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
Digitally Imported (DI.fm), the electronic music destination, today announced that it has launched its track purchase program, completing an ambitious reinvention of its service as a one-stop portal for whatever kind of music consumption the user prefers. Continue Reading
Tidal has launched in Jamaica. Residents of the island now have access to the streaming service owned by Jay-Z, which made its name on the celebrity affiliation and high-resolution audio quality offerings. Continue Reading
SFX Entertainment is working through bankruptcy proceedings, and the latest development involved selling an asset to Universal Music Group. The label bought up digital marketing agency Fame House for $1 million. Continue Reading
Startup AmpMe has raised $8 million in Series A funding in support of its app that turns mobile phones into a network of speakers. This brings the company’s total funding to $10 million. The announcement of the fundraising also included the addition of YouTube as a supported music services. Continue Reading
Spotify has debuted a new outlet for brands to get involved with the streaming company’s popular playlists. Sponsored Playlist puts a brand’s name on one of Spotify’s curated playlists, with the sponsorship options designed to match marketing needs with a musical audience. This marketing option is now available in the U.S. and in beta in the UK. Continue Reading
The Podcast Consumer, an annual research report from Edison Research and Triton Digital and released today, represents the 12th year of podcast research conducted by Edison. This year’s report reveals a jump from incremental podcast adoption seen for several years. “This year, we saw a spike we haven’t seen before,” said Tom Webster of Edison Research, who presented a webinar. Continue Reading
NPR more than doubled its revenue from podcasts in the past year, with similar growth projected for 2016. “We’ll probably more than double this year, and, the year before, it tripled year-over-year, so we’ve been seeing really great growth over the past three or four years in podcasting,” said Bryan Moffett. Continue Reading
Pandora has made a new hire, this time from the media space. The online radio company has hired long-time Billboard writer Glenn Peoples to take on a role in Music Insights and Analytics. Continue Reading
Spotify has signed a deal with Dubset Media Holdings that will bring more mixes onto the streaming platform. Dubset’s MixBank technology can be used to identify copyrighted music in a user-generated song, which means the appropriate labels and publishers can clear the samples used in a mix. Continue Reading
In its April rankings, comScore found a strong month for Pandora. The online radio platform ranked No. 23 in the list of the top 50 multiplatform properties with nearly 85.3 million unique visitors. Pandora also made the list of top 15 smartphone apps. 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