Global label agency Merlin has announced reaching a milepost of $1-billion dollars or rights payments distributed to member labels. Merlin licenses on behalf of 20,000+ indie labels in 53 countries. Continue Reading
Call it rumor or call it leak — Tesla’s supposed new streaming service, which has been in the chatter mill since late last week, probably falls between hearsay and revelation. Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted in response to the rumor/leak. Continue Reading
Sprint is offering its customers free tickets to Jay-Z’s 4:44 tour when they sign up for a trial membership to the Tidal streaming service. This deal marks a further tightening the bonds between the music platform and the mobile telecom following Sprint’s acquisition of a 33% stake in Tidal at the start of the year. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Streaming pushes indies to the majors; curators vs creators; wireless audio survey results. Continue Reading
TagStation has released a new Dial Report, a collection of first-party radio station advertising data and smartphone user data. The platform measures more than 250 demographic, behavioral and listening data points in near real-time, allowing segmentation of the FM radio audience for precise audience targeting by advertisers. Continue Reading
Dash Radio has launched a live pop-up station in collaboration with BIG3, a 3-on-3 professional basketball league founded by rap icon Ice Cube. The BIG3 Radio channel will broadcast live for the final week of the league leading into its final game in Las Vegas. Continue Reading
Spotify has secured a licensing deal with Warner Music Group, meaning the streaming service now has agreements with all three major labels. The Warner deal is one of the final pieces Spotify needs to progress with any means of going public. Continue Reading
With podcasts and audiobooks continuing to grow in popularity, it makes sense that other forms of audio narration have been taking off too. The latest we’ve found is a startup called Audm, which delivers audio versions of select long-form journalism. Continue Reading
Podcast database Podxref is developing new technology for sharing show information with mobile listeners. The tech presents information about the personalities involved in a show episode, including both the hosts and guests, within a podcast player. It is a path toward possible podcast discovery by allowing listeners to tap for more content by a person whose work they enjoy. Continue Reading
Pandora is exploring new approaches to improving its audio ads. The latest experiment is a shift in the length of ads, investigating whether short spots can still yield positive results with listeners. Based on the early findings from Pandora, ad recall had double-digit increases for both 10-second and 30-second spots. Continue Reading
E.W. Scripps had some shake-ups within its top leadership this month. Adam Symson took on the role of president and CEO on August 8. Since stepping into that CEO position, Symson has made some additional changes to Scripps’ executive team. Continue Reading
DGital Media sent RAIN News an exclusive preview of pivotal news which includes a new company name, a raft of new executive hires, and an expanded suite of production studios nationwide. Continue Reading