Most publicity around Pandora is U.S.-based, naturally enough since most of its business and audience are stateside. But Pandora is available in two other national markets — Australia and New Zealand. Today comes an announcement of Pandora partnering with Samsung in a distribution agreement that puts the Internet radio platform on Samsung Smart TVs. Continue Reading
In the latest update of a standoff between Google’s YouTube platform and organizations of independent music labels, the labels are escalating the argument to the British and Belgian governments. The complaint centers around YouTube’s “bullying and intimidating behavior” during contract negotiations for a new YouTube music service. Continue Reading
In 1941, the U.S. Justice Department set up a music licensing system that still governs publishers, composers, and songwriters. Today, the Justice Department announced its intention to review the 73-year-old laws and consider changing them. At stake — how publishers negotiate royalty payments, how much money music creators earn, and costs to streaming music services. Continue Reading
Items of interest in the music-app realm: Google Play Music updates its Apple app, Rdio gives smoother listening to Android users, and iTunes Radio is rumored to go local. Continue Reading
Hooking into the emerging trend of longer subscription trials, Spotify today announced a “Super Summer of Music” deal — three months of Spotify Premium subscription service for the one-month price of $9.99 in the U.S. Spotify Premium includes unlimited commercial-free, on-demand music selection, and unlimited track downloads. Continue Reading
Spotify, Pandora, and some other big players in streaming music cannot make a profit, partly because of the high cost of music licensing. Solution? Just play bird songs. Brazilian Birds Radio does just that, although this station is a small sideshow in the sprawling 1.FM array of Internet radio stations. Continue Reading
This morning Abacast announced a new partnership with radio group Entercom, which will switch to Abacast’s Clarity platform to handle ad insertions, campaign management, and analytics. Abacast markets Clarity as the only cloud-based ad-insertion solution for online radio, available to terrestrial webcasters, pureplay Internet radio, and podcasting. Continue Reading
Apple’s acquisition of Beats brought out more anticipation, speculation, and commentary than any business or product news story since the launch of iTunes Radio in September. It’s as if a unique two-headed creature rose out of the earth for all to wonder at. As the dust settles, a few points are worth noting. Continue Reading
Welcome to Internet Radio Rewind, an audio recap of top stories, quick and concise. This week’s podcast: Apple and Beats … YouTube infuriates Indie labels … Amazon’s music service takes shape … Billboard and Twitter … and Project72. Continue Reading
RAIN Hotspots — the five most-read articles of the past week. “Where is the radio in this car” wondered guest columnist Steve Goldstein … bitll and Twitter launched new charts … a tribute to Neil Young … rounding up the best coverage of Apple/Beats … Google partners with Sonos for longer streaming trials. Continue Reading
A little more detail spilled out of this week’s important industry consolidation, as Apple acquired Beats Electronics. According to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s valuation of Beats Music, the subscription streaming service, was $500-million. Too much or too little? Continue Reading
Amazon, long rumored to be formulating a streaming-music service, will reportedly launch one this summer with a catalog of non-current music. The music service will be bundled into Amazon Prime, a subscription-only plan that cobbles together on-demand streaming movies, TV shows, and free two-day shipping of Amazon products. Continue Reading