Opinion & Features

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Kurt Hanson: Gift Horse

Posted on by Kurt Hanson

From Kurt Hanson’s blog

In the days of broadcast ownership caps, a radio broadcaster could own only seven AMs and seven FMs — across the entire U.S. It was an exciting and intense time to be in radio: If you could own only fourteen radio stations in the entire U.S., you cared very much about all fourteen of them.

Imagine if someone had offered you the opportunity to own a broadcast signal with complete national coverage! RAIN founding editor Kurt Hanson does imagine that, and contemplates looking at gift horses in the mouth. Continue Reading →

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Is streaming music just a phone service? ROK Mobile and telecom bundling

Posted on by Brad Hill

ROK Mobile is a new company which intends to join streaming music to mobile phone service more inseparably than ever before. The value equation of streaming music in a wireless phone plan, in an era when music listening is increasingly a mobile consumer behavior, is not lost on the founders of ROK Mobile, which will launch in the U.S. on July 4. Continue Reading →

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DOJ Tackles Consent Decrees: Careful What You Wish For?

Posted on by Casey Rae

This week, the United States Department of Justice announced that it would review the consent decrees that set the rules for Performance Rights Organizations ASCAP and BMI for the licensing of musical works on all forms of broadcast and in venues. Guest commentary by Casey Rae, VP for Policy and Education at the Future of Music Coalition. Continue Reading →

Vodafone Big Top 40 to include streaming, social media

Posted on by James Cridland

In 2009, the Vodafone Big Top 40 launched a real-time chart, using iTunes sales statistics alongside radio airplay to produce a more “live” chart. The show has 2.4 million listeners, making it the biggest show on commercial radio in the U.K. James Cridland notes the upcoming addition of digital sources in creating this important chart. Continue Reading →

“Popcorn Time” video streaming, potential disruptor, illuminates how far music services have come

Posted on by Brad Hill

Updating the progress of Popcorn Time, often described as “Netflix for pirates,” illuminates differences between the movie and music industries, showing the music industry’s leadership position in cloud-delivered content, and possibly heralds a new Napster-like era of disruption in how media is consumed. Continue Reading →

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What thought leaders think of Apple/Beats

Posted on by Brad Hill

The rumor hasn’t been refuted yet, and the entire music-tech world is treating it a fact, soon to be manifested. Apple will (reportedly) acquire Beats Electronics, including Beats Music. RAIN solicited comments from thought leaders, and harvested some of the most provocative perspectives in other media outlets, to create a landscape of opinion and speculation. Continue Reading →

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Kurt Hanson: Analyzing the Roaring of Pandora’s Biggest Bear

Posted on by Kurt Hanson

In the course of Pandora’s three-year history as a public company, it has had pretty strong support from the stock analyst world. However, consistently during that period there’s been one major bear — Rich Greenfield, of the research firm BTIG. Greenfield has issued approximately 29 analyst reports on Pandora, every one of them negative. Kurt Hanson analyzes. Continue Reading →