A RAIN News roundup of 2017’s most important stories, by month. We applied an upper limit of five stories per month to keep this feature concisely focused on the most crucial industry developments in online audio.

January

BuzzAngle 2016 report sees streaming (and subscriptions) soar

Mark Mulligan: Music Subscriptions Passed 100 Million In December. Has The World Changed?

Nielsen 2016 report: “Music consumption is at an all-time high”

App Annie 2016 report: Mobile driving revenue for streaming’s old guard

Sprint buys 33% stake in Tidal

February

CBS Radio to merge with Entercom

Nielsen completes Gracenote acquisition

Serial and This American Life alums launch new podcast production business

Streaming goes purple for Prince catalog

Spotify announces launch of original podcast production

March

RIAA 2016: Streaming is the biggest revenue source for the U.S. music industry

Pandora launches Premium, enters new era

Key insights from The Infinite Dial 2017

MIDiA Research: Streaming drives global music market of $16.1B in 2016

April

NPR launches “Up First” morning news podcast, hoping to cross over audiences

Edison Research unleashes The Podcast Consumer 2017 survey data

IFPI 2016 report sees global streaming revenue up 60.4%

May

Live365 is back for real, emerging into public webcaster sign-up

2016 round-up: Music industry results from around the world

Spotify steps more broadly into programmatic advertising

Tidal’s third CEO departs the streaming company

S-Town podcast hits 40 million global downloads

June

Sirius XM invests $480 million in Pandora

Apple announces podcast analytics, an industry breakthrough

Edison/NPR study discovers that smart speakers are essential audio devices

Pandora turns another corner – Westergren, Herring out. CEO search on. New board member in.

Pandora shutting down in Australia, New Zealand

July

BuzzAngle Mid-2017: Streaming up on growth of subscription listening

Small webcasters rocked by licensing issues

Edison Research: All eyes on Australia in new Podcast Consumer report

YouTube Red and Google Play Music to combine, but details are scarce

August

Tidal hires its fourth CEO

SoundCloud saved by new investor deal; new CEO and COO; founder steps down

TuneIn raises $50 million for content expansion

Pandora settles on new CEO: Roger Lynch from Sling TV

Spotify lands Warner licensing deal, closing out major label trifecta

September

Slacker Radio acquired by LiveXLive Media

IFPI study: 45% of global population streams audio

RIAA H1 2017 report: Streaming revenue hits $2.5 billion

Amazon launches new wave of Echo smart home devices

Apple Music has 30 million subscribers, plans to convert many more

October

U.K.’s Global acquires AudioHQ which becomes DAX, bringing that programmatic platform to U.S.

Billboard charts to distinguish between free and paid streams starting in 2018

NPR shares latest audience data for broadcast, podcasts, and digital

Acast plans public offering; Ross Adams is new CEO

November

Musical.ly acquired for between $800 million and $1 billion

Survey: Smart speaker owners use them for music listening (and lots of it)

Apple drops out (and here’s why) as smart speakers enter crucial holiday season

The Echo Dot was Amazon’s top seller over Black Friday and Cyber Monday

December

Apple acquires Shazam

Apple acquires Pop Up Archive, amassing an ever-greater podcast empire

BMI wins out over Justice Department in appeals court ruling

Facebook and Universal reach licensing deal

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