Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:
PRS subject to anti-competition review: The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is reviewing PRS for Music due to internal changes at the rights group, legislative updates to collective rights management, and increased use of streaming and online music platforms. The CMA is reviewing several actions taken by its predecessors, including the undertakings given by PRS in 1997 following a Monopolies and Mergers Commission review.
BBC’s Sound of 2016: BBC’s Sound of 2016 assembled a list of musicians to watch selected by a panel of DJs, music critics, and writers. The set for next year shows a heavy preference for solo artists, with a strong showing by the rap and grime genres. The set of 15 performers will be narrowed down until a single winner is announced on Jan. 8.
Nepal’s community radio after the earthquake: Asia Radio Today profiled the return of community radio stations in Nepal following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck in April. The natural disaster impacted thousands of journalists and hundreds of stations in the medium. As community radio has been rebuilt, it has proven an invaluable tool for residents in the ongoing recovery efforts.
Dissecting Rdio vs Spotify: Product designer and artist Marianne Abreu wrote about the end of Rdio. She traced the apparent conflict in media and anecdotal discussions of Rdio-versus-Spotify, with the added context of the broad shifts to streaming and new music listening models. “It is not that one was right or wrong, better or worse, we just have different habits,” she concludes.