Jottings of note:
Retracting The Recoil
When Spotify placed song lyrics behind its subscription paywall, we reported that users were publicly recoiling. That was on May 7. Today, just short of three months later, the naysayers proved correct and Spotify has pulled lyrics back into free use. The change will take a few weeks to complete globally.
Seeing The Audio
Washington Post columnist Eric Wemple offers an essay titled “Who’d want to watch a podcast, anyway?” Far from a negative slant on the appropriation of audio by video, the author tracks the development — including quotes from YouTube executives that they, themselves, were surprised by the sudden adoption of video listening. (“Huh, we weren’t even trying,” one YT exec exclaimed, as quoted from PIerre Bouvard of Cumulus Media.) The piece also documents one podcast which staunchly remains audio only. READ
Speaking The grit
iHeartPodcasts is splashing its new partnership with Thoroughbred Studios — a joint venture from entertainment industry giants Jeff Bewkes (previously Chairman/CEO of Time Warner), Sir Howard Stringer (previously Chairman/CEO of Sony Corporation) and television veteran Jeremy Fox. The partners will develop a new slate of historical podcasts bound together by an editorial focus described as “some of the biggest stories on what really happened in this American century. The series will debut in 2025, and the first episode will be about “gritty realities” of the first astronauts who made it to the moon.
August 5, 2024
