Apple Music is making some minor quality of life improvements to one of its signature features. The “For You” section of the streaming service, which has curated editoral playlists, will be updated with new content multiple times a day. Continue Reading
Universal Music Group’s quarterly earnings continued to grow on the back of a strong streaming performance. The label’s parent company, Vivendi, has released its first-quarter results as it moves ahead with plans to sell off a stake in UMG. Continue Reading
We noted last week that Apple Podcasts might launch a web browser version of iTunes Podcasts (or, similarly, the Podcasts iOS app). At that time the launch seemed incomplete. Now it seems like a full-on web product … and an important milestone. Continue Reading
Billboard is reporting this morning that Amazon plans to offer and ad-supported streaming music service possibly similar to services offered by Pandora or Spotify. If true, service would join other Amazon listening services already in the market. Continue Reading
Research firm Canalys has released a new report with projections for smart speaker sales this year. It anticipates that the global install base for the product category will increase 82.4% from 114 million units in 2018 to 207.9 million units in 2019. The company forecast that smart speakers would have a larger audience than tablets by 2021. Continue Reading
Most podcasters are used to issuing a call-to-action of “subscribe,” but that language may be sending the wrong impression to the vast audience of non-podcast listeners and keeping them away. Continue Reading
Podtrac has released its March 2019 podcast publisher ranking. It was a month of growth, with seven of the top ten increasing their U.S. unique monthly audience from the previous month. The average U.S. unique monthly audience for this group reached 8.2 million, edging up 1% from February 2019 and up 43% from March 2018. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s International Radio Trends is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: New shifting attitudes at the NAB Show. A few UK radio updates. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Behind the scenes with The Daily. Building the perfect podcast studio. People still want to pay for records. Continue Reading
NPR has entered a new partnership with Amazon that will increase the amount of content to listeners with Alexa-enabled devices. Requests to “play the news” on Alexa have defaulted to the most recent NPR hourly newscast. Going forward, this voice skill will offer a continuous listening experience of content from the broadcaster. Continue Reading
Apple Podcasts are going to move toward a standalone web presence. This week, several tech outlets reported that the web listening experience would be getting separated from iTunes. A few podcasts are getting preview versions that show a URL of podcasts.apple.com rather than requiring either the iTunes app or website to play. Continue Reading
Edison Research and Triton Digital released the 2019 Podcast Consumer Report today in a webinar, loaded with metrics from Edison’s monumental Infinite Dial and Share of Ear consumer research studies. The program and its nearly 30 data-infused slides were presented to Edison SVP… Continue Reading