On-demand music service Rdio announced the addition of Live Radio to its feature set. It combines dynamic pureplay listening with live broadcast radio, plus the ability to save songs played on the radio directly to personal playlists. It is meaningfully competitive, and we review the new app. Continue Reading
The hi-fi streaming club has another member. Aud.io bills itself as the world’s first high-fidelity Internet radio service. It offers ad-free listening to stations grouped by genre for $7.99 a month. The service uses a Pandora-like system of personalization based on likes and skips. But unlike the online radio standard, there’s no way to add other seeds or artist preferences or new stations. Here’s what I thought. Continue Reading
Next Big Sound released its summer report, and the focus for this season was streaming and social media. Even though Pandora purchased the music data specialist this spring, the company is still able to provide compelling insight across several streaming platforms. In fact, Next Big Sound has already tracked more than 1 trillion online plays in the first six months of the year. That covers activity from YouTube, Vevo, Vimeo, Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud, and new owner Pandora. Continue Reading
The Download on Podcasts is a weekly feature sponsored by PodcastOne.
The IAB announced a podcast “upfront” where several content and ad-repping compnies will present their shows to advertisers and agencies. Another mile-marker in an evolving industry of on-demand audio.
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SFX Entertainment reported revenue of $121.1 million in the second quarter, up 48.3% from the year-ago period. However, the parent company for online EDM specialty platform Beatport also posted an increase in net losses, up 36.2% to $48 million for the quarter. Continue Reading
Juniper Research released new data examining the outlook for ad-supported streaming revenue in subscription services. the report does not include non-interactive services like Pandora, which by itself exceeded $1-billion in total revenue over the past 12 months. Continue Reading
Slate Group-owned Panoply, a podcast network launched in February, has acquired Audiometric, a podcast publishing platform that includes ad insertion and analytics. The deal positions Panoply for expansion and more effective management of its portfolio of shows. We spoke to Andy Bowers at Panoply. Continue Reading
Deezer has made deeper inroads into the Brazilian market thanks to a deal with UOL, an ISP and Internet portal based in that country. Under this partnership, the two companies will launch UOL Musica Deezer, an on-demand music platform intended to replace Radio UOL. Continue Reading
Dimitri Vassilaros was a talk host on AM station KDKA, and his resume as broadcaster and journalist includes stints with CBS, Clear Channel/iHeart, Gannett, Tribune-Review, and Hearst. He has a new program in his sights, and has turned to Kickstarter to fund what he says will be both an online radio production, and a podcast. Continue Reading
Triton Digital announced that Swedish podcast company Acast has joined Triton’s a2x programmatic advertising platform. The announcement marks another step in the fast-moving evolution of podcasting as a mature audio category. Continue Reading
The team behind This Is My Jam announced yesterday that the service would cease operating in its current state. The leaders said that past jams would be put into a read-only archive mode in September, meaning they can still be listened to but not added to. Members will also have several options for preserving and exporting their song choice lists, according to the announcement. Continue Reading
Chris Harrison has left his position as senior lawyer and vice president of business affairs at Pandora. He was a key player in several of Pandora’s recent moves, including its purchase of a terrestrial radio station. He also served as an expert witness in this spring’s consent decree hearings and additional proceedings on music royalties in pre-1972 copyright cases. Continue Reading