Global podcast company Audioboom released its Annual Report & Financial Statements for 2022. In it, we see double-digit growth in several key metrics. Click through for metrics and insights. Continue Reading
Media sales tech company WideOrbit has launched WO Fusion, which the firm describes as “a next-generation sales platform that creates a scalable application for broadcast TV and radio, as well as cable and broadcast network sales teams.” Continue Reading
Major label Universal Music Group (UMG) has asked Spotify, Apple, and other streaming platforms to block AI-generated music. Based on reporting (HERE and HERE), this is not a legal action, but an urgent request. For now, the news is framed as a request from UMG to streaming services. That stage of protest is reminiscent of major-label protests of Napster and other file-sharing platforms in the late 1990s. That tumultuous period eventually led to label lawsuits against Napster users, meant to both punish individuals and demonstrate purposeful intent to everyone. We see a significant likeness harking back to the 1990s file-sharing epoch. Click through for key facts and RAIN’s speculation. Continue Reading
From NAB Show: Live365, the webcasting platform within SoundStack, announces a deal with performance rights management company Global Music Rights, enabling webcasters to stream GMR music in a royalty-included plan. This means the webcasters are not liable for royalty payments to GMR-represented creators. GMR reps 142 songwriters in a catalog of 81,000 works which includes over 100 Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs. Click for more details. Continue Reading
In a spectacular data project, banking services company NetCredit has analyzed publically available Spotify play data to calculate highest-earning songs on the service, country by country. The result is a lot of data and a glorious array of detailed infographics. Click through for details. Continue Reading
Spotify notified us of a new venture and technology accomplishment — called “broadcast-to-podcast,” it enables radio broadcasters a specialized tool that makes it simple to turn their existing audio content into on-demand podcast content. This repurposing is accomplished with two of Spotify’s acquisitions: Australia-based Whooshkaa and U.S.-based Megaphone. Click for lots of detail. Continue Reading
Edison Research has performed an interesting and ingenious calculation, likening podcast category success to baseball batting average metric. (See it HERE.) The result (in the graphic below) shows True Crime as the highest-hitting (as it were) podcast batting average. Click through for the rationale, an explanation of how it works, and the graphic list.
Continue Reading
NPR’s most recent content post on Twitter is dated April 4 — a piece of political news. After that post, Twitter CEO Elon Musk applied this identifying label to NPR’s account: “Government-funded media.” This morning we see a tweetstorm of NPR links to the network’s other social sites and public resources, as NPR quits Twitter and guides 8.8-million followers to other social sites. Continue Reading
In what is termed “the biggest governmental overhaul of broadcasting rules in 20 years,” makers of smart speakers must offer all licensed UK radio stations on all their platforms. Amazon (Alexa) and Google (Assistant) are the world’s two largest companies affected by the new requirement. Continue Reading
Jottings of Note
— New Home (Podcast Business Journal)
— Many Things (The Podglomerate)
— The Answer Is… (Vanity Fair)