Baboom joined the ranks of of new digital music properties with its launch last week. The company blends several promising ideas from other digital upstarts, such as the direct-to-fan patronage of Bandcamp and the stream/store combination of Beatport. The result is a product that feels new and more promising than most other musical startups. Continue Reading
Roger Lanctot is Associate Director of Strategy Analytics, and a thought leader in the connected-car space. In this guest article, he explains how in-car connectivity is wrongly perceived by car companies, driving both talent and product development to Silicon Valley. It’s not entirely about infotainment, but it explains why Apple and Google are grabbing that initiative.
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Neil Young wrote an update about his hi-res Pono Music company on Facebook. Young gave nods to the other brands Pono works with, both in and out of the music industry, but explained that the company has many partners but “no proven business leader,” in his own words. He added that Pono is working to set up shop in multiple countries despite a lack of resources. Continue Reading
ASCAP announced this morning that Mark Sperling, a seasoned executive with strategy, partnership, and merger specialties, will join the performing rights organization as SVP, Strategy and Business Development. Sperling has a deep financial transaction background in mergers, partnerships, and IPOs. Continue Reading
Judge Philip Gutierrez has chosen not to add the latest pre-1972 royalty lawsuit to his docket. ABS Entertainment filed a suit against CBS, Cumulus, and iHeartMedia in an effort to collect royalties for those radio groups’ use of songs recorded prior to the adoption of federal copyright law. The plaintiff tried to have the case transferred to Gutierrez since it focused on potential infringement under the same statute as the suit filed by Flo & Eddie against Sirius XM. Continue Reading
James Cridland Weekly Links is a column by the U.K.’s radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Is radio news all bad? FM chips in Apple Watches, but … unactivated. Podcasting and more. Continue Reading
Financial intelligence company SNL Kagan has given RAIN News an advance copy of Economics of Mobile Music, 2015 edition. The detailed report projects subscriber growth rates and revenue for the top nine music subscription services. Continue Reading
The business of an ad-supported radio service can be a tricky one, balancing the listeners’ demand for free content with the need to stay afloat and make money to keep delivering that content. And with so many well-established players such as Pandora, Spotify, and iHeartRadio already sitting in comfortable positions, it’s extra challenging for a new face to break through the crowd. Yet Google is trying to do just that and it’s using native advertising to stand out. Continue Reading
Pono Music announced that it will upgrade customers’ purchases to higher resolutions as they become available from labels at no charge. This new policy, dubbed the PonoPromise, is meant to avoid the cycle of re-purchasing songs as they become available on better or more convenient formats, such as from cassettes to CDs to MP3s. Continue Reading
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The weekly update of the streaming audio industry, from RAIN News. THIS WEEK: A talent agency gets into podcasting; radio targeted in pre-1972 lawsuit; Apple disagrees with MusicWatch research; Deezer wants big bucks; Mad Genius Radio shuts down. Continue Reading
IFPI Denmark released data on the first half of 2015 for the country’s music industry, which showed a strong performance by streaming. Revenue from streaming platforms rose by 14% in H1 2015 compared with H1 2014. Recorded music overall rose just 0.4% since the same period last year, which physical sales dropping 35% and downloads falling 13% from the year-ago period. Continue Reading
In addition to the disruptive challenges faced by traditional radio as streaming continues to grow, there might be a perceptual challenge for the industry’s relationship with advertisers. That’s what Westwood One sought to reveal in a commissioned study from research company Advertiser Perceptions, the results of which can be interpreted to indicate that radio has greater consumer reach than buyers perceive. Continue Reading