Andy Ng has stepped down from his role as a group vice president of Tencent Music Entertainment. He is leaving the post for “personal reasons,” but will continue to provide advice to the company in a new role as group senior consultant. Continue Reading
Several parties in the European creative sector have launched another push on behalf of the Copyright Directive, a contentious effort to update and overhaul the EU’s legal framework for a digital age. A group of 256 organizations and trade bodies from many disciplines signed a letter encouraging the European Parliament to adopt the proposed set of rules when it votes in early April. Continue Reading
Podtrac released its podcast publisher ranking for February 2019. Nine of the publishers in the ranking reported growth in their unique monthly audience in the U.S. The average U.S. unique monthly audience for these top ten publishers reached 8.1 million, up 6% from January 2019 and up 42% from February 2018. Continue Reading
Pod Drop highlights noteworthy new and upcoming podcasts from across the vast and fast-growing category. LinkedIn launches its first big original show. Cadence13 has news alongside Deepak Chopra and theSkimm. iHeartMedia plans for a musical narrative anthology. Continue Reading
Voxnest announced a new partnership with independent music platform Jamendo. This deal will focus on licensing music, providing easier tools for podcasters with Voxnest’s Spreaker platform to easily license music from Jamendo’s catalog. Continue Reading
Pete Downton has exited his role as deputy CEO at B2B digital audio services platform 7digital. He joined the company as chief commercial officer in 2014, and has past experience at Warner Music Group. Continue Reading
Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant continues to receive new partnerships and new features. One of the latest developments for the platform is a Song ID tool that lets the AI voice take on the role of a radio DJ. Amazon has also entered a partnership with Ticketmaster to allow sales of tickets through the voice AI. Continue Reading
Jonathan Prince has departed Spotify. Prince has been in the dual posts vice president, head of marketplace and content policy and vice president, global head of communications and public policy for the streaming service since 2014. Continue Reading
Slate has appointed a new editor in chief to oversee both its text and audio operations. Jared Hohlt will take over at the helm of the publication. He previously spent 18 years with New York magazine and held multiple roles over those nearly two decades. Continue Reading
Spotify debuted a deal with Samsung in August 2018, and that partnership has already grown. The parties announced that users will see “frictionless access” on more Samsung mobile devices. Beginning today, millions of new Samsung mobile devices will come with Spotify pre-installed. Continue Reading
German music industry body BVMI has released new figures for 2018, marking the first time that streaming generated more money than CDs. Total revenue for the year dipped 0.4% to €1.58 billion ($1.78 billion) Continue Reading
Kobalt Music Group is in the process of raising its largest funding round yet. KMG is the parent organization behind Kobalt Music Publishing, Kobalt Neighbouring Rights, recorded music operation AWAL and collection society AMRA. Continue Reading