Pirate Radio Stations On The Rise Again
Once upon a time pirate radio stations were big business and a big influence, with Radio Caroline, Radio Luxembourg and XERF all helping birth the modern radio and music industries. Most pirate stations have been long closed, and it was thought that they’d be gone for good thanks to the Internet. Surprisingly, pirate radio is […]
Continue readingPandora’s Largest Investor Worried About Its Future
Pandora’s largest investor is so concerned about its future that it sent a letter to the company’s CEO and board members asking them to reconsider its strategy and explore the possibility of a sale. According to a report in Music Business Worldwide, Corvex Management LP, the investor that sent the letter, owns 8.3% of Pandora and is fed up […]
Continue readingFlipagram’s John Bolton On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast
On this week’s edition of my Inner Circle Podcast I’m happy to have digital music veteran John Bolton as my guest. John is the head of music at Flipagram, and prior to that he held a similar position at Muve Music, which is one of the larger streaming music services. We’ll discuss what it’s […]
Continue readingTwitter Won’t Count Photos And Links In 140 Character Limit
If you use Twitter for promotion you know that while the 140 character limit seems like plenty, it can decrease rapidly with the addition of a photo or link. Those days may soon be over as the company will soon stop counting photos and links as part of its 140 character limit. Currently links take up […]
Continue readingFacebook’s New Slideshow Feature Just For Music Videos
It’s obvious that Facebook has been gunning for YouTube for some time now, and the service now claims that it now has more video viewers (although that’s debatable). That’s not enough though, as Facebook will soon introduce a feature called Slideshow that will allow users to create their own soundtracks from a list of licensed popular songs. Although only […]
Continue readingThe Streaming Performance Royalty Rate Explained
Artists and songwriters, even some publishers, very often misunderstand how streaming income and royalty rates and payments are determined because it’s a immensely complex subject. One of the things that I’ve done in my new Music 4.1 book is provide an overview of how streaming royalties work and are paid, in many cases following the revenue stream down […]
Continue readingSteve Miller’s Rock n’ Roll Hall Of Fame Rant
I’ve been no fan of the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, as you probably know if you read this blog. I don’t believe there should be such an institution, since there’s really no way to quantify who should be in it, unlike a sports HOF where there are plenty of statistics to gauge someone’s […]
Continue readingYouTube Adopts A New Tool For Faster Royalty Payments
One of the things that bugs artists, songwriters and labels about YouTube is that it’s pretty difficult to get precise information about views and payments. In many cases, views aren’t counted and in other cases payments take too long to arrive. YouTube is hoping to alleviate those problems by implementing a new tool based on the […]
Continue readingUniversal Music Makes Nearly $4 Million A Day From Streaming
Who says that there’s no money in streaming? It seems that all of those micro-payments add up after all as Universal Music Group is making about $3.9 million per day just from streaming music, according to its parent Vivendi’s first quarter earnings statement. In fact, UMG’s streaming revenue was up almost 60% over the previous quarter, […]
Continue readingA Streaming Music Royalty Primer
Streaming music royalty rates are such a morass of different percentages and possibilities that few people on the planet totally understand everything, and the ones who do are attorneys working in that narrow end of the music business. Even label and publishing execs who have been in the business for 20 or more years can […]
Continue readingSpotify To Launch 12 Original Video Shows
Spotify recently announced that it was getting into the original content business by launching 12 new shows, and guess what? They’ll all be on video. According to the company, the video shows will be “centered around three main themes – music performances, music profiles and music culture,” and the episodes will be up to fifteen minutes long. The foray […]
Continue readingAmazon Launches YouTube Rival With Amazon Video Direct
User generated videos must be a really big business because another huge online player just jumped into the arena with YouTube and Facebook. Yesterday Amazon announced the launch of its new video posting service, called Amazon Video Direct, in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and Japan. The launch partners include Conde Nast Entertainment, HowStuffWorks, Samuel Goldwyn […]
Continue reading- in Tips by Bobby Owsinski
4 Best Practices For Social Media Marketing
If you’re trying to boost your fan base or engagement online, then you’re probably doing at least a little social media marketing whether you like it or not. The problem is that the best practices do change over time as social media and user trends evolve, so in order to get the most out of […]
Continue readingApple Music To Get A Facelift Soon
While Apple Music has garnered 16 million paid subscribers rather quickly since its launch last year, the service hasn’t been without criticism, especially about its ease of use. Despite being a huge company, Apple does listen to its customers though, and as a result, it’s been reported that Apple Music is about to receive a needed […]
Continue readingVirtual Reality Concerts To Begin This Summer
I’m a big proponent of virtual reality, especially when the audio is done well, and many have predicted that the technology will eventually be a boon to concerts. We’re going to see soon enough as virtual reality concerts will actually begin to roll out this summer. NextVR, which has been a leader in VR broadcasting […]
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