This weekend officially marked the end of an era for retailer Best Buy. The company ended its sales of compact discs on July 1, a move that was first hinted at back in February. The move is a strong reaction from the retail sector in response to the steady drop in physical music sales. Continue Reading
Digital distributor TuneCore has entered a partnership with Sentric Music, a British publishing rights organization, to improve its services for independent artists. Under the deal, TuneCore will use Sentric’s technology and direct global collection network for an all-in-one publishing administration service that offers members more chances to collect revenue on their work. Continue Reading
Spotify is testing a scaled-back version of its Android mobile app that cuts down on features in favor of less data use. Spotify Lite has appeared on the Google Play Store as a beta version in select markets. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Three years later, Tidal is still waiting for its big wave. WhoSampled Remixes Mobile App With Music Recognition Feature. Continue Reading
We received a note from Tom McAlevey, streaming audio innovator and contributor to RAIN’s annual new-year predictions, alerting us to an announcement scheduled for later today that Radical.FM will be shut down this weekend. The platform’s technical assets are for sale. Continue Reading
Instagram is starting to take advantage of the music licensing deals secured by parent company Facebook. The social media platform’s latest feature is support for adding music tracks to Instagram Stories. Continue Reading
The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to approve the Music Modernization Act. Unanimous backing from the group means that the overhaul to music licensing and royalties will move ahead for consideration by the full Senate. Continue Reading
Apple may be planning a new type of multimedia content subscription. The Information (paywall) reports that Apple is considering a single package that would combine Apple Music with the company’s original TV and video projects and its overhauled news app. Each of the services would still be available individually, but a single access point would position Apple as a single-stop purveyor of entertainment. Continue Reading
So far, voice assistants are commonly used to access audio entertainment, but as the technology advances, the next step could involve commerce and shopping. Voicebot and Voysis have collaborated on a report pointing to the future of voice shopping. The analysis predicts that, due to the high rates of ownership (79.8%), many people will first be introduced to voice assistant shopping on smartphones. Continue Reading
Castbox has joined the ranks of podcast platforms offering subscription access. The company announced the launch of a premium subscription model that will allow podcasters to distribute paid content on its app. It claims to be the first podcast player to adopt a third-party distribution paywall model for premium content. Continue Reading
Merlin, the independent label group and global digital rights agency, has released its 10th anniversary Impact Report. The analysis shows that Merlin will make record-high payouts of $500 million in the next 12 months, a record that’s all the more impressive considering it just reached a cumulative $1 billion in distributions last year. Continue Reading
Verto Analytics released its annual index, offering a snapshot of performance for the most popular music streaming services. The report puts a focus on measuring listener loyalty with its “stickiness” metric and examines which platforms have had success attracting particular listener demographics. Continue Reading