Quick Hits: Questions about NPR’s RAD. Apple Music year-in-review app.
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: RAD and the value of podcast listener data. Get an Apple Music year-in-review with this app. Continue Reading
News
Quick Hits: Festivals in the streaming era. Musical M&A trends. Behind Spotify’s direct listing.
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Music festivals in the streaming era. A year in musical mergers. Reflecting on Spotify’s listing. Continue Reading
Mariah Carey’s holiday hit takes the crown for Spotify’s one-day streaming record
Music is often closely tied to big moments in current and cultural events, and the latest record-breaker at Spotify is an example of that. Mariah Carey is the new holder of the one-day streaming record after her “All I Want for Christmas Is You” surpassed 10.8 million streams this Christmas Eve. Continue Reading
Amazon’s Echo Dot was a best-seller during the holiday shopping season
Amazon shared another set of eye-popping statistics from the holiday shopping season. The retailer reported that 2018 was a record-breaking holiday, with the most items ordered worldwide. The new iteration of the Echo Dot smart speaker was one of the best-selling products for the company. Continue Reading
Amazon Alexa is the top free app on December 26 for a second year
Christmas is a day for opening presents, which means the day after Christmas is when the recipients get to try out their new toys. Lori Lewis, a social media executive with previous stints at Cumulus Media, Westwood One, and Jacobs Media, has monitored which free apps have topped the charts on December 26 for the past four years. Continue Reading
Neil Young Archive officially launches with full entertainment subscription
The Neil Young Archive first debuted about a year ago, offering his fans a chance to access his music catalog at a high audio quality. While the site was free for the beta period, the site is now formally launching as a subscription service and app. Continue Reading
Quick Hits: Holiday and year-end round-up edition
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Wrapping up 2018 at Pandora and Shazam, plus the top Christmas tracks on YouTube. Continue Reading
Warner Music Group fiscal year revenue exceeded $4 billion for the first time
Warner Music Group released its financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ending September 30, 2018. Quarterly revenue increased 13.3% to $1.039 billion, with $596 million of that stemming from digital sources. For the full fiscal year, total revenue was $4.005 billion, up 12%, and total digital revenue for the year was $2.252 billion. Continue Reading
Pandora hires CMT exec to head country music programming
Pandora has hired a new head of country programming. Jennifer Danielson joins Pandora after almost 10 years with CMT, where she was most recently the director of music strategy. She will oversee programming for country music, which Pandora says draws more than 30 million unique listeners to the service every month. Continue Reading
Laura Walker to depart as president and CEO of New York Public Radio next year
Laura Walker is stepping down from her post as the president and CEO of New York Public Radio. Her departure marks the end of 23 years at the helm of the public radio operation. Walker guided New York Public Radio from its roots as a city-owned station to an independent nonprofit composed of eight radio stations and many other media properties. Continue Reading
Tidal launches My Mix playlists, updated radio algorithms
Tidal introduced a new personalized playlist to its feature set. The streaming service’s My Mix blends algorithm-generated recommendations with insights from its human-curated playlists to create listening recommendations based on an individual’s tastes. Continue Reading
Shazam is now ad-free following Apple acquisition
Apple paid up a chunk of change and fended off a challenge in European courts in order to acquire Shazam. Now that the audio-identification app is officially under Apple’s umbrella, the first changes are happening under the new leadership. Continue Reading