Canada’s Bell Media has entered an exclusive music publishing and administration deal with ole, an independent rights management company. The arrangement covers the in-house music library of the telecom. Continue Reading
Kanye West’s album The Life of Pablo has achieved platinum certification just based on streaming performance. The album, which was released in February 2016, has reached 1.5 billion streams in the U.S., enough to attain platinum certification from the RIAA. Continue Reading
ASCAP announced that it collected revenue of $1.059 billion in 2016, breaking the billion-dollar revenue mark for a third year. The performing rights organization distributed more than $918 million to its members over the course of the year, up 5.6% over the year before. Continue Reading
When was the last time you saw 20 influential thought-leaders in a dynamic and fascinating industry gathering, and got back to your office after lunch? If that seems implausible, you haven’t been to a RAIN half-day conference on digital audio advertising. Click through for details. Continue Reading
Nielsen’s Total Audience Report for Q4 2016 placed a focus on news. The results showed how much of a role radio plays in news consumption for U.S. adults. The weekly gross amount news consumption on radio in PPM markets rose from 10.5 billion minutes in 2015 to 11.5 billion minutes in 2016. However, radio did top the share of weekly listening in 2016 among U.S. adults. Continue Reading
Streaming is on the rise among Canadians. According to Solutions Research Group in Toronto, 62% of all online Canadians use a streaming service. The total audience of paying subscribers in Canada was estimated at 1.9 million as of October 2016. Continue Reading
After two years of negotiations, Spotify has broken through with a major label deal. The two companies had been operating on a month-to-month basis while working out a longer-term arrangement. They have been in on-again-off-again negotiations, but now they reportedly just need the sign-off from both CEOs to become official. Continue Reading
When Beasley Media acquired Greater Media in November, Steve Meyers — Director of Digital Operations for Greater — slid into the same position for the combined group under the Beasley brand. Now Caroline Beasley announces a promotion in which Steve Meyers rises to Executive Vice President of Digital. Continue Reading
Cary Sherman will step down from his role as CEO and chairman of the RIAA at the end of 2018. Sherman has been with the industry group for more than four decades, beginning as an outside counsel and then climbing the ladder to the top post. Continue Reading
Warner Music Group has sold off digital distributor Zebralution back to its original founders. The major has owned the company for a decade, but has sold it off as part of a divestiture agreed to by WMG with indie music specialists IMPALA and Merlin. Continue Reading
National Public Radio (NPR) will launch Up First, a 10-minute, 6:00AM podcast news bulletin drawn from its widely distributed Morning Edition syndicated radio show. In starting an online-only podcast that seemingly competes with the live daily radio show which spawned it, NPR intends to address a discrete audience that might not be familiar with NPR radio programming, and possibly drive that audience into a deeper involvement with the NPR ecosystem. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Beats 1 makes a big boast. Ten award-winning podcasts from Australia. Much more from around the world of radio. Continue Reading