RAIN Notes: Thursday, June 3
Jottings of Note
— The How (The Drum)
— Good Ones (Welp Magazine)
— It’s Not the Size that Counts (AdWeek)
News
Spotify’s new mid-year blast of subscriber self-awareness: Only You
Spotify has long encouraged musical self-reflection in its subscribers with an end-of-year feature called Spotify Wrapped. Now comes Only You, a similar round-up of individual preferences and new playlists based on those preferences. It will be a continuing new product bundled into the Home panel. Continue Reading
Magnificent Noise launches first self-distro’d podcast, “Bubble Trouble” with Will Page
Bubble Trouble is a new podcast hosted by former Spotify Chief Economist Will Page and Arete Research founder Richard Kramer, which promises to describe inconvenient truths about financial markets. The show is a sort of coming-out for Magnificent Noise, a network helmoed by ex-SVP of Audible Eric Nuzum. Continue Reading
RAIN Notes: Wednesday, June 2
Jottings of Note
— Nominated (British Podcast Awards)
— Closing a Gap (Ossa)
— Podcast Marketing, Mais Oui! (Ausha)
YouTube paid $4B to music industry in the last 12 months
In what appears to be a report timed to the end of Q1, YouTube paid $4-billion in music royalties in 12 months. More than 30% of that payout to the music industry came from monetization of user-uploaded music. Continue Reading
SiriusXM, Pandora, Stitcher launch new channels, podcasts, and events for Black Music Month
June is Black History Month, siriusXM is marshalling its sprawling inventory of audio platforms in a combined celebration and promotion. The company, along with its Pandora and Stitcher subsidiaries, announced the launch of three exclusive limited-engagement channels, a groundbreaking original podcast, and specialty music programming. Continue Reading
Apple fails to launch podcast subscriptions in May as promised; postpones to June
Publicly heralded, quietly postponed. Promised for May, now it’s June in an email to participants. Apple acknowledges problems and notes that thousands of creators and networks around the world submitted their plans for subscriptions and channels. Those business plans disrupted. Continue Reading
SiriusXM CEO: “We’ll continue to be opportunistic,” and predicts double-digit growth “for years to come”
In an interview at this week’s J.P. Morgan Technology, Media & Communications Conference, CEO Jennifer Witz held forth about SiriusXM’s business strategies and accomplishments. She predicted revenue growth, noted that podcasting is still small, and promised an opportunistic approach to acquisitions. Continue Reading
iHeartRadio unleashes metrics: Users, downloads, social
iHeartRadio sent out an email blast headlining 150-million registered users of the audio app, and 3-billion app downloads. The company historically does not disclose monthly average users. Continue Reading
Apple and Amazon Music crush the Hi-Res added-value model, adding HD audio to regular subscriptions
Hi-Res audio (also called Hi-Def, HD, HiFi, and other nicknames) has been an added value feature in music streaming apps since Tidal charted that course with its 2x pricing model. Now that business model is at risk of being debunked. We test Amazon’s ULTRA HD. Continue Reading
RAIN Notes: Monday, May 24
Jottings of note:
— Striking a Blow (Mark Mulligan)
— Apple vs Spotify (James Cridland)
— Another Podcast Event (Asian American Podcasters Association)
— Aclass (Acast)
Podcast dominance unchanged as Triton Digital releases April U.S. Podcast Report
A remarkable stability is revealed in Triton Digital’s latest U.S. Podcast Report. Click through for details. Continue Reading