Interviews with, and contributions from, the most perceptive voices in the online audio industry.
While albums fade as commercial products, and radio is challenged by streaming audio, is there a new power product that drives listens and accelerates hit-making? U.K.-based consultant and founder of New Slang Media, Chris Price, has emerged as a specialist in identifying the power of playlists, and quantifying their influence. Listomania is his new research study. Continue Reading
Intellectual property attorney Angus MacDonald was the first to calculate that Pandora paid more than half of all SoundExchange collections of royalties to record labels. At that time he spoke of implications for the Webcasting IV process which ended this week with new webcaster rates for 2016. We asked MacDonald for his thoughts about the ruling, and he sent us his analysis. Continue Reading
While Pandora, iHeartMedia, and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) are content with new CRB rates, the royalty ruling puts smaller streamers on shaky ground, we’ve heard from several sources. Click for comments by Rusty Hodge, Kurt Hanson, Brian McAndrews, and David Porter. Continue Reading
The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) will outline new webcaster royalty rates tomorrow (Wednesday). Media attorneys Jay Rosenthal and David Leichtman weigh in with anticipatory comments. Continue Reading
James Cridland Weekly Links is a column by the U.K.’s radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: An article on why programme debriefs may not be useful. Ed Sheeran’s amusing peep show stunt. Plus the BBC, NextRadio, recommendations, and more. Continue Reading
Pandora CFO Mike Herring spoke at the Wedbush 2015 California Dreamin’ Technology, Consumer Management Access Conference. He spoke about Pandora’s vision generally, the expansion to on-demand service in 2016, Apple Music and Steve Jobs, the company’s recent acquisition of Ticketfly, the imminent CRB royalty-rate ruling, and more. Continue Reading
Roger Lanctot is Associate Director of Strategy Analytics, and a thought leader in the connected-car space. In this guest article, he set forth the outlook for radio, even as tech companies do battle over the hardware for connected vehicles. Continue Reading
James Cridland Weekly Links is a column by the U.K.’s radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Live streaming stalls at NPR; an Australian station adapts to bush fires; much more. Continue Reading
James Cridland Weekly Links is a column by the U.K.’s radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Positive responses to the European Broadcasting Union’s WRC-15 decision; digital radio uptake data for Australia and the UK; several reads on the BBC; much more. Continue Reading
Guest columnist Chris Price of New Slang Media writes about the challenge of effective music discovery. He puts several music services to the test, to very interesting results. Continue Reading
Broadcast law attorney and guest columnist David Oxenford explains the difference between interactive and non-interactive music services in the context of Adele’s new album release, which is withheld from on-demand listening platforms like Rhapsody and Spotify. Continue Reading
James Cridland Weekly Links is a column by the U.K.’s radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: A crucial detail about Google’s podcast venture; Rdio in bankruptcy; Iain Lee leaves BBC and Trevor Long leaves SBS. Continue Reading