James Cridland Weekly Links is a column by the U.K.’s radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: This week’s edition is dominated by RAJAR ratingsof U.K. radio and podcast stories. Also, worlds collide; the ever-controversial Audials, and the Belfast Media Festival. Plus much more. Continue Reading
Deezer announced several developments to its streaming platform today. First, it is adding 20,000 new podcasts and radio shows to its streaming platform. Deezer’s other updates include changes to the News & Entertainment section of its app, plus an expansion into five more international markets. Continue Reading
Spotify has reportedly started laying the groundwork for a push into Japan and Indonesia. The company currently has a small team on the ground in Japan and is currently looking to hire a financial controller in that market. Spotify is also hiring a music editor in Indonesia, although it will be based out of its headquarters in Singapore. Continue Reading
Spotify has launched a new feature called Discover Weekly. This is a two-hour playlist personalized to each individual listener. The song choices for the Discover Weekly list stem from your particular music taste and what other similar fans are listening to. Spotify is billing it as a custom-made mixtape delivered each Monday morning. So how good are the recommendations? Pretty solid. Continue Reading
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada announced its financial results for 2014, and revealed $299 million in revenue from domestic, international and private copying proceeds. The figure broke last year’s record high of $276 million. Within that total, the organization received $20 million in revenue from Internet streaming companies, up from $3.2 million in the previous year. Continue Reading
The Download on Podcasts, a weekly feature covering the development of podcasting as a vital audio category, is sponsored by PodcastOne. Podcasts are on-demand audio programs, growing quickly in audience, programming, and revenue. Podcasting turns to viral marketing to grow… Continue Reading
Should radio and Internet radio platforms run ads for competitors? In the battle for “share of ear,” this is a question we have examined from a number of angles. During our recent ad-stalking, we spotted Google advertising its streaming service (Google Play All Access) on Pandora. the call to action lifted us right out of Pandora into Google. Continue Reading
by Brad Hill
Google’s acquisition of Songza is widely regarded as a buy-in of Songza’s unique “Concierge” delivery of personalized music, based on each user’s activity and mood combined with other data signals. The backbone of Songza programming is assembled by a team of 60 music specialists, and their work is supplemented by a Big Data-fed algorithm which refines the output based on the listener’s history of song votes and song skips.
Songza’s formula, and those of other music services, which determine what a listener hears, all fall under the broad term “curation.” All music services that provide some degree of interactivity deploy a curation strategy. The underpinning of that strategy is subject to trend and vogue. How has music curation evolved, and what is the trend this year which is driving acquisitions?
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In 2009, the Vodafone Big Top 40 launched a real-time chart, using iTunes sales statistics alongside radio airplay to produce a more “live” chart. The show has 2.4 million listeners, making it the biggest show on commercial radio in the U.K. James Cridland notes the upcoming addition of digital sources in creating this important chart. Continue Reading
Much has been said about the ‘connected dash’ in recent weeks: the concern that radio has plenty to lose from forthcoming internet-connected cars, that’ll offer internet radio, Spotify-like services, and plenty more. Guest columnist James Cridland says that if you’re a radio broadcaster, you should start worrying right now. Continue Reading
AccuRadio, the Internet radio platform with over 900 home-curated genre stations, compiled user rankings in the Google Play store of Android music apps, and determined that AccuRadio is the highest-rated app among radio and music subscription apps. (Disclosure: AccuRadio CEO… Continue Reading
It is a busy month for Rhapsody, the godparent of music services. During October the Internet jukebox launched new “radio” features that enabled artist-centric listening (trailing some other services by a few years, but still), closed an important partnership with… Continue Reading