GEMA, a German collection society, announced that its 2014 global revenue was €893.6 million euros (about $950 million). Streaming revenue accounted for €44.8 million, up from €26.4 million in 2013, but GEMA came out with a strong statement against the current royalty split between rights holders, songwriters, and publishers. Continue Reading
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An eight-minute blast of news you need to know in streaming audio.
THIS WEEK: Streaming exclusives don’t stay exclusive; Webcast listening reaches new record; when a music label and a bank hook up; milestone moment for 8tracks; Pandora pays more than half of all webcast royalties Continue Reading
Barely a day goes by without seeing some article about a songwriter whose song was played a million times on a digital music service like Pandora or Spotify, with the artist only receiving a relatively small amount of royalty revenue from that seemingly large number of plays. A number of issues are misunderstood — especially about big numbers. Continue Reading
Triton Digital announced that it has completed an annual review of accreditation by the Media Rating Council (MRC), and that the accreditation of Triton’s Webcast Metrics and Webcast Metrics Local ratings products remains unchanged. Continue Reading
AdLarge added another podcast deal to its growing portfolfio of exclusive ad-representation agreements for on-demand audio, this one with RotoWire for its line of fantasy sports podcasts. RotoWire produces daily podcasts for fantasy sports players in football, baseball, and basketball, plus weekly shows in audio and video. Continue Reading
RAIN Summits are famous for their thought-leadership discussion panels. Since the in-depth, industry-expert discussion panels go without saying, we’ll say no more about them here. Five other reasons to register for RAIN Summit West if you’ll be in Las Vegas this weekend. Continue Reading
Our Infinite Dial studies have been tracking usage of online radio since 1998, and we have asked about ‘monthly usage’ since 2000. In a recent meeting I made the comment that if one superimposes the graph showing growth of smartphone ownership over the monthly online radio usage one can see a strong correlation. Continue Reading
Playlist radio service 8tracks is opening its first in-house music library today, in partnership with CD Baby, INgrooves, and indie labels. The initiative promises to streamline playlist-building for 8tracks “DJs,” while tightening its ties with the independent artist community. Continue Reading
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released A Digital Audio Buyer’s Guide, a free, 29-page explanatory overview of the streaming audio advertising ecosystem. The guide promotes digital audio’s high-growth, mobile-friendly attributes to marketers. Continue Reading
SoundCloud has entered into a partnership with content identification service Zefr. The deal appears focused on monitoring what tracks get played and when. Although neither SoundCloud nor Zefr have disclosed much detail about the nature of their new partnership, it’s likely a step in SoundCloud’s push into monetizing its platform. Continue Reading
Webcast listening rose 5% month-over-month in February, and 40% year-over-year, according to the Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker just released by Triton Digital. Click through for historical trend charts. Continue Reading
The Department of Justice has been engaged in a review of consent decrees for more than a year. These rules govern the blanket licenses that performing rights organizations negotiate on behalf of music publishers. Billboard has a piece on the changes the department is reported to be considering, according to its unnamed sources. Continue Reading