Facebook has been assembling a team of music experts this year, but it’s been unclear what the social network’s end game is with the hiring spree. Most of the new postings have focused on direct licensing or publishing, but now it is recruiting for the role of Music Business Development Manager. Continue Reading
Foursquare announced that it has entered a partnership with Pandora for an effort to measure the real world impact of radio advertisements. The center of the agreement is Attribution by Foursquare, which applies the company’s location intelligence to offline measurements. This tool will help Pandora for Brands clients to understand the impact of digital ad campaigns on visits to brick-and-mortar stores. Continue Reading
Market forecaster BIA/Kelsey released its updated report on 2017 U.S. local ad revenues with mid-year data. So far, the forecast projects that revenue from mobile will edge out local radio from the top five media sources this year. Mobile is projected to see an 11% share with revenue of $16 billion, pushing the source into the top five in a tie with newspapers. Local radio dropped to sixth with $15.6 billion in revenue. Continue Reading
Webcast listening in April was mostly flat compared to the previous month, taking Triton Digital’s top 20 streamers as a whole — this according to Triton’s Webcast Metrics monthly Ranker, released this morning. While Pandora has plateaued, Spotify has experienced a consistent charge of upward listening growth that can fairly be called meteoric. Click through for details and historical trendlines. Continue Reading
Triton Digital announced a new deal to integrate its a2x audio advertising exchange with RTBiQ, a digital advertising solutions business with a mobile-first DSP platform. This partnership will grant RTBiQ’s advertisers the ability to add online audio from top broadcasters and streaming music services to their programmatic, omni-channel buys. Continue Reading
Nielsen has entered a deal with Nashville-based startup Jammber around song creation data. Jammber helps track the different stages of music production to streamline what is traditionally a fragmented workflow that makes tracking rights and licensing a challenge. Continue Reading
AdExchanger profiled Shazam and its use of mobile advertising. The identification app has shifted from a business model of affiliate iTunes links to one centered on advertising. Chief Revenue Officer Greg Glenday said that half of Shazam’s inventory is sold programmatically across both private and open exchanges. It also works directly with some clients for more involved, custom campaigns. Continue Reading
Spotify has reportedly reached a licensing agreement with Sony Music Entertainment. Unnamed sources told Billboard that the streaming service has inked its second major label deal this year, after announcing an agreement with Universal Music Group in April. Representatives for both Spotify and Sony have declined to comment thus far on the rumored development. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Spotify is with the “banned”. Exclusivity window (sort of) ends for 4:44, but the album won’t be on Billboard charts yet. Continue Reading
Digital audio companies leanStream and Media Sales Lab announced that they have merged into a single entity. The company will combine the audio ad network of Media Sales Lab with leanStream’s global audio streaming network of more than 400 radio stations. The merger is effective as of June 1 and the new business will retain the name leanStream, which will be responsible for producing the inaugural Digital Audio Advertising North Summit in Canada. Continue Reading
Podtrac’s podcast publisher rankings don’t usually show much variance from month to month, but June 2017 marked the arrival of two new companies. ESPN debuted at No. 5 on the list with an audience of 3.5 million uniques in the U.S. Wondery also marked its debit, with an audience of 2.6 million U.S. uniques propelling it No. 7 on the chart. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Several cases of the dreaded lazy Buggles headlines, countered by many reassurances that radio is not, in fact, dead. Continue Reading