After about two years and over 400-million songs, Turntable.fm is surrendering to high costs and the challenges of monetizing streaming music. As noted in RAIN, Turntable.fm launched a live-concert listening feature earlier this year. In a note to users, the service… Continue Reading
Jumbo jets need longer runways to take off than smaller planes. With reported new funding that nearly doubles its previous capital investment, jukebox service Spotify buys time to continue building momentum. The question is: Whither the destination? Spotify’s new funding… Continue Reading
Venerable music player Winamp is being discontinued by parent company AOL. The announcement marks the end of an era, at least symbolically. As a follow-up on that news, Internet radio platform SHOUTcast, developed by Winamp and housed under the Nullsoft… Continue Reading
In a dramatic extension of its core data intelligence business, The Echo Nest has announced a music advertising product that gives ad networks, and music services, audience segmenting possibilities. The solution is called Music Audience Understanding. Keying off The Echo… Continue Reading
“We have made significant progress in disrupting traditional radio in a short time, but we are just getting started.” –Brian McAndrews, Pandora CEO Pandora’s business mission is essentially invasive, intending to transform consumer habits by migrating listening from broadcast to Internet.… Continue Reading
This week Mark Kassof has been releasing installments of his ListenerThink study, in which Millennial listeners were asked to rank their sentiment toward FM, AM, and a selection of Internet music services. Pandora and FM came through with the rosiest scores.… Continue Reading
RAIN’s Weekend Perspective summarizes the week’s important events for a weekend catch-up, and revives your weary neurons for coming week. ILLUMINATION Digital revenue will dominate: BIA/Kelsey releases its Annual U.S. Local Media Forecast, indicating a bullish picture of ad-revenue growth,… Continue Reading
WQXR-FM in New York has been a pure classical-music station since starting in 1939. It’s harder to find classical music on the dial than it used to be, but after decades of decline the public radio sector is grabbing an… Continue Reading
A raft of new music services is heading to market in the next few months: YouTube, Beats Music (“Daisy”), Deezer in the U.S. Another might might join those ranks: Baboom, founded by notorious entrepreneur and hacker Kim Dotcom. New… Continue Reading
When I was a kid who loved listening to radio stations like WOKY and WRIT (where a teenage Bob Pittman was a DJ for a while), and later WCFL and WLS, and even later WDAI and WLUP, I was listening to my favorite stations primarily for the music, but they also served lots of other functions in my life — they were my primary sources of weather forecasts, traffic reports, sports scores, and lots more too. Continue Reading
Rdio, competing for audience in a crowded online-music market, made significant workforce reductions to lower costs. Layoffs are reported to have carved out about a third of the company. In the wake of the layoffs, Rdio made confident noises about its future destiny, but it looks like a rocky road from here.
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Spotify has partnered with Vodafone Ireland, one of many country-specific branches of the international telecom giant. The deal is another instance of a music service joining a telecom carrier in a synergy that benefits both companies. Continue Reading