File this under Friday Fun. Apple will pay $3-billion for all of Beats (the electronics and music-service divisions) when the deal closes later this year. Source reveal that the Beats Music portion of the merger is accounted at $500-million. Yielding to temptation, we ran the numbers and hereby propose (not with an entirely straight face) some stratospheric prices. Continue Reading
Mark Mulligan is co-founder of MIDiA Consulting, and has been a digital music analyst for over a decade. In this guest column, he compares Amazon’s music strategy with those of Google and Apple, and speculates about the future perceived value of music. Continue Reading
Broadcast-law attorney and RAIN contributor David Oxenford notes a piece of information important to all webcasters. The Copyright Royalty Board has extended the deadline for comment on proposed rule changes to how webcasters report the songs they’ve played, to SoundExchange, which collects and distributes royalties to labels and artists. Continue Reading
In the days of broadcast ownership caps, a radio broadcaster could own only seven AMs and seven FMs — across the entire U.S. It was an exciting and intense time to be in radio: If you could own only fourteen radio stations in the entire U.S., you cared very much about all fourteen of them.
Imagine if someone had offered you the opportunity to own a broadcast signal with complete national coverage! RAIN founding editor Kurt Hanson does imagine that, and contemplates looking at gift horses in the mouth. Continue Reading
Amazon’s gleaming-new music subscription service stepped into the market today, and we dove in quickly for a test drive.
Prime Music feels like a beta service on its first morning. We found problems with playing music, and an unwieldy system for streaming whole songs, albums, and playlists, which should be easy in an on-demand streaming service. The catalog is demonstrably small, with obvious voids in which one’s listening hopes are extinguished.
But all this might not matter to the intended audience, which is (for now, at least) existing Amazon Prime members. As of today, Prime Music is instantly one of the largest music subscription services in the world. Continue Reading
Rumor turned to reality fast, as yesterday’s reports of an imminent Prime Music launch came true this morning. With Amazon Prime membership estimated between 10-million and 20-million existing subscribers, Prime Music instantly becomes one of the largest subscription music services in the world. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthwhile reads from around the web: Cassette Store Day, Dr. Dre, an unusual Spotify protest Continue Reading
SPECIAL COVERAGE
On Tuesday the U.S House Judiciary Committee held the first of two hearings in its review of music licensing. These hearings potentially affect all stakeholders: radio stations, online music services, webcasters, performers, and creators.
Sharply-worded arguments politely flew around the House chamber. One congressman issued a powerful and comprehensive call for change. It was momentum vs. inertia, reform vs. status quo. Four main issues were in play:
Los Angeles radio station KCRW has launched a newly designed website containing archived and feature content in addition to a live webcast stream. The new site kicks off a $10-million initiative that will invest the money in technology and programming. Continue Reading
“Redefining classical radio” is how Spacesfm (www.spacesfm.com) markets its Internet-only station. It’s a whopping redefinition, but one that many non-classical listeners relate to. It is possible (even advisable) to spend long amounts of time on Spacesfm. We plan to. Continue Reading
As previously speculated, Apple has added ESPN Radio and a selection of local NPR radio stations to its online radio streams. In doing so, Apple borrows a page from leading radio-station aggregators TuneIn and iHeartRadio. We found minor glitches. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthwhile reads from around the web: Pandora and Samsung, history of car music, spamming Spotify, Apple dirt. Continue Reading