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
The Netherlands government announced that it will issue 34 DAB+ licenses for regional radio stations. The nation’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said that only commercial stations that already have a legal permit for DAB+ would be allowed to sign up for consideration. Continue Reading
Three European rights agencies have inked an agreement to form a joint venture and launch a hub for digital rights. The participants are PRS for Music in the UK, GEMA in Germany, and STIM in Sweden. The goal of this hub is to make digital rights management faster and more efficient for single- and multi-territory licenses. Continue Reading
Most of the heavy analysis of music markets focuses on North America, Europe, and Asia. PricewaterhouseCoopers has given us new insights on the industry in Africa with a new entertainment and media outlook through 2017 for South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. The report covers the radio and music sectors in those countries. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Czech Republic launches large T-DAB+ trial; Apple Music will be below standard audio quality; a rough outlook for indie Internet radio. Continue Reading
Thousands of broadcasters from around southeast Asia (primarily Malaysia, Indonesia, and other countries in the near region) — including hundreds of radio broadcasters — descended on Singapore last week for the region’s biggest broadcasting conference, BroadcastAsia2015. Kurt Hanson reports from Singapore. Continue Reading
Yandex, a Russian search provider, announced the launch of a new music service called Yandex.Radio. The platform is an ad-supported collection of 100 radio stations. The channels are defined by genre, mood, or context. Yandex.Radio is available on both desktop and mobile versions, but only in the Russian market for now. Continue Reading
7digital announced two international partnerships today. The first is with mobile music company Mariposa, which serves Latin America. The second partnership is with OpenLIVE, an upcoming Australian music download platform that specializes in live recordings. Continue Reading
Asian streaming platform KKBOX has inked a partnership with Merlin, an independent digital rights agency. As a result of the deal, some of the 20,000 independent labels and distributors represented by Merlin will be featured on the Taiwan-based streaming service. The deal covers Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Two streaming talks at The Great Escape; ASCAP not done fighting Pandora; digital audio ads growing slowly in the UK; a profile of Pakistani streaming service Patari. Continue Reading
France’s Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, also known as the CSA, has announced that it plans to launch a public consultation about digital terrestrial radio by the end of May. This consultation is expected to decide which regions of the country should be the next to receive digital radio infrastructure. More than a dozen French cities are up for consideration, and the new digital stations are projected to go on-air by September 2016. Continue Reading
Australia’s music industry is adding a new weekly chart to reflect the popularity of streams. The Australian Recording Industry Association will launch the Top 40 Audio & Visual Streaming Chart on Monday, May 18. It will incorporate plays from all official music videos on YouTube. Continue Reading