Struggling music streaming service Pandora is laying off 7 per cent of its staff. The decision to downsize is said to be direct result of the failure of a buy-out of Pandora by pay-radio broadcaster SiriusXM. “Making workforce reductions is always a difficult decision,” Pandora CEO Tim Westergren said. “But the commitment to cost discipline […]
BBC Director-General Tony Hall has said the corporation needs to reinvent its on-demand iPlayer service to make the leap from a catch-up service to a “must-visit” destination in its own right in the face of rapid growth by its competitors such as Netflix. In a wide-ranging New Year message to BBC staff on ‘Reinventing the […]
Norway has become the first country in the world to start digital switchover (DSO) from FM to DAB+. National FM networks will be switched off region by region – starting in Nordland and progressing across the whole country throughout 2017. The final regions, Troms and Finnmark, will complete the process in December. “Today’s digital switchover […]
Music Business Worldwide has conducted an in-depth market share analysis of the US recorded music business last year across audio streaming, video streaming, total album ‘projects’ and more besides – using stats from the annual report of trusted market monitor BuzzAngle. The research found that Universal Music Group dominates the market in most categories. However, […]
A report from Midia Research founder and music industry expert Mark Mulligan states in his blog that music streaming subscriptions have reached the 100 million mark in December 2016. This compares to 66 million at the end of 2015 and 41 million at the end of 2014. Equity analysts at investment bank Exane/BNP-Paribas say their […]
Pay-radio broadcaster SiriusXM has exceeded its own guidance for its 2016 expectations in terms of subscribers. However, comments from SiriusXM’s CFO David Frear, speaking at a Citigroup financial conference on January 5th, said he had “doubts” as to any possible move on music streaming site Pandora. Shares in Pandora had moved ahead during December on […]
Investment by new digital services such as Spotify, Sky, Amazon, Apple Music and Google has resulted in sales of music, video and games running £1 billion ahead of where they were just four years ago, according to data compiled by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA). Preliminary figures from ERA indicate that booming digital services helped […]
TiVo has announced the availability of SongConnect, a music metadata package that relates versions of a song to a single master work. SongConnect is powered by TiVo’s unique song ID. This new level of identifier allows providers to collect together alternate variations of a song including live, studio, acoustic and remix versions, enabling music fans […]
Pan-European broadcaster RTL Group plans to regroup its French radio operations into Groupe M6. With a 48.26 per cent shareholding, RTL Group is the controlling shareholder of the publicly-listed French TV broadcaster Groupe M6. RTL Group’s Board of Directors and Groupe M6’s Supervisory Board unanimously approved the planned transaction on 7 December 2016 and 13 […]
Music streaming service Pandora Internet Radio is on the verge of being bought by US pay-radio operator SiriusXM. A CNBC report notes that Pandora’s share price rose last week almost 16 per cent on the news of the probable sale, and adding that Pandora’s directors were happy to have discussions with SiriusXM. SiriusXM’s chairman Greg […]