Kiss and Magic owner Bauer Media has bought digital radio station Planet Rock in a deal worth over £1 million (€1.23m). The loss-making digital radio station was put up for sale by its owner, millionaire entrepreneur Malcolm Bluemel, last year. Bauer, which has also held talks to buy another loss-making national music station, Absolute Radio, is expected to rebrand some [...]
No wonder John Malone wanted total control of pay-radio operator Sirius-XM. Its numbers continue to impress, with Q4 and full year results. Subscribers stand at 23.9 million, subscription revenues for the year grew 13 per cent to $3.4 billion and free cashflow is up 71 percent to $709 million. For the pre-holiday period Sirius-XM activated more than 529,000 subscribers (374,000 [...]
Manufacturers of DAB receivers are set to benefit from lower costs as a result of the expiry of the patents related to the DAB family of standards – generally referred to as the Philips patent pool. For manufacturers, this is important news as the patents expire in some of the largest potential target markets for the DAB family of standards [...]
North American pay-radio operator Sirius-XM confirmed that it now had more than 23.9 million subscribers, and had added more than two million net new subs during the year, a record for the broadcaster. Sirius-XM also re-confirmed all of its formal 2012 guidance, and issued a new set of numbers for this year, saying it expects to finish 2013 with more [...]
In a sign that pay-radio is now considered mainstream entertainment as far as North American vehicles are concerned, Toyota has mandated that Sirius-equipped units are now fitted to their entire 2013 range of cars, from ‘basic’ models to up-market models. SiriusXM will also be standard on all vehicles equipped with Toyota’s popular Entune in-car entertianment system. The announcement was [...]
Sirius XM Radio has appointed James E. Meyer as its interim chief executive officer as Mel Karmazin steps down from the top spot earlier than expected. Meyer has been Sirius’s president of operations and sales since 2004, and will serve as CEO while the company, which is in the midst of a takeover by Liberty Media, searches for a permanent [...]
Nielsen is acquiring Arbitron, the leading radio measurement firm, in a $1.3 billlion cash deal. The company said a combined Nielsen-Arbitron would provide a richer picture of the five hours of television programming people on average watch a day, the two hours of radio they listen to, the websites they visit and the products they buy. That would allow media [...]
TiVo has confirmed the availability of leading music streaming service Spotify for its TiVo Premiere boxes in the US. On TiVo, consumers can sign-in with an existing Spotify Premium account ($9.90 per /month) to seamlessly and immediately enjoy their current playlists through their television. It will allow TiVo owners to stream music through their home theatre system, as well as [...]
An expected 2013 launch of an ‘iRadio’ service from Apple is likely to be well ahead of any TV product launch, according to Richard Greenfield, Media Analyst at BTIG Research. Writing in the BTIG blog, Greenfield says that following the November 29 launch of iTunes 11 and a series of industry executive meetings, it is increasingly clear that Apple will [...]
One might say “at last”. On November 8th French media regulator le Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA) licensed Onde Numérique to broadcast by satellite over Europe. Transmissions will be made on the Eutelsat/SES Solaris Mobile payload that’s been in orbit on Eutelsat’s W2A craft since April 2009. The CSA announced a beauty contest competition for the terrestrial frequency rights in [...]
