RAIN Notes: March 17
— The How of Change (NPR)
— Alexa, Whither My Privacy? (Amazon)
— Time (J.D. Crowley)
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Author: Brad Hill
RAIN Notes: March 14
— To Bot or Not (On The Record podcast)
— Blueprints For Startup Success (Insider Interviews)
— Smart Scaling (Podcast Advertising Playbook)
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2024 global music market growth: Slowed but still significant. Think three dozen billion.
UK-based MIDiA Research has released the 2024 edition of its recorded music market shares report. The top line here has two parts: Overall global recorded music revenue ($36.2 billion), and Annual growth (6.5%). Click for much more and an illustrative infographic.
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Shifting podcast demos begin aligning with U.S. population realities (Edison Research)
Podcast audience demographics in the U.S. are easily generalized by most in the industry: Relatively affluent, educated, and left-leaning politically compared to the whole U.S. population. But that easy characterization is changing as U.S. podcast listening expands. Click for a six-year snapshot.
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Spotify: $10B payout in 2024; $60B lifetime — indie artists highlighted in a raft of metrics
Spotify has released a Music Economics Report for 2024. In it, we see interesting metrics about the platform’s reach, payouts to participating artists, metrics pertaining to songwriters and composers, and the elite class of Spotify millionaires, and much more. Click for detailed coverage and link to the original.
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Sony establishes $7.5 Million Audio Institute at NYU
A japanese electronics giant, an elite urban U.S. university, and several million dollars are converging to create a state-of-the-art audio institute. It is Sony behind the money — a $7.4 million donation to New York University. That grant will establish the Sony Audio Institute. Click for more. Continue Reading
RAIN Notes: March 11
— Farewell to Fellow Fanatics (Rachel Whitney)
— Legacy Media Getting Rocked (Scott Klass and Nathalie Hill)
— Two for One (iHeartPodcasts)
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iHeartPodcast Awards bestowed; Las Culturistas is top winner
The annual iHeartPodcast Awards celebration happened las night (March 10) at SXSW in Austin. The recorded ceremony will be broadcast tonight (March 11) on AXS TV at 8pm ET. SPOILER ALERT: This post contains complete winner information. Continue Reading
Post-bankruptcy layoff action affects 300 at Audacy
Five weeks after broadcasting/audio giant Audacy completed a bankruptcy process and CEO David Field existed the company, the company has completed a layoff sweep that included as many as 300 employees. We learn these key points from multiple news sources, as well as verifications posted on LinkedIn. Continue Reading
Bill Freund, co-founder of Triton Digital, passes away at 56
Entrepreneur and digital audio executive Bill (Billy) Freund has passed away. He was 58. We learn this sad news from Inside Radio, which supplies this note: “In place of flowers, the Freund Family requests that contributions be made in Billy’s… Continue Reading
February podcast production drops 32% year over year (Listen Notes)
New podcast production took a substantial step downward in February, compared to the same month a year ago. And in the month-over-month view, January-February represents the biggest single-month drop of the 12-month period. A macro view of new podcasts per year shows the Covid-era surge followed by a return to normal. Continue Reading
iHeartMedia announces hosts & presenters for upcoming Pod Awards
iHeartMedia has sent around a bulletin revealing who will host the iHeartPodcast Awards next Monday, March 10. The event is a live ceremony at SXSW in Austin, at the Moody heater. Multiple presenters during the ceremony are also revealed today. Continue Reading