Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:
The future for French music subs: Universal Music France CEO Pascal Negre told Les Echos that the country could have as many as 10 to 12 million streaming music subscribers by 2020. “This would be the dream, but it is possible,” he said. French label association SCPP has said that in 2015 there were more than 3 million paying customers for music streaming.
Interview with Deezer’s North American exec: Speaking of France, Billboard has an interview with the North American CEO of French streaming service Deezer. Tyler Goldman said talked about the subscriber figures following Deezer’s acquisition of Muve Music and partnering with wireless provider Cricket. He was coy about plans for an outright launch into the U.S. market. “I think you’ll see in the coming months some new markets we’re going after,” Goldman said, a nod to the company’s strategy of focusing on different listener niches. “As our product has evolved to be more valuable, at some point I think you’ll see us target all U.S. consumers.”
Can public radio and TV be friends?: An article on Current, a nonprofit service offered by the American University School of Communication, asked why there isn’t more collaboration between public radio and public TV. The question came from a reader who works at Illinois Public Media. She pointed to recent moves at her workplace, which produced content to accompany the PBS airing of a Ken Burns documentary about cancer, as signs that public TV and radio could support each other to good success.
Visualizing punk music’s hazy definitions: To round things out, we have a beautiful collection of data visualizations and infographics examining how listeners have defined ‘punk.’ It’s the same degree of elegant presentation that we’ve come to expect from Matt Daniels, who has also analyzed song timelessness and rapper loquaciousness.