Amazon and Spotify have both announced developments involving country music playlists. First, Amazon has debuted a playlist containing country songs and artists chosen to appeal to an international audience. Second, Spotify’s Hot Country collection is now an “enhanced playlist” that includes original videos alongside the musical selections. Continue Reading
Panoply has hired a new vice president of sales. Ken Lagana joins the podcast company from a position as senior vice president of global sales and marketing at CBS Digital Media. In addition, Panoply recently announced a partnership with the publisher Macmillan. Continue Reading
Midroll Media’s podcast networks have shared their new show lineups. Earwolf, Stitcher, and Stitcher Premium are each expanding their programming. Continue Reading
Satcaster Sirius XM reported its Q1 financials yesterday. subscriptions up 330,000 to over 33-million. Revenue climbed 6% to 1.4-billion. Full-year guidance unchanged. CEO James E. Meyer commented on Pandora & iHeartMedia situations. Continue Reading
Sonos has filed the paperwork for an initial public offering as early as June. The smart speaker company is looking to raise capital in the hundreds of millions range, according to The Wall Street Journal. Continue Reading
The Music Modernization Act (MMA) has convincingly passed the U.S. House of Representatives. The pending legislation benefits the creative class of the music industry — songwriters and composers, and enjoys a remarkable degree of across-the-aisle support, both politically and in the music industry. Continue Reading
The week is barely half over and it has already been an eventful few days for Apple and Apple Music. The company has been involved in new partnerships and expansions in the United States, whole its European efforts have hit a possible roadblock. Continue Reading
We know from The Smart Audio Report conducted by Edison Research and NPR, that smart speakers have a special (and perhaps unpredicted) appeal to kids, and therefore to parents who are bringing Alexa devices into their homes. research summary. iHeartRadio is leaping into that space with an announcement today that it will be the default provider of live music content for the newly launched Echo Dot Kids Edition, and the FreeTime Unlimited skill in Alexa. Continue Reading
Podtrac has released its ranker of the top 20 podcasts for March 2018. Most of the entries are consistent with the list from February, with just a few shifts in the order. Podtrac’s March 2018 publisher ranking was released last week. Continue Reading
Pandora announced that it is bringing its paid experience to more gaming fans. Pandora Premium is now available on the Xbox One console from Microsoft. This app update includes standard Premium features and controls for navigating your library on the gaming hardware. Continue Reading
The 2017 Peabody Awards winners for radio/podcast have been chosen. Serial Productions maintains its success rate, securing a win for its new podcast S-Town. Uncivil: The Raid by Gimlet Media also took a win for its depiction of an event during the Civil War. Continue Reading
The Google-YouTube family has been moving forward on a new music subscription launch, but the latest reports point to the new service being a replacement rather than an addition to the portfolio. The service, internally dubbed YouTube Remix, may be intended to replace Google Play Music when it launches. Continue Reading