The RIAA often leads the industry charges in legal actions for the digital music space and it has ridden into the fray once more. It is suing a streaming website and app called Spinrilla on behalf of several major record labels. The RIAA said it found more than 21,000 copyrighted sound recordings uploaded to the platform. Continue Reading
Billing itself as a service for “the YouTube generation,” Soundrop has shifted to become a digital music distribution platform. The business is only distributing to five businesses to start: Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, GooglePlay, Amazon, and Deezer. Later in 2017, it expects to add Pandora and YouTube. Continue Reading
The American Life has partnered with the Serial team to create a new podcast production business. The first show out of Serial Productions is titled S-Town, and it has two more programs in development. Continue Reading
iHeartRadio, the public-facing brand of the largest commercial radio group in America, is training its resources on the emerging podcast category with new content, technology partnerships, and in-house leadership. We spoke to Chris Peterson, iHeart’s new SVP of Podcasting. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Radio station websites hacked; solar-powered transmitters in South Sudan; personalized radio advertising; much, much more. Continue Reading
A new study from the Knight Foundation is focused on interviews with Foundation grantees. Citing a philosophy of working alongside those organizations, the foundation identified key themes in the podcast industry. Continue Reading
Sirius XM reported its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2016 earnings. Sirius XM CEO James Meyer deflected questions about the company’s will-they-won’t-they interest in buying Pandora and discussed mobile listening. Continue Reading
Nielsen has completed its acquisition of Gracenote. Nielsen has predicted that the Gracenote purchase will have a neutral impact on its 2017 financial results and will be slightly accretive in 2018. The buyout was first announced in December 2016. Continue Reading
Apple Music has hired Steve Savoca, a former Spotify exec. Savoca was the vice president of content at Spotify and his responsibilities centered on label relations. He’ll be performing the same label-focused duties at Apple Music. Continue Reading
The timeline for Spotify’s long-anticipated IPO launch may have encountered another setback. Sources have told TechCrunch that the streaming company could push the IPO back to 2018. The unnamed sources said waiting yet another year would give Spotify time to have a stronger balance sheet and revamp its label licensing deals. Continue Reading
Sony Music Entertainment is seeing growth not just in its overall financial performance, but also in the bottom-line contributions from streaming. The company took in 40.65 billion yen ($372 million) from streaming in the fourth quarter of 2016 and 134.83 billion yen ($1.24 billion) for the whole fiscal year. Continue Reading
Saavn, an India-centric streaming and digital media company, has partnered with AdsWizz and Omnicom Media Group to launch programmatic audio advertising in India. Omnicom and its clients will have access to Saavn’s digital audio ad inventory. AdsWizz will provide the ad solution technology. Continue Reading