Swedish podcast hosting and tech company Acast, and Australian radio and entertainment group NOVA, have joined a strategic alliance to represent their combined podcast portfolios in the Australian ad market. Continue Reading
Facebook has reportedly offered the major record labels and publishers “hundreds of millions of dollars” for its members to have the legal use of music in videos uploaded to its platforms. Bloomberg reported that this offer to the industry coincides with the debut of Facebook’s new Watch hub for video content. Continue Reading
In the eighth ceremony of the RAIN Internet Radio Awards, six audio brands received first-place recognition and commemorative plaques in five categories, after an exceptionally close round of judging by a panel of 13 unaffiliated judges. Continue Reading
Jelli, programmatic radio ad buying platform, announced a new update to its service. SpotPlan 2.0 reflects feedback from major media buying agencies and is designed to improve the progress of demand-side programmatic ad buys. Jelli promises an average ROI improvement of 20% via its latest tools compared with traditional buying methods. Continue Reading
SoundHound has revamped its mobile app to place a heavier focus on music playback and voice controls. The company’s software was a long-time rival to Shazam, but more recently SoundHound doubled down on the development of its Hound voice assistant program. The new features still complement its core function of identifying audio. Continue Reading
Universal Music Group saw streaming grow to a larger portion of its second-quarter results. The major label’s EBITDA for the first half of 2017 rose 61.6% to €286 million over the year-ago period. Total revenue jumped 15.2% to €2.67 billion euros ($2.98 billion). Continue Reading
Spotify has two updates to its leadership ranks today. First, Zuzanna Gierlinska is the new head of programmatic for Europe. A 17-year veteran, she brings experience from work at Oracle, BlueKai, and Microsoft Advertising. The other personnel news is that Tom Calderone has departed the company. Continue Reading
Westwood One has updated its State of Podcasting 2017 report to reflect additional research on the audio format. It addressed the key takeaways in a blog post. The data point to steady, continual growth in the podcast audience. Advertisers have also been getting on the podcast bandwagon as the listener base grows. Continue Reading
Vevo has introduced a live talk show format to its music video platform. Vevo Live will deliver artist interviews in front of a studio audience in addition to interactions with online viewers. After testing over the summer, Vevo Live had its soft launch episode starring Fifth Harmony. Continue Reading
RAIN is pleased to announce the finalists in each of the five categories in the 8th Annual RAIN Internet Radio Awards, sponsored by Benztown. The prestigious RAIN Awards celebrate excellence in online audio. The annual program is judged by a panel of independent experts. Winners will be announced at RAIN Summit Austin, next Tuesday, September 5, at 3:30. Continue Reading
Engagement platform Second Street has acquired email database marketing company Presslaff Interactive Revenue, in a deal whose terms remain undisclosed. Continue Reading
Pandora is getting a new data onboarding portal for brands to deliver their messages to listeners. Real-time information services company Neustar is building the self-service portal for advertisers to upload their data to Pandora at scale and help those brands to build up audiences. Continue Reading