Pop princess Taylor Swift remains one of the most visible holdouts on Spotify and she has taken a bold action in the ongoing fight between artists and streaming platforms. She withheld her much-anticipated album 1989 from Spotify upon its initial release on Oct. 27. Today, she has chosen to remove her entire back catalog from the platform as well. Continue Reading
Forget connected cars, Apple is now taking Beats Music to a connected airplane. The tech company announced a partnership with Southwest Airlines to make a library of hundreds of playlists available for free on WiFi-enabled aircraft. Also in Beats Music news, Trent Reznor discussed the streaming service in an interview with Billboard. Continue Reading
Mark Mulligan of MIDiA Research wrote a blog post with his insights about the current price issues for streaming music. He highlighted the apparent either/or choice facing listeners – pick a totally free platform or pay $9.99 a month for a subscription – as a problem for the music industry to solve. Continue Reading
What song best evokes the spooks and scares of the Halloween season? SoundExchange has posted a graphic of the top ten scary songs of digital radio. The list is based on data collected for October 2013 from non-interactive digital radio sources, including satellite radio, Internet radio, and cable TV music services. Continue Reading
Media technology company WideOrbit announced the hiring of Brian Burdick as EVP of Digital and Programmatic. Burdick will step in as head of WO Central, the company’s buying and selling platform, as well as recent acquisitions Fivia, Abacast, and Admeta. WideOrbit is investing aggressively in acquisitions and talent. Click through for details. Continue Reading
App Annie has launched a new Index for Music that tracks statistics for musical mobile software. The index combines data from both the iOS App Store and the Android Google Play marketplace for a look at the programs that are most downloaded and generate the most revenue across four subcategories: music listening, music creation, artists and information, and other. Continue Reading
Always on the lookout for good pureplay music represented by an easily usable interface, we are delighted to recommend Blue North Radio on both counts. Why north? The station features Canadian blues artists in the playlist, alongside standards. We’re picky about the blues. This station is a keeper. Continue Reading
STRATA, a media buying platform that connects advertisers with media publishers, has re-positioned Pandora’s ratings profile on its dashboard, separating it from radio stations, according to Inside Radio and RAIN News sources. The action represents the latest twist in a long path of Pandora competing against U.S. broadcast radio for advertising dollars. RAIN spoke to several sources for comment. Continue Reading
Plugging on despite its legal woes, Grooveshark announced a new plan for a live concert series. Grooveshark Presents aims to tap into the platform’s community for input and suggestions as it plans the events. “We are removing the significant risks promoters take in booking talent, simply by combining the intelligence gathered from our streaming platform with our unique ability to communicate with our listeners,” CEO and cofounder Sam Tarantino said. Continue Reading
Programmatic advertising is well established in the web display industry, and growing fast in video. Radio (broadcast and streaming) lags behind, but awareness is growing as ad-buying software platforms become more sophisticated for audio. What is the future? For Gordon Borrell, the answer is clear: Programmatic will take over audio ad buying and selling, and sales reps face elimination and changing roles. Continue Reading
In announcing its third-quarter financial results iHeartMedia revealed some key updates for iHeartRadio. The streaming platform hit 56 million registered users as of September 30. The current figure marks growth of 43% year-over-year. Continue Reading
Sirius XM posted earnings of $136 million in the third quarter, more than doubling the $63 million earned in the year-ago period. Revenue growth for the satellite radio company was more moderate, up 10% to $1.06 billion for the quarter. Continue Reading