iHeartRadio has announced streaming stations that focus on hits from single years. Called Class of Radio, the idea is to pick your graduation year. In our test, we heard an ad-free station sponsored by a student loan refinancing company — a nice campaign tie-in. Continue Reading
Adlarge Media announced that it has inked idobi Network to its portfolio of audio publishers represented by the New York-based company. idobi is the 6th-ranked streaming radio outlet in the company, and has been online for over 15 years. (idobi also was a winner of the annual RAIN Internet Radio Awards, in 2014.) Continue Reading
On-demand audio platform audioBoom has been chosed by the producers of hit podcast Undisclosed to exclusively represent the show in an exclusive premium ad sales agreement. The completed first season of Undisclosed generated over 80-million listens.
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Nearly four out of five podcast listeners stream their shows, rather than downloading them, according to new survey results from Edison Research and Triton Digital. Yet metrics are still keyed to downloads, as with the Podtrac Ranking released last week. In addition, some podcast apps make streaming difficult.
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Digitally Imported (DI.fm), the electronic music destination, today announced that it has launched its track purchase program, completing an ambitious reinvention of its service as a one-stop portal for whatever kind of music consumption the user prefers. Continue Reading
The Podcast Consumer, an annual research report from Edison Research and Triton Digital and released today, represents the 12th year of podcast research conducted by Edison. This year’s report reveals a jump from incremental podcast adoption seen for several years. “This year, we saw a spike we haven’t seen before,” said Tom Webster of Edison Research, who presented a webinar. Continue Reading
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The paid subscription model presents an opportunity for podcasting, and an experimentation phase seems to be underway now, and accelerating. Different networks are taking different slants in setting up paywalls. There are parallels with the streaming music business.
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Podtrac, a podcast audience measurement company since 2005, today released the first monthly ranking of podcast shows and networks. Called the Podcast Industry Audience Rankings, the report is not just the first in a series for Podtrac, but the first ranker of its type for podcasting that we are aware of. It’s fascinating, even as questions abound. Continue Reading
Bottom-line profit in the streaming music business is elusive, and progress is measured less by reduced losses as by audience and revenue growth. That’s why Spotify is so happy about its 2015 financials. Continue Reading
Last week we covered the launch of RadioPublic, a for-profit, public benefit corporation spawned by PRX, the open marketplace which brings together audio producers and public station program directors. To dig deeper, we spoke to Jake Shapiro, former CEO of PRX and founder/CEO of RadioPublic, and Kerri Hoffman, the new PRX CEO. Continue Reading
Continued heat is being applied to Google, YouTube, and — on a deeper level — to the Safe Harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Jonathan Taplin is a music and film producer, inventor, entrepreneur, media executive, and scholar. He put an OpEd in the New York Times in which he said that Google’s YouTube resembles a protection racket. He also wants AM/FM to start paying artist/label royalties, and exemption he terms “the original sin.” Continue Reading
Rhapsody notified us about a new app called Rhapsody VR. Not an update to the venerable music service app, but a supplementary one that uses 360 video technology to view concert clips. Rhapsody calls it “Music’s first virtual reality experience.” Continue Reading