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Sonos Beam soundbar brings agnostic voice assistant to the living room for an entry-level price

Posted on by Anna Washenko

Sonos has taken its ambitious next step into the smart speaker space with a new product that supports multiple voice assistants and changes the form factor. The Sonos Beam is a sound bar, a much larger device than the most popular tabletop smart speaker designs currently on the market, that’s capable of providing quality audio for a range of entertainment purposes in small- or medium-sized rooms. Continue Reading →

Spotify is reportedly offering hefty advances to land more direct licensing deals

Posted on by Anna Washenko

Spotify is reportedly offering advances to managers and indie artists as an incentive to consider direct licensing deals with the streaming service. Billboard reported that the company is offering up to several hundred thousand dollars in advances for managers that agree to license a particular number of tracks by indies directly to Spotify. On the platform, the managers and acts could then earn 50% of the revenue from those songs being streamed. Continue Reading →

PwC outlook forecasts streaming domination in digital music revenue by 2022

Posted on by Anna Washenko

PwC has published its annual report of projections and predictions for the international media industry. The Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2018-2022 valued the music, radio, and podcast sector in the U.S. at $40.7 billion in 2017. The industry is projected to see a 4% compound annual growth rate to reach $49.5 billion in 2022. Continue Reading →

WWDC: Podcasts app gets more Siri support, arrives on Apple Watch

Posted on by Anna Washenko

This year, Apple focused its WWDC keynote entirely on its software and operating systems. That choice meant the presentation didn’t get into any big-ticket numbers about the company’s entertainment services. However, Apple has made some updates to add functionality to both its Podcasts and Apple Music platforms. Continue Reading →

Podbean debuts internal programmatic ad platform

Posted on by Anna Washenko

Podbean has launched its own supply-side platform for programmatic advertising. Its new PodAds service will offer targeted ad buys that are dynamically inserted into podcasts hosted on the network. Advertisers and media buyers can use PodAds to set their ad budget and select the shows to run them on by their desired geographic and category areas. Continue Reading →