Music and business mogul Jay-Z made an offer to buy Aspiro, parent company for the Tidal and WiMP streaming services, back in January. Although Aspiro encouraged its shareholders to accept the roughly $56 million offer, the response from those shareholders has been lukewarm. Continue Reading
The recorded music industry in Denmark posted a record year on the back of a 50.5% increase in revenue from streaming services. With streaming accounting for 58.5% of the market’s total revenue, that boost helped secure industry growth of 1.8% for the year to 437 million Danish kroner (about $66.5 million). Continue Reading
In the early days of streaming, it wasn’t uncommon for big-name musicians to withhold their catalogs from online services. Led Zeppelin was a famed holdout, to the point where the band giving exclusive rights to Spotify back in 2013 was groundbreaking. So it’s a sign of the times that the Zep is expanding where you can hear its music. This week, the band opened up its library to listeners on several more platforms, including some that specialize in hi-def listening, such as Tidal and Deezer Elite. Continue Reading
RAIN Summits announces the “Streaming Audio’s Startup Economy” discussion panel at RAIN Summit West, April 12 in Las Vegas.
Early-stage startups — this is your invitation to apply for a chair on the panel. Present your early-stage business at the premiere information and networking event for the streaming audio industry! Continue Reading
A recently released eMarketer study bundles a growth projection with an assessment of advertiser sentiment. On the growth side, the research company sees the audience for online radio growing from 160-million last year to 192-million in 2019. Continue Reading
Guest columnist Larry Rosin, President of Edison Research, shares an information bite from the upcoming presentation of The Infinite Dial. Edison introduced a new query to the long-running survey series. Consumers were asked for their sentiment regarding technology generally. Continue Reading
adStream is a journal of ad-stalking in streaming audio services.
We have heard real estate ads frequently during the course of these weekly installments. Borrell Associates released a study of ad spending in the real estate category, projecting an increase in streaming audio. We expect to hear more of Zillow and Trulia, and local agency ads as local streaming audio marketing grows apace. Continue Reading
Ad-tech company AdsWizz announced a partnership with data management platform (DMP) Lotame. Lotame’s audience segmenting datasets will be bundled into the AdsWizz advertising platform, called AdWave. Continue Reading
EDM specialist Beatport has started the beta of its free streaming music platform. The player is embedded on the website, and you can continue to listen as you navigate around the site. TechCrunch’s review of the beta was uniformly positive, with just a one critical note about the ability to browse. Continue Reading
Spotify is looking to hire a vice president of public policy to help give voice to the company’s interests among lawmakers. This new hire will report to Jonathan Prince, Spotify’s global head of communications and public policy. Continue Reading
In the “Webcasting IV” rate-setting procedure, a two-year run-up to new statutory music licensing rates, Pandora filed a new document yesterday with the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). The document refutes arguments put forward by SoundExchange last fall. Rebuttal arguments are included from four expert witnesses, including Larry Rosin of Edison Research, which was commissioned to perform market research included in the brief. Continue Reading
Part of the business model for most streaming platforms is to attract and retain the largest possible number of listeners. That could lead to a listening landscape that’s fractured, with people choosing just one or two services to fill all of their audio needs. Yet with each of the major players offering a slightly different subset of performers and content, it makes sense that listeners would be interested in combining the libraries of more than one streaming platform. Continue Reading