RIP AOL Music
AOL Music announced, or at least its laid off employees announced on friday afternoon that it will shut down. Shortly after that, AOL Radio’s twitter account explained that the streaming service operated by Slacker would not be shutting down. The shut down encompasses the main site that offers free music videos, song lyrics, downloads, and music news and includes sites Noisecreep (hard rock and heavy metal); The Boot (country); The Boombox (hip hop/R&B); as well as Spinner and AOL Music.
AOL Radio and reportedly Shoutcast will survive the cuts. In June of 2011 AOL Radio paired up with Slacker in a deal that moved their channels into Slacker’s portal of offerings. Slacker picked up the traffic and also the costs of streaming those channels.
Shoutcast, which AOL acquired back in the late 90s, is another story entirely. That portal gives bandwidth to more than 50,000 global stations. They have a very large audience and are quite possibly the biggest streaming portal online. (It’s never been clear to me what the business model is for Shoutcast, but that’s another story.)
AOL has certainly been through changes, struggling to retain or regain brand prominence in recent years. In 2011 they bought Huffington Post and have placed more emphasis on becoming a top notch news portal. AOL Music is likely a victim of that transition.
RAIN Summit Europe is Thursday May 23 in Brussels. Register here!
Related articles
- Is AOL Music shutting down? (theverge.com)
- AOL Music Shuts Down (allaccess.com)
- The Day AOL Music Died (variety.com)
The Twitter Approach To Streaming Songs
While rumors of a streaming music service from Apple and Google have been prevalent lately, few expected the announcement last week that Twitter is developing a mobile music application that will let its users play and share songs. Last year, Twitter acquired the music recommendation website We Are Hunted, a site that charts the 99 most popular songs on a daily basis by tracking what the web has to say. It was a perfect match for Twitter, since it was a music discovery site already built to keep track of what music listeners were talking about and sharing on Twitter and other sources.
The new app, called Twitter Music, could launch by the end of this month. Various reports say that Twitter Music will suggest artists and songs, based at least in part on what a person follows on Twitter. Songs will be streamed via SoundCloud, which seems to be a perfect streaming partner. It’s easy to imagine the success that an application like this can have, given the popularity that lots of recording artists have on Twitter. Artists can offer their music on SoundCloud and spread the word on Twitter directly to followers.
Probably not coincidentally, SoundCloud has revamped its fee structure, making it easier for artists to open accounts and offer their music easily to fans. An enhanced Pro subscription also offers the ability to run ads, which they call “Moving Sounds.” Based in Berlin, SoundCloud has over 180 million users per month. It’s one very interesting streaming platform that is more focused on delivering quick hits – like songs and soundbites, than longer, radio station like experiences. Which is of course, entirely compatible with the way online consumers like it, on Twitter and Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr…
By the way, SoundCloud execs participate often in RAIN Summits, and we’ll be hosting one in Vegas on April 7th, and Brussels on May 23rd.
Streaming Music On Smartphones Is Popular
Smartphone users like to use the devices to listen to music, and that’s a trend that is on the upswing, according to new information from NPD Group. 56% of smartphone users listen to music on their devices, with 39% of them doing that daily. Of those, they mostly listen to Internet radio (65%), but also stream on demand services like Spotify or Rhapsody (30%) and listen to their own music (it’s not clear whether it’s on the device or streamed from a cloud service) as well.
Music listening on mobile devices extends to tablets as well, with 40% of tablet users listening to music on those devices.
Ovi Music – on the go (Photo credit: Nokia RSA)
The Audio Consumption study done by NPD Group also observes that hardware of products that enhance wireless local playback of streaming services on mobile devices, like wireless speakers and headphones, are growing as a result of this trend. “With both local music storage and the ability to connect to any number of online music services, tablets and smartphones are actually contributing to a net increase in their owner’s use of internet radio and personal music collections,” said Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at NPD. “As a result, we are seeing sales growth in products that compliment playback on mobile devices, particularly those that feature wireless local streaming.” Wireless streaming speaker sales more than tripled in 2012, and wireless headphones grew by 34 percent.
NPD Group’s Russ Crupnick is a featured speaker at the upcoming RAIN Summit West on Sunday April 7th at the Las Vegas Hotel. For more information and to register, click here.
Streaming Music On Smartphones Is Popular
Smartphone users like to use the devices to listen to music, and that’s a trend that is on the upswing, according to new information from NPD Group. 56% of smartphone users listen to music on their devices, with 39% of them doing that daily. Of those, they mostly listen to Internet radio (65%), but also stream on demand services like Spotify or Rhapsody (30%) and listen to their own music (it’s not clear whether it’s on the device or streamed from a cloud service) as well.
Music listening on mobile devices extends to tablets as well, with 40% of tablet users listening to music on those devices.
Ovi Music – on the go (Photo credit: Nokia RSA)
The Audio Consumption study done by NPD Group also observes that hardware of products that enhance wireless local playback of streaming services on mobile devices, like wireless speakers and headphones, are growing as a result of this trend. “With both local music storage and the ability to connect to any number of online music services, tablets and smartphones are actually contributing to a net increase in their owner’s use of internet radio and personal music collections,” said Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at NPD. “As a result, we are seeing sales growth in products that compliment playback on mobile devices, particularly those that feature wireless local streaming.” Wireless streaming speaker sales more than tripled in 2012, and wireless headphones grew by 34 percent.
NPD Group’s Russ Crupnick is a featured speaker at the upcoming RAIN Summit West on Sunday April 7th at the Las Vegas Hotel. For more information and to register, click here.
UK Subscribers Give Streaming Services High Marks
A newly released report takes a look at the digital music landscape in the UK. The British Recorded Music Industry reports that over the past ten years digital music has become a key part of the record industry in the UK, with revenues from downloads and streaming accounted for more than 50% of record label income last year for the first time.
What’s more, consumers are highly satisfied with streaming music services – 93% of those subscribing to a streaming service are satisfied with it. Access to an extensive music collection, music discovery, and mobile access are some of the key values that streaming services offer that consumers don’t mind paying for. 
This is a dense report that’s a must read for folks in the streaming business. While it’s focused on the UK, the analysis and strategic discussions are comprehensive and applicable to other markets as well. Here’s the link.
Coca-Cola.fm Streaming In Mexico, Brazil
Coca-Cola’s efforts to target teens in South and Central America include a personalizable streaming platform, Coca-Cola.fm. While it is not available in the US, Coca-Cola.fm apparently targets teens, according to the press release: Coca-Cola.FM is a platform through which teens can also develop their own creations — a radio station in Mexico on which they can talk, be listened to and communicate with the world through their musical preferences.
The station is also available in Brazil, where an innovative new marketing effort has just been released. With the help of ad agency JWT, they’ve turned the cover of popular teen magazine Capricho into an ad for the streaming platform that turns into an iPhone speaker. Watch this…
A Good Day For Internet Radio
Last week’s debut of RAIN Summit Europe in Berlin was . The event, which was held at the nhow Hotel Berlin, featured a really strong list of speakers, including keynote presenter Jonathan Forster of Spotify. Forster started his talk by saying that Spotify isn’t radio, and I think he was half afraid he might get pelted with rotten tomatoes for saying so. Not so — despite the fact that Spotify isn’t “radio” in the sense that it offers songs and artists on-demand to listeners, it is streaming audio. There’s a joint mission for all forms of streaming audio to attract advertisers, and Spotify is working hard on that and making some really nice progress. Forster spent a lot of time illustrating ad campaigns that they have created for advertisers, and it was very inspiring stuff. 
The quality of the discussions at RAIN Summit Berlin were excellent and featured lots of experts outside of the Internet radio industry who contributed their expertise. There was a great agency roundtable discussion featuring advertising executives from Starcom MediaVest (UK), Pilot (Germany) and Havas (France). A discussion on Connected Dashboards featured an expert from BMW. The founder of Mixcloud joined a panel discussion on personalized streaming.
Whether you are streaming in Europe or not, there was a lot to learn about the marketplace among the folks at RAIN Summit Europe. We had a strong showing from US companies who are either already there or thinking about expanding to Europe with their services. We had far less interest from US based content providers, who declined our invitations to speak, and decided not to come. Which is fine, although I would say they missed out on an opportunity for some fantastic inspiration.
The hotel was beautiful, a hip and trendy setting along the River Spree in Berlin. The room was crowded – we exceeded our expectations, registering over 150 people for the event. And everyone that I spoke with said they learned a lot and were happy to be there. All in all, a good day for Internet radio (and streaming audio)…
European Streaming Service Enters US Market
Radionomy, a French-Belgian service that enables users to set up their own online radio station and share it with others, is opening an office in San Francisco. The service, which has 6,000 user programmed stations, is similar to Live365 in its business model, taking care of the actual broadcasting and promotion of the stations, rights management, scheduling and audience monitoring and reporting.
They also have an advertising option that sells advertising across their network of stations, helping users of the service to monetize their content.
Radionomy has more than 42 million listener hours per month across its group of user generated stations. The new US office will be their fifth – they currently have offices in Germany, Spain, France and Belgium as well.
Radionomy CEO Alex Saboundjian will join a panel discussion on monetization strategies for Internet radio at RAIN Summit Europe on October 5th in Berlin. Also joining the panel will be Caroline Graze, NRJ International (Germany); David Deslandes, Deezer (France); Frank Nolte, RMS.de (Germany); and Zachary Lewis, Liquid Compass (US).
RAIN Summit Europe promises to be an exciting day of discussions focused on Internet radio in Europe. Check out the impressive speaker list here, and make plans now to join us!
Online Radio In Germany Looks A Little Different
The share of FM radio stations simulcasting online in Germany grew 2% last year to make up 13% of all online stations in that country. Most online stations in Germany – 82% – are pureplays, which are available only online.
According to Web Radio Monitor 2012, an updated study just released by Goldmedia, listening is up 36% over 2011. The study surveyed all online radio providers in Germany and found that online radio providers’ total net ad revenues grew to 14.1 million euros, a 37% increase over 2011. 45% of online stations sell ads, and their outlook on the future is positive, they’re forecasting a market of 30 million euros by 2016.
Not surprisingly, mobile devices are gaining importance in the German streaming marketplace, just as they are in the US. Three quarters of the 
respondents regard mobile online radio as their central method of broadcasting. In fact, 57% predicted that mobile online radio might be able to replace classical FM radio in the long run. Mobile streaming, via apps or mobile browsers, now makes up 17% of all hits, compared to 14% in 2011. By 2014, mobile devices are expected to make up a quarter (24%) of all online radio hits.
Professor Klaus Goldhammer, Managing Partner of Goldmedia, will present the findings of this study at the debut of RAIN Summit Europe in Berlin on October 5th. He joins a highly informed pan-European list of speakers for the event. For more info on the summit, click here.
