Borrell Associates put on a free webinar on Wednesday, hosting presenters Fred Jacobs (Jacobs Media) and Steve Goldstein (Amplifi Media) to talk about smart speakers, and their importance to radio. The program evangelized the platform’s rise as an important opportunity for radio, and offered a takeaway list of tips. Continue Reading
Tencent appears to be spinning off several of its divisions, and music may be the next one up. Financial Times reported that Tencent has already filed plans to spin off an online publisher and the search engine, and experts have predicted that China Music could be the third subject. Continue Reading
PodcastOne announced that Dean Canter has joined its team as the new senior vice president, national sales. In this capacity, he will oversee all of the podcast network’s regional sales offices, develop strategic initiatives, and create new advertiser opportunities. Continue Reading
Radiotopia introduced a new podcast called Showcase that will solely feature limited-run content. It will act as an aggregator, airing audio content across a range of topics, styles, and perspectives; the only uniting element is that each narrative is a contained arc instead of an ongoing series. Continue Reading
Spotify has hired Jane Huxley as its new managing director for Australia and New Zealand. She will start in this position on Sept. 1. The MD role was most recently held by Kate Vale, who departed Spotify in May after a five-year tenure. The hire is extra noteworthy coming on the heels of Pandora’s ANZ shutdown. Continue Reading
Podcasting company Gimlet Media has raised $15 million in a new financing round. Stripes Group led the financial support for the business, which may now be valued at as much as $70 million. Continue Reading
The arbitration between the Radio Music License Committee and SESAC has yielded a new, lower licensing rate for participating stations. For the license period between Jan. 1, 2016 and Dec. 31, 2018, RMLC-Represented Stations will see a 60% discount applied to its SESAC license rate card. Continue Reading
Spotify has made several developments this week aimed at expanding its footprint for podcasts. First, Bloomberg reports that Spotify will promote podcasts in its mobile app and in advertisements in exchange for positive buzz from show hosts. Second is a distribution deal with Australia’s Omny Studio. Continue Reading
A month after Pandora turned a corner with a new CEO, new board members, and new minority owner, the company released Q2 earnings. During the webcast investor call interim Chief Executive Naveen Chopra went through the basic financial metrics and took questions from investors. Click through for key points in the Q&A. Continue Reading
Amazon is hiring for hundreds of positions in Australia, with a heavy focus on the music department. This has sparked speculation that the tech giant will be launching its Amazon Music streaming platform in that market in the coming months. Continue Reading
Pandora has posted its financial results for Q2 2017. The audio company’s performance over the three month period showed growth in several important metrics, although its sale of Ticketfly did have an impact. Continue Reading
Spotify has reportedly reached a new subscriber milestone. Sources familiar with the streaming company told the Financial Times that it now has 60 million paying listeners. The milestone would mean that Spotify added 10 million subscribers since March. Continue Reading