Today, we have one of our first surveys into music opinions for 2018. The musicFIRST Coalition commissioned a poll of more than 2,200 adult music listeners over January 9-11, asking participants for their thoughts on artist payments and accountability among music platforms. Continue Reading
SoundHound has been quiet recently, but it also hasn’t been standing still. Recode reports that the company just secured a financing round that values SoundHound at an estimated $1 billion. SoundHound declined to comment for Recode’s article. Continue Reading
Drake has a new single, and after less than a week, it has broken multiple streaming records. His track “God’s Plan” now holds the title for Spotify’s and Apple Music’s one-day streaming records. A single breaking records on that scale would have been a major deal a few years back. Now, it’s more surprising if a new release from Drake doesn’t meet those milestones. That trend indicates that it’s time to change how we’re using chart rankings. Continue Reading
The venerable E.W. Scripps Company, a multimedia national player in newspapers, radio, television, and digital media, has announced a tectonic and identity-changing restructure plan. As with many corporate reinventions, headcount will be reduced over 12-18 months, costs will be lowered, technology will be centralized, resources will be optimized across divisions. And radio will be ditched entirely. Continue Reading
Podtrac has published its podcast ranking charts for December 2017. Measured listening rose 93% year-on-year for the period, although December did see a slight drop of 7% in total global unique streams and downloads from November. Each of the publishers also posted dips in their audiences for December over November, a common trend in end-of-year listening. Continue Reading
The Music Modernization Act has been introduced in the Senate. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) introduced the bill. The legislation to overhaul mechanical licensing reached the House of Representatives in December, and the Senate version follows that bill. Continue Reading
Vox Media has a new marketing lead for podcasts. Zach Kahn announced his promotion on Twitter. Kahn has been with Vox in partnership and marketing positions since May 2016. Continue Reading
YouTube is now a registration agency for the International Standard Name Identifier. This means that the video platform will request a unique identifier for every creator whose work is used on the service. The move is intended to ensure that the correct individuals are attributed to each distribution. Continue Reading
Midroll Brand Studio, a division of podcast content and advertising company Midroll Media, announced the start of four new shows, each with presenting sponsors. Three brand sponsors are mentioned in the announcement: ZipRecruiter, Squarespace, and Carbonite. Continue Reading
YouTube has its fair share of critics, especially in the music industry. According to a new report from Bloomberg, it seems that YouTube may be trying to create leverage that will keep musicians from making negative comments about the video platform. The publication said it has learned that YouTube has offered a few musicians hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial backing to produce videos and billboard promotion, with the caveat that these performers won’t say negative things about the company. Continue Reading
Futuri Media issued an announcement today which expands the company’s purview beyond the suite of software and technology products it has offered broadcasters for years. At the crux is a new product called the Futuri Ad Network, which promises “flexible and turnkey options for generating revenue with digital content.” Continue Reading
YouTube announced it is merging all of that performer’s subscribers into the Official Artist Channel, which will be identified with a music note icon. That could reduce the visibility of Vevo, which is owned by two major music labels, with investment from Alphabet (parent company of YouTube and Google). Continue Reading