Samsung has added a paid tier to its Milk Music streaming service. The new Milk Premium plan costs $3.99 a month and gives its members offline listening and unlimited song skips. It will also let you turn off the commentary from station DJs and pause the app automatically with the Sleep Timer feature. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Rhapsody exec says labels gave YouTube too much power; Journal and Scripps merge; Lyric sites sued by NMPA. Continue Reading
Music rights organization BMI has entered a partnership with iBiquity, the developer of HD Radio. The two parties will launch a new program called the HD Radio Artist Spotlight, which is intended to help promote new artists and support established ones on tour. The spotlight’s launch will focus on five of BMI’s country music acts. Continue Reading
After 17 years at Warner Music Group, Stephen Bryan has been appointed the new senior vice president of business development and strategy for SoundCloud. “I’ve always felt a deep passion to navigate this incredible transition to digital platforms,” he said. “I think that change will accelerate in the near future, and a company like SoundCloud enables me to continue that.” He enters a company undergoing growth, and growing pains. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web. Today — Google buys a raft of domain names that might indicate a name for its new service; IMMF publishes best practices for the digital music industry; U.S.-based Hindi-music service Saavn raising capital. Continue Reading
On April 30, 2012, Rick O’Dell was fed up. WLFM in Chicago switched away from the Smooth Jazz format (to Alt Rock), leaving the city’s terrestrial listeners without a station for that shiny genre. It had happened before, in 2009, when Clear Channel’s WNUA abandoned Smooth Jazz for Spanish-language programming. O’Dell saw an opportunity, and started a localized Smooth Jazz Internet-only station. Continue Reading
Rhapsody announced a major milestone this morning, reporting that it has surpassed 2 million paid subscribers across its music services. Considering the company was just touting 1.7 million subscribers in April, it’s making steady progress in attracting new listeners. In related news, Rhapsody expanded its available offerings in several international markets through its Napster division. Continue Reading
Dating app Tinder created a place where members could forge new personal connections based on snap judgements of attraction. Now, two of the app’s veterans have launched a new project that applies the same idea and mechanics to music. Tinder co-founder Christopher Gulczynski and former design vice president Sarah Nick are the brains behind Next, which bills itself as a place for social music discovery. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web. TODAY: Verizon to throttle some users back; T-Mobile unleashes data, but might violate Net Neutrality principles; artist support for streaming. Continue Reading
Google announced that it will give U.S. Chromecast users a 90-day free trial subscription to the All Access Music service. The subscription streaming platform usually costs $9.99. Google is offering the free deal through September. Chromecast has been out for a year now, and it’s Google’s method of getting streaming media from mobile devices to a television screen. Several services, including Pandora, Beats Music, and Rdio, have added support for Chromecast. Continue Reading
Pandora’s workmanlike earnings call conveyed the impression of offhand dominance in the field, but after-hours investors sent the stock careening down a steep slope, off 12% in early evening trading.
The company met financial expectations, but lowered guidance for the current quarter (Jul – Sep). Perhaps more influential to trigger-happy investors were the audience metrics, which showed no audience growth. There was expansion of listening hours, however, emphasized by CEO Brian McAndrews as the more important key in the revenue equation. Continue Reading
Townsquare Media launched as a public company today, pricing its offering at $11. (NYSE ticker: TSQ) Townsquare is the 3rd-largest radio-station holding company in the U.S., with 312 local stations. An eager digital adopter, Townsquare maintains 325 local websites, and has grown its webcast listenership 43% in the past year. Continue Reading