All forms of broadcast.
Sirius XM shared strong subscriber growth in its second-quarter conference call, but recently increased its projections for that metric. In the call, the company predicted that it would add 1.25 million new subscribers for the year. Now it has increased that guidance, and is expecting to add 1.45 million for a total subscriber base of 27 million. Continue Reading
Emmis Communications unveiled new a feature for its NextRadio smartphone app called Live Guide. This update is a visual representation of the currently playing music on local stations, an addition meant to make browsing easier. The app also got updates to its navigation tools and will now show listeners extra information about station songs and programming events during broadcasts. Continue Reading
RAIN News is pleased to partner with Edison Research in the 2014 search for Audio’s 30 Under 30, honoring top talent in radio and audio. The 30 recipients of this singular recognition were announced today at RAIN Summit Indy.
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OurMusicalRoots.com, the Saint Louis Internet station that was denied a reader’s choice award by a Saint Louis newspaper, picketed the newspaper office as promised on Wednesday. Station founder John Stephens reported back to RAIN that all went well, with a… Continue Reading
Disney announced that it is closing 23 of its 24 terrestrial stations, laying off nearly 200 people in sales and operations. The reason is massive migration of listening from terrestrial signals to streaming platforms. Click through for the internal memo. Continue Reading
Reading that automaker BMW eliminated AM terrestrial reception from one of its new car models was a “Hold everything!” moment. The hazy future of AM is generally troubling to someone of a certain age, who grew up listening pretty evenly to the AM and FM sides of the dial. But there is something more sharply distressing in seeing AM ripped out of a car, laregly because of the baseball connection. Continue Reading
NuVoodoo Media Services released new research that found Pandora and broadcast radio may have a more symbiotic relationship than expected. The survey of 1,100 in the PPM markets revealed that 62 percent of the Pandora users listened to the online radio service for at least half an hour per day, and 56 percent of Pandora users spent that much time listening to broadcast radio. 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
“The once-ubiquitous FM radio is today primarily enjoyed in the car, where a growing variety of audio consumption occurs. But stored and streamed content on mobile devices is steadily marginalizing the broadcast portion of in-car listening, sucking the audience lifeblood out of the medium.” Connected-car analyst Roger Lanctot contributes this guest column that examines how Sprint is handling its NextRadio implementation of FM in smartphones. 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
Coleman Insights has completed its guidance research for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and Emmis Communications, the developer of NextRadio. The study’s first part was about how consumer consume radio generally. This second part examines consumer reaction to the NextRadio app. Continue Reading
This week National Public radio released the brand new NPR One mobile app, which site side-by-side with the previously launched NPR News app. The first was a reinvention of the NPR listening experience. The new app reinvents that, with simplicity and style. RAIN reviews. Continue Reading