Pay-radio operator Sirius-XM added more than 600,000 net new subscribers in the quarter-year to June 30th, taking their overall subscriber total to an impressive 22.9 million. The numbers were some 38 per cent up on the same Q2 period last year (452,147) and means that the radio company has now added more than 1 million […]
Google is getting help from shock jock Howard Stern to revive its Internet TV software, which has languished since its debut 19 months ago. Sirius XM will make all of its programming, including Howard Stern, available on Google TV, through a new app that will let listeners pause live programmes and play back up to […]
Guardian Media Group has sold its radio business, which includes the Real Radio and Smooth Radio networks, to Global Radio for an estimated price of £50 million. GMG, which has built up the UK’s third-largest radio group over the past 13 years, signed the deal with Global Radio after receiving a number of offers for […]
Tesco has bought the digital music service We7 for £10.8m (€13.3m). The supermarket has taken a 91 per cent stake in London-based digital music service, with the remaining shares to be purchased within weeks. The purchase of We7 comes as the supermarket moves increasingly into digital entertainment, after its acquisition of the online movie rentals […]
Smart TV specialist Inview and AUPEO! Personal Radio, a provider of personalised audio streams for Internet-connected devices, have teamed up to turn Smart TVs into next generation radios. Following a global content deal, the free online music service AUPEO! will feature as standard on all Connected TVs and STBs that incorporate Inview’s technology. Inview’s Connected […]
European consumer electronic producers, cable and satellite reception equipment industry, the live performance, content making manufacturers and cable operators are announcing the formation of a forum aimed at preserving the coexistence between devices and services when new radio services are introduced. The European Forum for Spectrum Coexistence (EFSC) calls for EU spectrum policy to ensure […]
WorldSpace, a would-be global pay-radio broadcaster which filed for Chapter 11 reorganisation and protection from creditors back in 2008, has finally asked the US Delaware bankruptcy court to move its case into Chapter 7, which is a full bankruptcy. A statement from WorldSpace, as part of its bankruptcy court filing, said: “The Debtors do not […]
Nearly 30 per cent of radio listening is now digital but digital audio broadcasting (DAB) radio slipped back in the first three months of the year. Digital platforms accounted for 29.2 per cent of all listening in the first quarter of 2012, marginally up from 29.1 per cent in the previous quarter and 26.5 per […]
On May 1st, speaking at the Sirius-XM results, CEO Mel Karmazin suggested that main shareholder Liberty Media’s 40 per cent holding in Sirius-XM “wasn’t the new 50!” It was light-hearted throw-away comment on Liberty’s attempt to persuade the FCC to permit Sirius-XM’s valuable transmission licences to be re-allocated to Liberty. Perhaps Karmazin spoke just a […]
A French-backed scheme to launch satellite-based pay-radio is getting closer to operation. Last November, the French broadcasting regulator (Le Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, CSA) announced its own beauty contest for national L-band frequencies. Onde Numerique (ON) last week formally declared that it will participate in the tender, and is planning an IPO probably in October. […]