If U.S. legislative bodies and lobbying groups are neck-deep in music-licensing and copyright issues during this “Summer of Copyright,” their northern neighbors are wading into turbulent waters, too. A protest of Canadian music royalty rates, set by the government in May, is underway. Continue Reading
When we read that Feature.FM would be supplying sponsored music to 8tracks, we took the opportunity to catch up with David Porter, 8tracks founder and CEO, to discuss that deal and native advertising generally. Our conversatijon also went into data science and user personalization. Continue Reading
Pandora’s workmanlike earnings call conveyed the impression of offhand dominance in the field, but after-hours investors sent the stock careening down a steep slope, off 12% in early evening trading.
The company met financial expectations, but lowered guidance for the current quarter (Jul – Sep). Perhaps more influential to trigger-happy investors were the audience metrics, which showed no audience growth. There was expansion of listening hours, however, emphasized by CEO Brian McAndrews as the more important key in the revenue equation. Continue Reading
Townsquare Media launched as a public company today, pricing its offering at $11. (NYSE ticker: TSQ) Townsquare is the 3rd-largest radio-station holding company in the U.S., with 312 local stations. An eager digital adopter, Townsquare maintains 325 local websites, and has grown its webcast listenership 43% in the past year. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: The state of streaming; online radio in Australia; live but not in person; Google/Spotify deal debate. Continue Reading
MIDiA Research, recently launched by Mark Mulligan, has completed a study examining the characteristics, attitudes, and behavior of “digital natives.” The focus is mostly how they approach music. What are Digital Natives? A young demographic that has never known a world without online connectivity and unlimited music and audio choices. Understanding the mindset and decisions of that population shines light into the future of listening. Continue Reading
WideOrbit, a leading provider of advertising management solutions, has acquired Admeta, a Sweden-based tech company specializing in programmatic ad-selling. With a strong focus in Europe, and clients in over 20 countries, Admeta develops technology to optimize revenue for online publishers. Continue Reading
Amazon’s Prime Music, which launched in June, has enhanced its service with “hundreds of thousands of songs,” and a big raft of new house-curated playlists. The service is pressing its strategy of providing easy lean-back listening to music mixes to Prime members, and de-emphasizing lean-forward music searching and collecting. We took the opportunity to give the service a second review, this time in an Amazon Kindle Fire HD tablet, presumably the, er, prime interface for the platform. Continue Reading
Venerable Internet radio platform SHOUTcast, which was acquired from AOL by Radionomy early this year, is re-launching this week with enhancements that should benefit SHOUTcast station owners. The SHOUTcast brand, station directory, and back-end tie-ins with mobile apps all remain intact. The noteworthy changes are intended to provide station owners with a less expensive, more lucrative, and better informed experience. Continue Reading
Business software company Marketron today announced the addition of location-based advertising to its suite of monetization products. Location-based advertising addresses the dominant trend in digital listening, which is the migration of consumers to mobile environments. An eMarketer study this month concluded that mobile advertising will surpass traditional radio advertising revenue this year. Continue Reading
Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio is partnering with ad-tech provider AdsWizz to create “unique and integrated digital advertising capabilities,” it was announced this morning. The partnership will enhance ad insertion and targeting across a wide scope of brands and content — over 840 Clear Channel radio stations that stream live webcasts on the iHeart platform. Continue Reading
Clip Interactive has announced an agreement with Entercom to create mobile apps for Entercom’s Portland radio stations. The new apps will allow listeners to interact with “all elements of the broadcast and stream.” The apps are designed to create additional station revenue. Continue Reading