Category Archives: Streaming music

January 22

AI and the media industry

My latest column is up at IBC365.  I give my views on the increasing hype around the potential for AI in media. https://www.ibc.org/tech-advances/i-for-one-welcome-our-robot-overlords/2625.article  

December 08

Outsourcing and the broadcast industry

My latest opinion piece is up at IBC365.  I give my views on outsourcing and the broadcasting industry. https://www.ibc.org/content-management/focusing-on-the-core-the-importance-of-outsourcing/2582.article

May 12

Blast from the past

Years ago in New York City, I had a funk band called, Your Monkey’s Not Funny. At various times it was called, Calamity Jane, Magnetic Dog Sisters, Spiny Norman (and once Spiny Richard due to confusion on the part of the booker at CBGB.) Various members at times included Steffen Franz, David Azarch, Tom Hamilton, […]

February 15

The plot thickens – Apple launching a label?

More news on the Apple music front – Radio 1 DJ, Zane Lowe is leaving the corporation to work for Apple. Jimmy Iovine, and now Zane. Apple’s lining up some heavyweight A&R talent.

February 09

Apple Records?

Rumours floating around that Apple is going to move into the label business, as I predicted a few months ago:  http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/08/exclusive-streaming/ Although the TechCrunch article shows a remarkable lack of understanding of how the music industry works and what exactly a record label does, the information at its heart leads to some interesting possibilities. More […]

May 29

And the beat goes on . . .

It seems clear now that the headphones and the streaming music service are secondary acquisitions for Apple – with the Beats deal, they’ve just acquired the head of Interscope records. I would expect an announcement of an Apple record label fairly soon.

January 17

Why Audio Never Goes Viral

An article from Digg on audio vs. video on the internet.  Worth a read. Why Audio Never Goes Viral.

August 06

Who killed the music industry? An interactive explainer | PandoDaily

An easy to follow essay on how we got into this mess: Who killed the music industry? An interactive explainer | PandoDaily.

July 29

What’s the new A&R?

In my previous post, I discussed the recent announcement by Thom Yorke of Radiohead that he was pulling his music from Spotify. This announcement has caused quite a stir, with lots of people taking pro and anti Spotify positions.  It’s important to have this sort of debate, but the focus on Spotify is causing people […]

July 24

Spotify is not a record store, it’s a radio station!

Reflecting on the link I posted about Thom Yorke quitting Spotify, I kept thinking about the statement in the article that, “The industry average offers slightly less than 0.4p a stream – meaning that 1m streams of a song would generate about £3,800. Most songs receive far fewer streams.” The problem with this statement is […]