At the top of this week’s digital radio news is an analog broadcast station. In a deal that took nearly two years to complete, on Monday the FCC removed the first barrier to Pandora buying Rapid City, SD FM station, KXMZ. The Commission granted a waiver of foreign ownership rules which otherwise prohibit a company […]
Monday Jay-Z’s newly acquired TIDAL streaming music service pulled back the curtain on its relaunch, but just a little bit. As predicted, TIDAL is adding a compressed music service, competing with the likes of Spotify, to accompany its lossless CD-quality HiFi service. The compressed service is $9.99 a month, while the lossless version is double […]
A number of prominent musicians have complained loudly about the royalties they receive from streaming music services like Spotify and Pandora, from indie rock veteran David Lowery to pop star Taylor Swift, who pulled all of her music from Spotify. Mike Masnick at TechDirt decided to look closer at the numbers and determined that “Yes, […]
Welcome to our new Wednesday feature, Digital Watch. Each week I’ll be tackling news and analysis about radio’s intersection with the digital world, online and off. This takes the place of Podcast Survivor, but it doesn’t mean podcasting coverage is going away. I’ll explain further at the end of this post. The week’s biggest news […]
A new streaming music radio platform launched today, Mad Genius Radio. Entering into an increasingly crowded space, Mad Genius differentiates itself by customizing each station to the individual listener rather than relying on data correlated and aggregated across audiences to program music choices. Founder Eric Neumann is a radio industry veteran with more than twenty […]
College Broadcasters Inc. (CBI) has announced that it has reached a settlement with SoundExchange in regards to the fees paid by student webcasters. According to a press release from CBI, this tentative settlement will “freeze royalty payments for the next five years. It would also continue to allow student webcasters to continue to file proxy […]
Copyright law can be a funny thing. Did you know that recordings made prior to February 1972 don’t enjoy the same copyright protections as those after? I didn’t. But satellite radio broadcaster SiriusXM knew, and has been using that as an excuse not to pay royalties on those pre–1972 recordings it plays. By law, the […]
David Lowery is a veteran rock musician known for his work with the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker. Over the last quarter decade he’s had plenty of experience with the music industry, both independent and major labels, and has recently expressed strong criticism for the way services like Spotify compensate artists. On Monday he […]
This is certainly an indicator of strong growth for internet radio and streaming services. Music royalties agency SoundExchange announced Tuesday that it ended the year collecting $292 million in royalty payments, up 17% from 2010. These royalties are paid by internet, satellite and cable TV music-only services for the right to play sound recordings, and […]
