February 3, 2016
Soundexchange Annual Royalty Rates (in millions)

Streaming Royalties Rise, but What Story Does Soundexchange Data Tell?

Royalty payments are the single biggest cost for Internet radio and audio streaming services. The question for observers of industry data is whether Soundexchange royalty collections are a good barometer of industry health and the revenue that Internet radio delivers to artists.
January 27, 2016
South Park Ad Blocking Episode

Streaming Audio Has an Advantage in an Ad-Blocker World

The number one digital advertising topic of 2016 is shaping up to be ad-blocking. It should be noted that most music streaming services rely primarily on audio ads which avoid the viewability problem of ad-blocking altogether. So if the audio is streamed, impressions are delivered. As a result, audio ads are less likely to be victims of ad-blocking technology.
January 19, 2016
Ad-Supported Apple Music Goodbye Letter

Apple Music Shuttering Ad-supported Service, An Opportunity Emerges

Apple announced Friday that it would be shuttering the ad-supported listening service within Apple Music. Is this a matter of Apple learning what business works best for music or a foreshadowing of what Apple Music subscribers will face if that service doesn’t meet expectations?
December 29, 2015
Labels don't understand real value of music

The Top 10 Internet Radio Articles of 2015

2015 was a big year for Internet radio and streaming services. Today’s focus is the 10 best articles on the industry over the past 12 months. See the full list below with entries from Music Industry Blog, Billboard, RAIN, Mark Ramsey Media, and more.
December 22, 2015

Top 5 XAPPmedia Blog Posts of 2015

One word can be used to sum up Internet radio in 2015. Growth. Higher numbers for listenership and advertising drove competition between labels and publishers. And, if you look at the top XAPP blog posts of 2015, you’ll notice it all comes down to money.
December 17, 2015
Copyright Royalty Board

Royalty Rates Rise 21%, Quest for Higher Ad Rates Begins

Yesterday, the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) raised royalty rates for Internet radio streams from 0.14 cents to 0.17 cents per song played. The 21% royalty increase takes effect in 2016. Future rates will rise annually between 2017-2020 based on the Consumer Price Index. Who is impacted by the rate change?
November 16, 2015
Time to First Ad by Platform - Q3 2015

How Long Before your First Ad on Internet Radio?

On Thursday, we published the Internet Radio Ad Load Report for Q3 2015. A metric we have collected since our first ad load report is Time To First Ad (TTFA). TTFA identifies how much content is delivered to a listener before they receive the first ad.
November 9, 2015
Perrin Lamb

News Flash: Artists Do Make Money from Streaming

A pair of recent articles in the New York Times and Music Business Worldwide focus on the story of Perrin Lamb, a part-time singer-songwriter from Nashville. Mr. Perrin was an unknown, unsigned artist before landing on a popular playlist on Spotify.
October 15, 2015

RIAA Misleads While Advertising Delivers 54% of Internet Radio Revenue

Every few months a naïve journalist gets misled by a false narrative pushed by someone in the recording industry. Last winter it was the New York Times. More recently, Business Insider fell into a similar trap with its headline: “The music industry has made more money in 2015 from a century old technology than ad-supported streaming.”