Apple has been facing criticism over its App Store for many months, including a direct challenge from Spotify about the share it takes of subscription fees. Apple has issued a response to the anti-trust complaint Spotify filed against it in the EU in March, but both companies have some holes in their arguments. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Fire at UMG vault destroys thousands of master recordings. How to find better podcasts. Honoring advances for digital radio in cars. Continue Reading
Soundtrap, a platform for real-time audio collaborations, has revised the features on its free tier. The service now offers unlimited capacity for stored projects; the previous free version only allowed five stored projects. Continue Reading
Andrew Kalb is exiting ABC Radio. He has spend 22 years with the broadcaster and was most recently the executive director of programming/news. During his tenure, Kalb was critical in helping to launch the Start Here daily news podcast. Continue Reading
Fifty-three million American adults own smart speakers. Because some people and households own multiple speakers, that adds up to 118.5-million devices — a 78% increase in overall device ownership year-over-year. This, and much other data, come from the NPR/Edison Research Smart Audio Report, released in a webinar today. Continue Reading
People starting a podcast are a dime a dozen. So are people who stop podcasting. Steve Goldstein shares some statistics from Blubrry about the stopping and the starting. Continue Reading
SoundCloud continues to build out its leadership team with the addition of Ian Greaves. He is the audio company’s new director of international major label services, and will oversee SoundCloud’s new and existing relationships. Continue Reading
Spotify’s interactions with publishers and songwriters have gotten even more complicated, with the streaming service claiming that it overpaid on mechanical royalties in 2018. The Copyright Royalty Board issued its mechanical royalty payment rates in December 2018 after the music platform had already paid out almost a full year under a different rate scheme. Continue Reading
Soundcharts released an examination of China’s music industry, highlighting some of the rapid growth happening in this market. Wholesale revenue in China has tripled in three years with a compound annual growth rate of 44.2%. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s International Radio Trends is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: A few big UK developments, including Heart launching a new breakfast show and ITV partnering with Global. Continue Reading
Zeno Media, which specializes in connecting diaspora communities to their homelands with streaming radio, has announced a new partnership with the Dominican Association of Broadcasters (ADORA) to develop and launch a mobile app for streaming the 165 broadcast members of ADORA. Continue Reading
Sirius XM is rolling out its new Essential subscription package in Canada. A similar package launched in the United States in April and now the satellite radio company’s Canadian branch is also adding access to this option. Continue Reading