Rhapsody and Napster have reached the 3 million subscriber milestone. It has been a year of fast growth for the streaming services, which announced 2.5 million listeners in February and 2 million listeners last July. Continue Reading
SFX Entertainment is reorganizing its leadership, a move that will see a new CEO overseeing EDM project Beatport. Greg Consiglio will serve as president and CEO for the online store and streaming service. According to the press release, the structural changes were made so SFX can focus on brand-level operations. Continue Reading
Three European rights agencies have inked an agreement to form a joint venture and launch a hub for digital rights. The participants are PRS for Music in the UK, GEMA in Germany, and STIM in Sweden. The goal of this hub is to make digital rights management faster and more efficient for single- and multi-territory licenses. Continue Reading
9to5Mac has been surveying its readership to assess the crowd reactions to Apple Music. More than 17,400 people have weighed in to the poll so far. Although the responses are naturally skewed with a strong predilection for Apple, the breakdown of where new customers are coming from is insightful. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web. TODAY: IAB study of programmatic advertising; Alibaba expands music ventures in China. Continue Reading
As we reported last month, famed radio host Art Bell is returning to the air tonight, with a new talk program called Midnight in the Desert. We spoke with the famed radio personality on the phone about his imminent return to radio, and the newness of creating an Internet-first program. Continue Reading
Spotify has launched a new feature called Discover Weekly. This is a two-hour playlist personalized to each individual listener. The song choices for the Discover Weekly list stem from your particular music taste and what other similar fans are listening to. Spotify is billing it as a custom-made mixtape delivered each Monday morning. So how good are the recommendations? Pretty solid. Continue Reading
Worthy news items and interesting reads from around the web. Today: Analyzing Pandora programmatic; YouTube is bigger than cable; inside Spotify’s new playlist. Continue Reading
Sponsored by AudioBoom
The weekly update of the streaming audio industry, from RAIN News. THIS WEEK: Neil Young exaggerates; FTC and Apple; how do high-schoolers listen? Continue Reading
Italy’s music sector grew 22% to €65.5 million in the first half of 2015, according to the Italian Music Industry Federation. Audio and video streaming secured 26% of the total market. Both types of streaming generated €17.3 million in the half, up 37% from the year-ago period. Continue Reading
Pandora has taken a step forward with its Artist Messaging plans. The online radio service has updated its terms of use with language about communication with artists. The company started testing audio messages from artists in February. Continue Reading
Neil Young is back in the headlines after he announced that he will remove his catalog from streaming services. His complaint is about sound quality. “I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution,” he said in a Facebook post. “When the quality is back, I’ll give it another look.” Continue Reading