK Minister of Culture, Communications and Creative Industries Ed Vaizey spoke recently on BBC 4 about the potential FM radio switch-off in favor of DAB. “When we reach a certain target of listening on digital—and we’re very close to that target at the moment—we’ll take a view on what the appropriate next step will be,” he said. Continue Reading
NextRadio is pushing to get T-Mobile to unlock FM chips on its phones. The company has launched a campaign with the tagline “Help Get NextRadio on T-Mobile.” It asks people to turn to social media and voice their support for unlocking the chips for phones on T-Mobile plans. Continue Reading
The hi-fi streaming club has another member. Aud.io bills itself as the world’s first high-fidelity Internet radio service. It offers ad-free listening to stations grouped by genre for $7.99 a month. The service uses a Pandora-like system of personalization based on likes and skips. But unlike the online radio standard, there’s no way to add other seeds or artist preferences or new stations. Here’s what I thought. Continue Reading
Next Big Sound released its summer report, and the focus for this season was streaming and social media. Even though Pandora purchased the music data specialist this spring, the company is still able to provide compelling insight across several streaming platforms. In fact, Next Big Sound has already tracked more than 1 trillion online plays in the first six months of the year. That covers activity from YouTube, Vevo, Vimeo, Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud, and new owner Pandora. Continue Reading
SFX Entertainment reported revenue of $121.1 million in the second quarter, up 48.3% from the year-ago period. However, the parent company for online EDM specialty platform Beatport also posted an increase in net losses, up 36.2% to $48 million for the quarter. Continue Reading