iHeartRadio made good use of its mobile notification mechanism this morning, pinging registered users about a special Robin Williams takeover of the service’s “24/7 Comedy” channel. Legendary comedian and actor Williams died last night in his California home. Continue Reading
When we heard about a daring format flip at WKAZ in Charleston, WV, we tuned in to the station’s webcast to hear the mix and find out how engaging the experience was on the digital side. We haven’t tuned away in 12 hours — an unusual level of engagement in an office known for its obsessive stream-surfing, app-switching, genre-scrambling listening tendencies. Continue Reading
Viacom’s music group, comprised of MTV, VH1, and CMT, released summary results of survey exploring how teenagers and adults up to age 40 consume music. A survey population of 1,200 participants submitted to the quantitative study. Streaming was revealed as a mainstream behavior in the survey responses, with 78% of the group having streamed music in the past three months. Continue Reading
Niche label Blue Music Group, which specializes in Scandinavian jazz and classical artists, announced yesterday that it has withdrawn its catalog from Spotify’s on-demand streaming service. The announcement, and its wording, make an interesting illustration of the tricky decision facing content owners during a time of industry disruption. Continue Reading
Broadcast law attorney David Oxenford writes about the Department of Justice review of ‘consent decress,’ which govern how ASCAP and BMI operate. “All music services need to watch and stay involved as this process develops,” Oxenford advises. “There are obviously important and complicated issues that will be considered in this review.” Continue Reading
RAIN News founding editor Kurt Hanson today received the inaugural “Radio’s Most Innovative” award from Jacobs Media, which plans to celebrate many honorees on a series of “Innovation Fridays.” The award bestowal features an interview with Kurt, including his highly researched analysis and asssessment of different pizza types. Continue Reading
In June we reported on Entercom-owned Seattle station KNDD’s experiment in dramatically lowering its broadcast ad load. the station started a “Two minute promise,” in which no spot break would exceed that time, and each hour would be capped at six minutes. Today, the first signs of success for the KDNN test — higher ratings, and comments from Entercom CEO David Field. Continue Reading
ASCAP announced that it is appealing the decision it lost to Pandora in a federal rate-setting trial in March. ASCAP seeks to reverse a district court’s ruling that set a much lower royalty rate for Pandora’s use of music created or published by ASCAP members. In the earlier trial, federal judge Denis Cote was categorical in her rejection of ASCAP’s argument. the stakes are high enough to motivate ASCAP’s appeal. Continue Reading
YouTube is the world’s largest distributor of streaming music, and an important music-discovery platform. Does extreme YouTube music popularity (virality) boost music sales? Nielsen takes a stab at answering that intriguing question, acknowledging that the results are inconclusive. But the graphic report is interesting. Continue Reading
adStream is a journal of ad-stalking and interesting commercial sightings in online audio services.
Pandora has spent resources building a local ad-sales network working in over three-dozen markets, and deploys algorithmic tools to target ads by location. But in our ad-stalking experience, we don’t notice many location-specific commercials in our test account. We caught one the other day, though. Continue Reading
eMarketer reports on survey data collected in march by B2X Care solutions, investigating how consumer ages 16-65 use their smartphones. The report is slanted toward online map use. But we noticed that music use was at the same usage level in the original research. Continue Reading
If the steady throb of 60-beats-per-minute dance music helps power you through the day, Club Fusion is a pureplay you need to know about. (www.fusionradio.fm).In today’s high-energy listening to Club Fusion we’ve heard Tiesto, Chromeo, Antillas, Kiesza, Cascada, and others. Continue Reading