Nielsen has released its Total Audience Report for Q3 2016. Radio inched back up to its Q3 2014 levels of 1:52 in media consumption in an average day. Live TV still holds the lion’s share at 4:06. During the period, AM/FM radio had a monthly reach of nearly 263.84 million, up from 260.43 million in the year-ago period. Continue Reading
A collective of record labels, streaming platforms, and advocacy organizations leveraged the CES spotlight to announce a commitment to high-resolution (hi-res) audio streaming. The loosely-articulated mission continues an industry trend whose mileposts have been as varied as Neil Young’s Pono venture, Tidal’s hi-res streaming subscription service, and the small but notable resurgence of vinyl records. Continue Reading
iHeartRadio has officially launched its two new streaming audio services, rolling them out widely after a month of testing. The two services emerging from beta are iHeartRadio Plus and iHeartRadio All Access Powered By Napster. Both were introduced in December; RAIN News conducted a review of the new features. Continue Reading
SESAC has been acquired by the Blackstone Group. The collection and licensing society bills itself as the only one in the U.S. handling public performance, mechanical, synchronization and other rights under a single umbrella. Financial details of the acquisition have not been revealed, but the deal is projected to close by the end of Q1 2017. Continue Reading
Everybody seems to want SoundCloud to be acquired, though the company itself does not publicly contribute to speculation. The latest? A report of unnamed sources saying Google is now investigating a SoundCloud purchase. Continue Reading
BuzzAngle Music issued an annual report about music consumption in 2016. Overall music consumption increased 4.9% over 2015, from 394.5 million album project units to 413.9 million project units. Streaming consumption skyrocketed up 82.6% to 250 billion streams for the year. Continue Reading
Yesterday we posted the #1 story for 2016, based on readership of our articles. Today, the RAIN News roundup of how the online audio industry evolved in 2016. Seventy-four articles show the development of internet radio, music services, small webcasting, podcasting and the business ecosystem surrounding all of it in 2016. Happy browsing! Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: A Forbes columnist revisits successful 2016 predictions for the music and music-service industry, and ventures to predict 2017 events. General Counsel of the RIAA explains why 2017 will be a “critical year.” Continue Reading
Tidal has published a year-end video that promotes the exclusive-release strategy the music service followed in 2016. While exclusive album releases have gotten the most attention (and there have been 32 of them this year), Tidal touted exclusives in other categories. Continue Reading
When it comes to music, news, and podcast listening, Amazon Alexa (in the Echo and Dot devices) is far less equipped than you might think from all the buzz. But the promise is that Alexa will get smarter over time, as new skills are learned. Even now, the experience is compelling. Continue Reading
Guest columnist Corey Layton of Australian podcast company Whooshkaa looks ahead to podcasting in 2017, with predictions about sports shows, podcast discovery, monetization, and technology. Continue Reading
The final week of the year is a good time to reflect on what was, and look forward to what will be. Today, the most-read articles and the #1 story of 2016. In an unprecedented concentration of interest, RAIN News readers drove our coverage of 2016’s most important news event to the top five most-read articles of the year. Continue Reading