ESPN Audio has started a new section called ESPN Perspectives, leveraging the growing podcast category while extending its iconic sports brand with longer-form focus on in-depth audio journalism. The new line of shows launches on the one-year anniversary of the Boston marathon terrorist attack. Continue Reading
All indicators point to mobile for nearly all Internet activities, and especially for listening to music. Pandora is the fifth most-downloaded mobile app, according to comScore. Which is a shame for advertisers who buy the full-screen treatment on Pandora’s browser experience. The big, full-screen ads on Pandora are like album art for advertisers. Continue Reading
The 2014 edition of Jacobs Media’s annual techsurvey10 is out (slides here), revealing sharp increases in digital devices, social platforms, and mediums among core radio listeners. Use of digital services and devices grew across the board from the previous year. Interesting results specific to Pandora. Continue Reading
The latest music/telecom partnership is on the way, as Spotify and Sprint reportedly work on a bundling deal to be announced later this month, perhaps modeled on the tie-up of Beats Music with AT&T, which offers discounted music subscription to families using the cell-phone service. Continue Reading
Deezer and Samsung announced a partnership that would give buyers of Samsung’s Galaxy S5 phone a free six-month trial of Deezer’s subscription music service. The plan would work in selected countries only, where Paris-based Deezer operates the service. The Samsung deal takes a page from SiriusXM’s distribution strategy in cars. Continue Reading
RAIN Hotspots — the five most-read articles of the week. Pandora and Nielsen Audio dominated the week, with some Jason Calacanis thrown in. Our report of Calacanis’ keynote address at RAIN Summit West was the second-most read post. Continue Reading
Bloom.FM, an on-demand music app, report-tweeted it has been knocked out of the iTunes Radio ad rotation after spending 2,000 British pounds a month on commercials for its service. Bloom.FM spokespeople are enjoying their new image as a prospective iTunes Radio killer. Continue Reading
If integrated broadcast and webcast ratings is the holy grail of radio audience measurement, Nielsen Audio took a new step toward holistic metrics this week when SVP Farshad Family broadly described how it intends to track online radio streams. A three-pronged approach would deliver listening data. Continue Reading
In this guest article, IP attorney Angus MacDonald of the University of California analyzes the recently-released 2013 annual report from SoundExchange, and Pandora’s financial statements, to conclude that Pandora pays over 50% of SoundExchange collections to labels. What does this mean for U.S. regulations in the next royalty period? Continue Reading
Representing a 63 percent jump in the last year, music service Rhapsody now counts 1.7-million subscribers. Rhapsody International operates both the Rhapsody and Napster streaming-music brands in North America, Europe, and South America. The sharpest gains have resulted from Rhapsody’s distribution deal with telecom giant Telefonica Continue Reading
TuneIn has been adding a lot of live sports programming to its online radio listening platform lately, capitalizing on the popularity of play by play programming and loyalty of fans. Thanks to a partnership with WestwoodOne, TuneIn is offering a full compliment of NCAA tournament Basketball to its listeners this year. Continue Reading
We received a couple of phone calls indicating that our event page showed that tickets to RAIN Summit West were sold out. There ARE available tickets. the error has been fixed, but if you encounter any difficulty, please call 773-701-0821. Continue Reading