Classical specialist Naxos has unveiled a new comprehensive world music collection for subscribers to stream. The Naxos Music Library World represents more than 150 countries and more than 6,000 albums. The music has been pulled from a range of labels and will be continually updated with new additions. Continue Reading
This week’s Q4 earnings call for Sirius XM provided a snapshot of company financials and projections, as these calls always do, and some color around company strategy and aspirations. Click through for excerpts. Continue Reading
The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the force behind the annual Grammy Awards, announced plans to create a lobbying group dubbed the Grammy Fund for Music Creators. “We won’t be the largest PAC in Washington, but we will be the loudest,” the academy’s Daryl P. Friedman said. Continue Reading
Garth Brooks has been recognized by SoundExchange as the first country artist to secure more than 1 billion streams on digital radio. The achievement means that Brooks received the SoundExchange Digital Radio Award for his popularity across digital radio. Continue Reading
Sirius XM reported its fourth-quarter financial results. Net income for the period totaled $134.63 million, or 3 cents per share, down 5.9% from income of $143.12 million, or 3 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Quarterly revenue increased about 10% on-year to $1.20 billion, surpassing analysts’ expectations of $1.19 billion after a third-quarter revenue total of $1.17 billion. Continue Reading
The RIAA has decided that streaming counts will be included toward albums’ gold and platinum certification. On-demand audio and video streams will be a factor in measuring performance effective immediately. Gold certification is awarded to an album with 500,000 sales, while platinum is 1 million sales and multi-platinum is 2 million. Continue Reading
Podcast hosting and production platform Spreaker announced that it is launching a radio spot campaign for its service. The commercials will run on hundreds of iHeartRadio stations. The 30-second spots evangelize podcasting as a self-expression opportunity and cite success stories of podcast hosts on Spreaker. Click through to hear one. Continue Reading
We covered the rumors out of the New York Post that claimed Amazon might be gearing up Prime Music to be a bigger threat to the rest of the streaming industry. Even though those speculations have not been confirmed, we are seeing signs that Amazon does have new programming efforts underway through Audible, the audiobook company it purchased in 2008. Continue Reading
Pandora has updated its iOS app with a new discovery tool called Browse. This feature, which appears at the top of the screen next to My Stations, brings pre-curated discovery into the company’s product suite. Continue Reading
After several months of speculation, SFX Entertainment has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The electronic music company is seeking a debt-for-equity swap with its bondhonders in order to remove $300 million of debt from its balance sheet. Continue Reading
Sony Music’s Q4 financial results broke out the numbers by format and revealed a big role for streaming. Digital secured a 43% portion of the company’s music income, with streaming at 24% outperforming download revenues at 19%. Continue Reading
SoundExchange released its digital radio report for Q4 2015, a publication marking growth for both the quarter and the year. The company’s royalty quarterly distributions increased 16% over the year-ago period to $211.4 million. Continue Reading