Tag: streaming

  • You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song: How Streaming Changes Music by Glenn McDonald

    Glenn McDonald, as the cover says, was formerly Spotify’s Data Alchemist. He joined when his previous company, The Echo Nest, was purchased by Spotify in 2014. In many respects, this book scratches a lot of itches for me, getting into some of the details about how Spotify works, and in particular some of the algorithmic…

  • The Rising Cost of Streaming

    The Rising Cost of Streaming

    There seems to be barely a week that goes by right now when a streaming service doesn’t announce a price hike of some description. And I’ve just had an email from Netflix about their price increase. Here, as far as I can tell, are some of the UK price rises coming soon. Netflix says that…

  • Algorithmic Promotion Shouldn’t Be Everything…

    Algorithmic Promotion Shouldn’t Be Everything…

    As an addendum to my last blog on the lack of physical media for the leading Oscar contender, Everything Everywhere All At Once, I thought it was worth seeing how sharp the streamers have been reacting to yesterday’s Oscar nominations buzz. The nominations came out on Tuesday lunchtime, UK time, and I’m writing this a…

  • Streaming Things

    Streaming Things

    EBU/Warner Bros. Discovery’s Olympic Deal The IOC has just announced that a joint European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) bid has been successful for the next few Olympic cycles, from the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan through until the 2032 Summer Games in Brisbane. In the UK, that means that BBC will…

  • Crossfading in Music Streaming Apps

    Crossfading in Music Streaming Apps

    I think it’s fair to say that based on functionality and widespread adoption, Spotify has the best music streaming app. If somebody interesting has a shared playlist – it’s on Spotify. If you want to connect some hardware to a streaming app – it’ll probably work easiest on Spotify. And because it’s the biggest, it…

  • YouTube Music and Missing Songs

    YouTube Music and Missing Songs

    This weekend Promising Young Woman finally arrived in the UK, courtesy of Sky Movies. Coming laden with awards and award nominations, and written and directed by Emerald Fennell, who previously took over season two of Killing Eve, I’d been looking forward to it ever since I first saw a clip several months ago. Anyway, the…

  • Music Listening

    Music Listening

    I’m a little bit concerned that the way I listen to music is about to fundamentally change, and I’m not sure how it’s going to work. Both Google Play Music and iTunes are thought to be making major changes in the coming months, and those changes will fundamentally affect how I listen to music. My…

  • Apple’s TV Offering: Difficult to Get Excited

    Apple’s TV Offering: Difficult to Get Excited

    On last night’s BBC Ten O’Clock News, there was a story on the [re-] launch of Apple TV [+]. I suspect that this had become a diary item after Apple announced that they’d be announcing something yesterday, because in the end, I’m not sure that there’s a great deal to talk about yet, and the…

  • The Dark Ages of Film History?

    I was recently talking to a some colleagues at work about one of my favourite films of all time, the classic Howard Hawks screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby. Made in 1938, it stars two of Hollywood’s biggest ever stars, Kathryn Hepburn and Cary Grant, both giving terrific performances in a classic of the genre. How…

  • Sporting Value

    The new Premier League season is well under way, and it’s at this time of year that the big sports TV players tend to gather up their marketing spends and splash the cash around, trying to persuade those of us who don’t subscribe that we really should be. BT Sport has an entertaining video of…

  • Is IP TV Really Ready for Primetime?

    Last night YouTube TV went down for an hour. That’s not YouTube the platform, but the premium TV service that YouTube offers customers in the US a range of broadcast TV channels in exchange for a monthly fee. The service went down right in the middle of the England v Croatia World Cup semi-final in…

  • 2018 Media Predictions

    It’s that time of year when, because not a lot else is going on, and pages need to be filled, everyone is busily predicting what might happen in 2018. So here are my bold and not so bold predictions in the coming year across the media industry. A streamer will win some Premier League rights.…