M. Luke McDonell is a writer, artist, and photographer living in San Francisco. A veteran of South by Southwest, she is contributing airy contributions from the 2014 show. This SXSW report is from the first weekend of SXSW Interactive. Continue Reading
Editor’s Notebook: Shortly before noon today, my Android phone pinged with an iHeartRadio notification of a deadly explosion and building collapse in New York. Good job. But the resulting radio experience was ruinous, putting radio’s commercial-load problem in bold relief. There might be a solution. Continue Reading
Patrick Reynolds of Triton Digital writes about the death of cinema icon Harold Ramis, and the coming of spring in the audio listening industry. In Groundhog Day, Ramis meditates on how to life live during a seemingly endless winter. As winter drags on in real life, Reynolds counts blessings in an optimistic look at how the field is evolving. Continue Reading
This is Part 2 of a two-part blog entry. “After a couple of decades of us living in a 200+ channel television universe, we’re getting back to three networks again! In this world, there are parallels and differences here for radio to pay attention to.” Founding editor Kurt Hanson analyzes changes in media consumption. Continue Reading
Earlier this week, RAINNews reported that an FM station in Boston – WKLB – is running spots for iTunes Radio. The spots are live reads, done by radio station personalities. When asked, the station, owned by Greater Media, issued a statement that kind of sounded like: “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” This doesn’t seem like an especially well thought-out strategy. Continue Reading
In his latest blog post (part 1 of 2), RAIN founding editor Kurt Hanson observes that television is reverting to a three-network system, as in the 1970s. the difference is that the three content networks are Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. It is a renaissance of TV, but the deck chairs are rearranged. Continue Reading
A field report from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, by guest columnist James Cridland. Will smartphone handset companies decide that they can profitably create their own music services? Nokia and Sony are promoting their home-grown music services in the Barcelona trade show. Continue Reading
Kurt Hanson blog: Recently, Nielsen Audio released its first annual “State of the Media: Audio Today” report — its new version of Arbitron’s venerable annual “Radio Today” reports. One interesting finding is the importance of the “workday” daypart. Continue Reading
Kurt Hanson looks at a recent survey, and analyzes why music download sales lost ground in 2013, especially in the fourth quarter. A bit of arithmetic connects the trend to music subscription growth. Art Linkletter is unexpectedly involved. Continue Reading
There’s a lot going on with streaming audio talk platforms that’s intriguing. Jennifer Lane listens to spoken audio in her car, and in a quest to find good sources she looks at Swell, Stitcher, and Spoken Layer. Also: A glance at the new Inside.com. Continue Reading
Patrick Reynolds is Chief Strategy Officer of Triton Digital. A forward-looking strategist, he has written articles for Forbes, TechCrunch, and Technorati, and has spoken at SXSW and NAB. We welcome Patrick to RAIN News as a regular guest contributor. Continue Reading