Music/Audio

 

Voice Tech, Long in Development, Is Coming Together All at Once (Billboard)

It's the cynical view of the American dream: the ability to control everything in a home without ever getting up from the recliner -- or even, God forbid, lifting a finger. This is... More

Is Terrestrial Radio Facing Its Judgment Day With Fierce Digital Competition? (Billboard)

While traditional radio companies have maintained steady ratings during the past 20 years -- in the face of fierce competition from online music services and next-gen radio ­compa... More

Facebook Tests ‘Music’ Videos to Keep Eyeballs from YouTube (New York Post)

Facebook’s music offensive, aimed at keeping user-generated content inside its walls, emerges just days after Jeff Bezos’ Amazon announced it would launch Prime Video Service a... More

YouTube Launches Red Down Under as Labels Fight ‘Old-School’ Piracy (Billboard)

YouTube's premium subscription service has arrived in Oz. The video giant, currently in the midst of a fierce war of words with the global music industry -- RIAA head Cary Sherman ... More

85 Percent of Facebook Video is Watched Without Sound (Digiday)

Facebook might be hosting upwards of 8 billion views per day on its platform, but a wide majority of that viewership is happening in silence. As much as 85 percent of video views h... More

Audio-only VR: Is It Ready for Prime Time? (CNET)

Virtual-reality surround sound -- also known as 3D audio, binaural, 5.1 or whatever you want to call it -- never caught on for music. Surround sound that goes hand-in-hand with vid... More

Dolby Atmos Arrives in Cannes Celebrating Film Festivals (MESA)

Dolby Laboratories announced today the permanent installation of Dolby Atmos® at Cinéma L’Olympia which is used as part of Cannes’ annual Marché du Film. The theater’s new... More

Music Industry Extends High-Res Logo To Streaming Services (Twice)

The music industry is extending its Hi-Res Music logo from downloaded songs to streamed songs to help consumers identify high-resolution recordings that meet the high-res music def... More

Unauthorized Prince Videos Pour onto YouTube, a Practice He Opposed (WSJ)

The deluge of unauthorized Prince videos on YouTube highlights arguments over the legal framework that allowed YouTube to grow so rapidly in the first place, amassing more than 1 b... More

Spotify Pushes Further Into Video With Original Slate of Shows (Bloomberg)

Spotify will unveil plans for its first slate of original shows Monday, a year after adding clips from the BBC and Comedy Central. Episodes of every program, which range from a few... More

Warner Music Plans High-Res MQA Music Downloads (Twice)

Warner Music Group became the first major music label to announce plans to support the release of downloadable songs in the high-resolution MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) forma... More

Play Movies Gains Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound Support On Android TV And Roku (Android Police)

Sound sounds better when it's coming from more directions. Okay, that may not be entirely how audio works, but I never claimed to be an expert in the area. I can say this. When an ... More

Streaming Music has Become Warner Music’s Biggest Business (Re/code)

Another milestone in the music industry’s shift to streaming: Revenue from the streaming business has become Warner Music Group’s biggest business. The company announced that m... More

TV Academy Taps Dolby as Sponsor of New Theater (MESA)

Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre has been host to the Academy Awards for a decade now, but it’s a new theater just over the hill in Los Angeles that has the TV community and Dolby exc... More

Dolby Labs, Highfive Partner on Video, Audio Conferencing Service (SFGate)

Dolby Laboratories announced a deal Wednesday that could boost its little-known telephone conferencing service, Dolby Voice, which uses the company’s audio expertise to greatly e... More

Prince Music Piracy Jumps More Than Tenfold After Artist’s Death (Variety)

The surge in piracy of Prince’s work following his death isn’t surprising. It’s worth noting that sales of his albums shot to the top of iTunes, Amazon and other services the... More

Spotify Buys Media Aggregator CrowdAlbum (Wall Street Journal)

Music-streaming service Spotify AB on Wednesday said it has acquired CrowdAlbum, a U.S. startup that aggregates photos and videos from artists’ performances shared on social medi... More

Broadcast Content Key To OTT Provider Success (MediaPost)

TV viewers are fond of streaming, and streamers like to watch TV. Ergo, the offering of broadcast programs can bolster the success of a streaming service. The percent of TV viewers... More

What Prince Could Have Learned from Bowie about the Value of Music Streaming (VentureBeat)

Musically speaking, there wasn’t a huge amount of overlap between David Bowie and Prince, the major pop icons who died this year. Still, there were some important similarities. M... More

More People are Paying to Stream Music, but the Industry is Still Wobbly (The Economist)

Once upon a time record-industry executives could all but weigh their profits on scales. Each pallet of compact discs they sold translated into predictable quantities of cash for t... More

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