In a deal similar to the partnership they announced with Cumulus last fall, Rdio and Grupo Bandeirantes have announced a joint venture and powerful strategic partnership encompassing marketing, distribution, content and promotions that will significantly expand Rdio’s presence in Brazil. (by Jennifer Lane) Continue Reading
Digital measurement firm comScore released new data on mobile and smartphone usage last week. Two streaming apps, YouTube and Pandora, are in the top five. Pandora’s mobile strategy is the key to the streaming platform’s amazing success. With more than 70% of their listeners on mobile, Pandora understood that concept early and capitalized on it. Continue Reading
Last week we learned from the Radio Advertising Bureau’s 2013 Revenue Report that digital dollars continue to increase at a much faster rate than other revenue segments for radio broadcasters. One of the obvious reasons why the digital sector is growing quickly is that the streaming audience is growing in all the right ways. Continue Reading
Earlier this week, RAINNews reported that an FM station in Boston – WKLB – is running spots for iTunes Radio. The spots are live reads, done by radio station personalities. When asked, the station, owned by Greater Media, issued a statement that kind of sounded like: “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” This doesn’t seem like an especially well thought-out strategy. Continue Reading
The study says that Digital and HD Radio formats will never scale to replace FM, and auto manufacturers will continue to include FM receivers in cars for many years. But listening to FM will gradually be replaced by streaming radio and music services as more and more cars become connected. Continue Reading
There’s a lot going on with streaming audio talk platforms that’s intriguing. Jennifer Lane listens to spoken audio in her car, and in a quest to find good sources she looks at Swell, Stitcher, and Spoken Layer. Also: A glance at the new Inside.com. Continue Reading
Why is audio less viral than video? Audio has to work harder to be good. But when it is, it’s almost better. What are the elements that make great audio that people will want to share online? Continue Reading
It’s press release week – err, I mean CES week – in our industry this week, a time when lots of folks gather in Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, and announce innovative products and projects. Two announcements in particular caught my attention yesterday. Continue Reading
Several Chrome browser extensions tune out Pandora audio ads. One of the pitfalls of being the streaming music platform of choice is that the service becomes a target for developers with the know-how to “improve upon it.” Ad-blocking is real, and is a growing problem. Continue Reading
There’s buzz and activity around podcasting these days. Podcasting isn’t new, but I think it’s become reinvigorated of late with a few players moving things forward. Continue Reading
This article was originally published in Audio4cast. The announcement that Winamp would shut down before the end of the year didn’t surprise me given that AOL had already abandoned its online radio platform, but it did make me pause. There… Continue Reading
With more than 200 million registered users, Pandora’s collection of user data is substantial. Now they are beginning to use that data to create marketable audience segments that advertisers can use to target their campaigns. An article by guest contributor Jennifer Lane. Continue Reading