Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:
GM Tracking Consumer Listening Behavior in Cars: Wonder why there is such a feeding frenzy for placement on the dashboard of connected cars? It’s about data. Data can be sold to audio advertisers trying for targeted impressions — for example, how consumers listen, compared to where they drive. Correlations like that lead to audience segmenting and valuable advertising. This article describes experiments along this line by car maker GM.
London’s Radio Pirates Changed Music. Then Came the Internet. The title of this New York Times feature pretty well explains itself. After the pirate radio projects of London made waves on the domestic and international music scenes in the 1990s, the disruptors found themselves disrupted by Internet audio options. Alongside the introduction of community licenses, this piece explores how London’s broader radio landscape has changed in recent years.
Does Music’s Q4 Matter Anymore? One of the side effects of a streaming economy is a change in the music industry’s calendar. When CDs and physical formats were more dominant, the fourth quarter and its corresponding winter holiday shopping season meant closing out the year with a boost to revenue. Variety examines how streaming has changed that trend, as January and August are emerging as the months for major releases, and thus when spikes in listens are most expected.