Pandora has partnered with Comcast to launch the its full suite of services on the Xfinity X1 set-top box. All of Pandora’s features across all membership tiers have been integrated into the Comcast hardware, including support for voice commands, which work with the Xfinity X1 voice-controlled remote. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Two big broadcasters jump aboard the Alexa skill train. Loudness wars and conflicting LUFS standards. Much more from around the audio world. Continue Reading
Cumulus Media announced that it has launched Amazon Alexa voice skills for 300 local radio stations, which it says marks the largest collection of custom Alexa skills in the United States. This push includes popular Westwood One brands and Christmas radio. It partnered with XAPPmedia for the project. Continue Reading
Deezer has launched its own mobile audio identification tool. Deezer SongCatcher can identify the artist and track title for audio playing near your smartphone. The feature is currently in beta and will be open to Premium+ subscribers. The rollout will begin on Android and is slated to arrive on iOS next year. Continue Reading
The Copyright Royalty Board judges have set the new royalty rates and terms for Sirius XM. The company will pay 15.5% of gross revenues for the period of January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2022. That’s a 40% increase from the 11% share Sirius XM has been paying for royalties. Continue Reading
Facebook is reportedly pulling yet another exec away from the major labels. Perry Bashkoff is the SVP of global content and revenue development at Warner Music Group. Music Business Worldwide is reporting that Bashkoff will be joining the social media network next year. Continue Reading
Spotify’s valuation may have reached $19 billion thanks to private trading. That’s up from a rumored valuation of $16 billion in September. Sources familiar with the trades claimed that the private trades for the streaming music services were happening at a price of more than $4,000 per share. Continue Reading
The awaited Podcast Analytics suite from Apple has arrived in beta. Whatever its shortfalls in the minds of some industry observers, and however ambivalent some podcast publishers might be about the intrusion of new data, Apple’s reporting of podcast consumption will sharply influence the shape, growth and revenue prospects of podcasting. Details and RAIN analysis. Continue Reading
RadioPublic is offering a a gift idea for the podcast fan in your life. The podcast listening and discovery platform is now making Podcards. Continue Reading
AdsWizz announced that the first campaign using its Shake Me audio ad format has successfully run. Shake Me is a new digital audio ad format technology designed to encourage mobile listeners to take action without needing to look at the phone. They do so by shaking the phone, or tapping it. Continue Reading
Several tech companies have pitched the European Commission to request limits on behavior from Apple and Amazon that they claim are anti-competitive. Spotify CEO and Co-founder Daniel Ek and Deezer CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht both signed the letter to EU regulators asking for “a level playing field” that prevents some tech giants from “regularly abusing their advantaged position.” Continue Reading
Google’s latest addition to the smart home speaker space has officially launched. The Google Home Max is now on store shelves both physical and digital. The launch draws Google’s smart speaker offerings closer in line to market-leader Amazon, although the Echo line is still leading in adoption. Continue Reading