Interviews with, and contributions from, the most perceptive voices in the online audio industry.
Does Pandora or Radio Pay Better Royalty Rates to Songwriters and Music Publishers? Glenn Peoples, Music Insights and Analytics at Pandora, crunches the numbers and makes an important distinction between the one-to-one nature of Pandora “spins” and the one-to-many broadcast model. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Wall Street Journal on NPR’s age issues. Updates to the Next Radio conference. Looking ahead to Australia’s OzPod. Much more. Continue Reading
Rhapsody is the great uncle of on-demand music subscription services. Two months ago Mike Davis took over as CEO, quickly tightening the ship with a round of layoffs. Last week came the announcement that Rhapsody would become Napster across all territories, consolidating its brand. RAIN News dialed up a conversation with Mike Davis to discuss that decision, and talk about steering a music service through a complex competitive landscape. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: A discussion of why radio leaders shouldn’t necessarily be radio people; radio shows and covering tragedy; bluetooth radio distribution in India. Continue Reading
Connected cars are either either a threat to radio or an opportunity, depending on who you talk to. But there’s not much talk at all about self-driving cars, which are on a quick development pace. Guest columnist Mark Ramsey holds forth. Continue Reading
Yesterday’s announcement that Rhapsody would rebrand as Napster across its global music service empire caused flashbacks in the minds of digital audio veterans. Matt Graves helped launch Rhapsody in 2001, and has worked in the online media fields for even longer. In this guest column he reviews the astonishing and unlikely history of Napster. Continue Reading
Guest columnist Vickie Nauman is Principal and Owner of CrossBorderWorks Consulting & Advising, and was U.S. President of 7digital for two years. Here, she identifies five points of sustainability in the new music industry. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: A few iHeart items; Australian Broadcasting Coroporation and a multiplatform future; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on media jobs; much more. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Research on media and Millennials. A must-read on creating good radio station websites. Much more. Continue Reading
Guest columnist Steve Goldstein, CEO of Amplifi Media, shares his insights on The Podcast Consumer, the new podcast listening research released last week by Edison Research and Triton Digital. In his words: Eye-popping. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Microsoft removes FM radio from mobile devices; numbers for Netflix; streaming vs downloading podcasts; much more. Continue Reading
Spotify’s recently released 2015 financials created an interesting story: strong revenue growth and market domination, along with widening losses at the bottom line. Midia Research founder Mark Mulligan peels back the layers to analyze underlying dynamics. “Rights costs are the Spotify’s Achilles Heel.” Can scaling audience growth give Spotify enough leverage to gain better label rates? If not, the outcome might be unwelcome to those rights-holders. This guest column is a must-read. Continue Reading