James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Radio’s Apollo 11 cameo; engineering shortages loom worldwide; notes from Chicago’s Podcast Movement conference; much, much more. Continue Reading
Pandora published some numbers in an article that is both a response to recent comScore audience measurement data, and part of a continuing competition with Spotify for marketing dollars spent by advertisers to reach online radio listeners. We spoke with Pandora executive Heidi Browning. Continue Reading
Apple has proposed a new royalty structure for streaming music, one that would be simpler but could create a financial pinch for freemium services. In a proposal to the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board, Apple recommended a system where all on-demand streaming services would pay songwriters a statutory rate of 9.1 cents per 100 plays. Continue Reading
One of the common critiques of streaming is that those platforms favor the pop and rock charts to the detriment of niche genres. A new playlisting brand aims to improve the access to classical music on the top streaming services. It’s called unCLASSIFIED, at its goal is to create dynamic playlists based on mood or activity. Continue Reading
Spotify For Brands, the company’s outreach division which promotes the free-listening service to advertisers, has released a new trove of data focused on brand awareness and listener profiling in the U.K. It is part of an ongoing The New Audio series, with survey work commissioned from TNS. Continue Reading
Chinese conglomerate Tencent announced a merger between its QQ Music unit and China Music Corp. This joint entity will run three of China’s streaming music services: QQ Music, Kugou, and Kuwo. Continue Reading
Less than a year after unveiling a major iOS redesign, Vevo is sprucing things up again. Whereas the November updates focused on aesthetics, the new changes center on discovery tools. I explored the changes on iOS. Continue Reading
NPR is coming to iHeartRadio. According to a new deal between the public radio organization and iHeartMedia, more than 260 NPR member stations will have the opportunity to stream their live news and talk programming on iHeartRadio. Continue Reading
Rhapsody has completed its rebranding, and is now officially Napster in all markets. The rename won’t impact any listener playlists or history, but it does come with a redesigned home screen and some other discovery tools. Continue Reading
Guest columnist Glenn Peoples observes that AM/FM is required to pay the music industry only one of two performance royalties, unlike streaming radio which is required to pay both songwriters and labels. He asserts that every point of market share which moves from broadcast radio to Pandora is worth $60-million dollars of revenue to labels and artists. Continue Reading
ASCAP has relaunched its public repertory database ACE following a redesign. The changes are aimed at making the platform more informative and easier to use. ACE originally made the licensable share info public in November 2015. Continue Reading
China has long been a puzzle for the music industry, especially with recent developments in streaming and subscription platforms. A survey by Tencent Penguin Intelligence found that only about 10% of respondents were subscribed to a music service. Continue Reading