Pandora seeks to disrupt radio by competing for share of listeners, and ad dollars. At the same time, Pandora watches its audience growth, which has been more or less stable at about 76-million users per month. To further that second priority, Pandora is launching its first online ad campaign with a $5-million buy on socially oriented sites like BuzzFeed, Twitter, and Facebook. Continue Reading
Radio (terrestrial or online) is best when delivering a rich-discovery stream of music that repeatedly makes you say, “Who is that?” and “I’ve got to hear more of that band.” When those revelations happen with nearly every song, you know you’ve found something special, and that was our experience with La Noche del Hombre Lobo. (Night of the Werewolf.) Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the Internet. TODAY: Who buys CDs? Sirius XM mulling more out-of-car options. Debate continues over uniform global album-release day. Continue Reading
THIS WEEK: RAIN Summit Indy awards. Clear Channel becomes iHeartMedia. The epic Apple/U2 saga. BMI reports revenues. A broadcaster lawsuit. Podcasting is more important than you think … and is still getting sued. A new audio ad network. Continue Reading
Four days after our initial coverage of Apple’s forced distribution of U2’s new album, the controversy continues to swirl. A good deal of media punditry has concluded that the marketing gambit, in which Apple put the band’s new album, Songs of Innocence, into the music collections across the iOS mobile landscape, was an outright failure. But 33-million people listened to the album, making the experiment a large success. Continue Reading
Clip Interactive, a mobile platform for radio stations, released a slew of announcements of new partners and increased revenue for existing partners. We took the opportunity to speak with CEO Michael Lawless about the product and its recent news. Continue Reading
Spotify introduced its Insights blog earlier this month, and its creative take on data has already been taking the music world by storm. The latest missive delves into the listening habits of college students. Spotify listed the top 40 schools with the highest rates of sign-ups for its student deal last semester, then ranked them by number of song plays. Arizona State University secured the top place on the Most Musical Universities in America list, followed by Auburn University and Brigham Young University in second and third, respectively. Continue Reading
Tidal, the hi-fi streaming service from WiMP slated to arrive soon in the U.S. and UK, has a new head of marketing. Daniel Green assumes the top marketing job, joining Tidal after five years as director of digital strategy at Viacom International. In discussing the new appointment, Tidal CEO Andy Chen highlighted the company’s stance for offering a hi-fi service, noting that Green’s past experience covered the “consumer lifestyle” and “luxury” fields. Continue Reading
Bop.fm announced the addition of several music services to its agnostic listening platform. Pandora, Xbox Music, Rhapsody, and Napster are now a part of the program. Bop.fm allows its members to share songs across platforms, and to create playlists from music. This makes the Pandora relationship particularly interesting, since it’s a lean-back service. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: NYT on why CDs rule Japan; Dash Two on internet radio for advertising; GM narrowing focus for connected car apps. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Tim Cook talks Beats with Charlie Rose; infographic illustrates long history of music sharing; local Argentinian tax on foreign online subscription services; physical music sales up at CD Baby. Continue Reading
“Clear Channel announced today that it has become iHeartMedia, reflecting the company’s success in becoming a one-of-a-kind multi-platform media company with unparalleled reach and impact,” according to the press release. Darren Davis, President of iHeartMedia, remarked in an email, “iHeartMedia reflects the momentum of iHeartRadio and how consumers and advertisers engage seamlessly across our diverse live media platforms — broadcast radio, digital, mobile, social, TV, outdoor and events.” Continue Reading