As 2016 crawls to a close and 2017 emerges on the horizon, it’s time for that most time-honored of traditions: the year in review. Music companies of all stripes have released their assessments of top performers from the past twelve months. Here’s a collection of the high points from 2016. Continue Reading
In this guest post, Alan Cross delves into a history of radio technology. He shares some personal reflections over his more than three decades in the business, going back to his first radio station gigs with an ITC cart machine. Plus has has some forecasts of future tech. Continue Reading
With Pandora and iHeartRadio exploring mid-priced music services (both named “Plus” and priced identically at $4.99/month, with similar features), the question of consumer uptake arises. Will music lovers buy into semi-interactive services that cost half as much as fully on-demand music platforms? MusicWatch tackles the question with a new survey. Continue Reading
As promised in September, iHeartRadio has launched its two-tiered subscription product: iHeartRadio Plus, and iHeartRadio All Access powered by Napster.
Both are being rolled out in beta today, with a free 30-day trial. The new subscriptions service features two breakthrough functions: replaying and saving songs from live radio. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Radioplayer reaches new ground, your brain on podcasts, and much more especially on podcasting. Continue Reading
Google is moving forward with its own voice-activated personal assistant, which is being positioned as a rival to the Amazon Echo. Google Home will interact with several types of smart home technology, including playing music from streaming services. Continue Reading
Canadian listeners are continuing to shift to streaming, with total music consumption up 7.4% on year in the first half of 2016. Nielsen’s mid-year report for Canada found that total on-demand streams from audio and video platforms reached 18.6 billion songs. Continue Reading
Google Play is rolling out a new feature for expanded sharing across multiple people. The Family Library supports up to six individuals sharing a single account. All members will have access to every app, game, movie, TV show, and book added to the joint collection. Continue Reading
New research from Cowen explores the current state of the streaming music industry and gave forecasts for its future. Spotify and Amazon emerged as two of the top brands to watch. The data predicted a compound annual growth rate of 4% for the 2016-2021 period, with on-demand music services expected to double revenue and secure a 40% share of the industry by 2021. Continue Reading
Tuned Global unveiled a new music app for the Indonesian market called Nada Kita. The free app is the result of Tuned Global’s partnerships with several independent labels in the region. It has several curated stations from local music editors and places a focus on artist engagement. Continue Reading
Apple Music is one year old today. At Apple’s WorldWide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), the company announced that the music membership platform had accrued 15-million subscribers. That number is high or low, depending on perspective. ALSO: a much-needed redesign of the Apple Music experience. Continue Reading
Como Audio has launched a Kickstarter campaign for two home audio players. Solo and Duetto are the new creations from the company, which is led by founder Tom DeVesto, whose past resume includes Cambridge Soundworks and Tivoli Audio. Continue Reading