Music and social have tried to marry, but never gotten past the dating stage. Twitter tried and failed. Instagram has started a new attempt. The attempt is to organize its 300-million users around music as a passion point for shareable photos and videos. Continue Reading
As part of its State of the News Media 2015 report, the Pew Research Center has released nearly a dozen Fact Sheets. Two of them are pertinent to the online audio industry: Audio, and Podcasting. Continue Reading
Radio and stream aggregator TuneIn, and leading music-ID app Shazam, both announced new integrations with Google Now, an Android feature that resembles Apple’s Siri. Continue Reading
The Copyright Royalty Board has begun the hearing phase of its proceeding to set the royalties to be paid by webcasters for the years 2016-2020. Broadcast law attorney David Oxenford witnessed the day-ong event. Continue Reading
Digital music distributor TuneCore announced first-quarter results — as usual, not in terms of revenue to the company, but through the lens of payouts to musician clients. Artists earned over $36-million in Q1. Continue Reading
Sirius XM released its first-quarter earnings report yesterday in an investor call that was proud, confident, and featured upward revisions to future guidance of subscriber growth and revenue. Beyond the shhining statistics, Sirius executive talked about licensing, streaming, and Spotify. Continue Reading
Edison Research announced a strategic relationship with Southern Cross Austereo, Australia’s largest radio company. The agreement will include bringing Edison’s research advancements to the Asia Pacific region, and representation of SCA’s innovations in North America Continue Reading
Last week iHeartMedia hosted a “Soundfront” to introduce a slate of new podcasts to advertisers. Today NPR is hosting a podcast upfront, promoting its most successful existing programs. The era of podcast upfronts has arrived. Continue Reading
We hadn’t heard much from Play.it, the CBS podcast listening site, when an announcement of eight added programs came across the screen. Marilu Henner and Jayson Williams are featured celebrity hosts. Continue Reading
A stunning video with distressing scenes. And a few problems with the newly-relaunched Tidal music service. Continue Reading
European media giant Bauer Media has acquired Nordic broadcaster SBS Discovery Radio, from Discovery Communications pending regulatory approval. Terms of the acquisition have not been reported. Continue Reading
Yesterday in Washington, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) held an opening hearing to start the trial portion of Webcasting IV, the music royalty rate-setting process for the upcoming 2016-2020 royalty period. We spoke to sources who were in the (apparently rather small) room). Continue Reading