1. John Mayer Aiming for No. 2 Debut on Billboard 200

    August 21, 2013 8:33 PM EDT John Mayer is on course for a No. 2 debut on the Billboard 200 next week with his sixth studio album, "Paradise Valley." Industry sources suggest the set could sell around 150,000 copies by the end of the tracking week on Aug. 25. The ...

  2. Business Matters: The Upside In Mobile Advertising

    August 21, 2013 8:14 PM EDT There appears to be a lot of room for upside in mobile advertising -- possibly around $20 billion. That’s a positive sign for Pandora, iTunes Radio and other ad-supported music services that depend mostly on advertisements. As comScore explains ...

  3. FYF Fest Founder Sean Carlson on Goldenvoice, Market Saturation and 2013's Stellar Lineup (Q&A)

    August 21, 2013 4:21 PM EDT Outside of the market-leading Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, one would be hard-pressed to find another multi-day music festival in Southern California with a more impressive lineup than this year’s FYF Fest in Los Angeles.  Celebra ...

  4. Maker Studios to Buy Blip

    August 21, 2013 4:21 PM EDT Maker Studios, whose 60,000 YouTube channels command more than 4 billion views a month, has signed an agreement to purchase Blip, a producer and distributor of original Web videos, according to sources close to the deal, which is expected to clo ...

  5. PRS for Music and YouTube Announce Licensing Deal

    August 21, 2013 3:54 PM EDT PRS for Music and YouTube have announced the signing of a license agreement, covering the more-than 100,000 artists, composers and publishers who are members of the performing rights organization. The agreement covers over 130 territories throug ...

  6. Troy Carter Talks Hybrid Label Venture With Capitol Music Group, New Signings (Exclusive)

    August 21, 2013 1:57 PM EDT Troy Carter’s Atom Factory Entertainment is teaming with Capitol Music Group to form Atom Factory Music, a joint label that has signed two indie-rock bands, New York’s Basic Vacation and Los Angeles’ The Ceremonies. The deal will emphasize in ...

  7. Luke Bryan's No. 1 Album and Katy Perry's No. 1 Digital Song Each Sell Over Half-Million

    August 21, 2013 12:00 PM EDT This week, for only the second time in history, an album and a digital song both simultaneously sell more than a half-million copies in a single week. On the Billboard 200 albums chart, Luke Bryan's "Crash My Party" debuts at No. ...

  8. Universal Music Distribution Owns Record Nine of Top 10 Digital Songs

    August 21, 2013 11:45 AM EDT For the first time ever, one distribution company owns nine of the top 10 titles on Billboard's Digital Songs chart. Universal Music Group Distribution (UMGD) lays claim to Nos. 1-5 and 7-10 on the Digital Songs chart dated Aug. 31 -- refle ...

  9. Luke Bryan Nets No. 1 Album; Katy Perry's 'Roar' Tops Digital Songs

    August 21, 2013 10:58 AM EDT As reported yesterday, country star Luke Bryan nabs his second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with "Crash My Party." The album bows atop the list with nearly 528,000 sold in the week ending Sunday, Aug. 18, according to Nielsen Sound ...

  10. Luke Bryan's 'Crash My Party' Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard 200

    August 20, 2013 9:14 PM EDT It's Official: Luke Bryan's "Crash My Party" has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with the third-largest sales week of the year. The country star's new album sold slightly fewer than 528,000 copies in t ...

  11. Business Matters: Behind Apple iTunes Radio’s Launch Strategy

    August 20, 2013 6:37 PM EDT Don't expect a soft launch for iTunes Radio. Apple has lined up blue chip advertisers for its upcoming launch next month of iTunes Radio, according to an Ad Age report . McDonald’s, Nissan, Pepsi and Procter & Gamble were named as ad ...

  12. Apple's iTunes Radio to Launch Next Month with Full Slate of Blue-Chip Sponsors

    August 20, 2013 2:41 PM EDT Apple’s iTunes Radio is gearing up for a September launch, with an ad model that has already attracted interest from blue-chip clients. According to a detailed report from Advertising Age , iTunes Radio will debut next month with sponsorship f ...

  13. Eddie 'Piolin' Sotelo, MLB Deals Boost Sirius XM Outlook

    August 20, 2013 2:07 PM EDT Lazard Capital Markets analyst Barton Crockett in a bullish report has lauded satellite radio giant Sirius XM Radio for a couple of recent "serious content upgrades." He cited a just-announced Major League Baseball deal extension and a ...

  14. Op-Ed: Why Brands, Bands and Everyone Else Need to Adapt to 'Intimate' Social Media (From the Magazine)

    August 20, 2013 12:33 PM EDT In 1912, the South Pole was discovered, the Titanic sank, and the Oreo cookie was invented. In 2012, Oreo celebrated its 100th birthday -- on Facebook. For 100 straight days, the brand ran a new online ad each day celebrating a different twist o ...

  15. Beats by Dr. Dre Maker Looking for New Investor (Report)

    August 20, 2013 7:12 AM EDT Beats Electronics, the company behind the Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, is looking to broaden its product lineup and bring in a new investor, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation. Beats Music Beefs Up Curati ...

  16. EDM's Dead, Long Live... EMC? SFX's IPO Looms Large While the Industry Sells Out (From the Magazine)

    August 19, 2013 12:43 PM EDT THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN BILLBOARD MAGAZINE – READ MORE HERE AND GET THIS WEEK'S ISSUE OR SUBSCRIBE TO BILLBOARD Disco Donnie Estopinal, the first promoter to sell his business to Robert F.X. Sillerman's newly re-formed SFX E ...

  17. Katy Perry Aiming to Sell 450k Downloads of 'Roar,' Lady Gaga's 'Applause' Set for 225k Debut

    August 18, 2013 3:03 PM EDT Katy Perry's "Roar" just keeps getting bigger. Industry sources now suggest that her new single "Roar" could debut with between 525,000 and 550,000 downloads sold by the end of the tracking week on Aug. 18. Three days ag ...

  18. Business Matters: Why U.S. Download Sales Peaked in 2011

    August 16, 2013 8:18 PM EDT Digital download sales are likely to increase again in 2013. But by one measure, downloads actually peaked in 2011. Download sales accounted for 73% of digital revenues in 2011 and fell to 70% last year, according to annual shipments tracked by ...

  19. 21st Century Fox Buys Stake In Vice Media

    August 16, 2013 6:36 PM EDT Vice Media has sold a five percent stake to TV and film company 21st Century Fox,  Financial Times reports . The $70 million deal, which is set to be formally announced Monday (Aug. 19), will be 21st Century Fox's first major investment sin ...

  20. When the World First Met the LP, Cassettes, CD and other Physical Formats (From the Billboard Archive)

    August 16, 2013 4:15 PM EDT The last 60 years have seen the music business -- the business of selling recorded sounds -- birthed, boomed, reset and inverted half a dozen times or more. More often than not these sea changes are due to technological advances, usually havin ...

  21. Facebook Testing New Mobile Payments Service

    August 16, 2013 1:00 PM EDT Facebook plans to test a mobile payments service that lets users make purchases inside mobile applications using payment information they have added to their account on the social network. Facebook Inc. said Thursday that it is working on a &quo ...

  22. Bubbling Under: It's a Yes for NONONO

    August 16, 2013 10:00 AM EDT Each Friday, Billboard presents "Bubbling Under," a weekly look at new and noteworthy acts making their way toward Billboard chart success. Up this week: NONONO, Doe B, Kevin Ortiz and Ruth La'Ontra. Following the recent top 10 Bi ...

  23. Chart Moves: Lorde's 'Love' Rises, Cody Simpson Surges, the Supremes Return to Billboard 200

    August 16, 2013 9:00 AM EDT This week on the Billboard 200 albums chart, the Civil Wars snared its first No. 1 album as its self-titled set bowed in the top slot. The release sold 116,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It was one of four debuts i ...

  24. How ‘Call of Duty’ and ActivisionBlizzard Scored Eminem’s First New Song in Over Two Years (Exclusive)

    August 16, 2013 7:49 AM EDT In March, Tim Riley got a call from Paul Rosenberg, Eminem’s longtime manager, who had a simple, slightly cryptic question: “What’ve you got going on this fall?”   Riley had known Rosenberg for years dating back to his days in the music indu ...

  25. Beyonce's Short Haircut Yields Big Social 50 Chart Gain

    August 15, 2013 8:31 PM EDT After a three-week hiatus from the Social 50’s top 10, Beyonce bounds 26-6 all thanks to a simple haircut.   The Social 50 ranks the most popular artists on YouTube, Vevo, Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud, Wikipedia, Myspace and Instagram. The char ...

  26. Business Matters: Why Pandora's 2-Year High is Good for Music Business

    August 15, 2013 6:15 PM EDT Pandora shares reached their highest mark in over two years when they peaked at $21.00 on Tuesday. The company’s shares have not been that high since they hit $21.20 on July 1, 2011. The all-time high was $26 on the first day of trading, June 15 ...

  27. Biz Poll: Why Have Album Sales Hit Historic Lows?

    August 15, 2013 4:10 PM EDT As Billboard’s Ed Christman reported on Aug. 2, U.S. album sales hit new historic lows, marking the longest consecutive stretch in the Nielsen SoundScan era that the music industry has gone without scanning more than five million units.   For th ...

  28. Katy Perry Set to Sell 450k Downloads of 'Roar,' Gaga's 'Applause' Set for 225k Debut

    August 15, 2013 1:16 PM EDT Katy Perry's new song "Roar" is off to a roaring sales start, with industry forecasters suggesting it will move around 450,000 downloads by the end of the tracking week on Sunday (Aug. 18). Meanwhile, fellow diva Lady Gaga is also ...

  29. Country Icon George Strait Tapped for Billboard's Legend Of Live Award

    August 15, 2013 12:00 PM EDT George Strait will be honored with the Legend Of Live Award at the 10th annual Billboard Touring Awards , to be held Nov. 14 at The Roosevelt Hotel in New York. Strait -- who has forged a reputation as a record-breaker -- becomes the first count ...

  30. Luke Bryan Heading for Big Sales Week, Second No. 1 Album on Billboard 200

    August 14, 2013 8:42 PM EDT Luke Bryan's "Crash My Party" is set to crash in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart next week with a very big bow. Industry sources say the country star's latest album to sell least 450,000 copies by the end of the tracking ...

  31. Business Matters: Rhapsody's Financials Show Subscription Music Isn't Easy

    August 14, 2013 7:55 PM EDT Music subscription service Rhapsody is growing, shrinking and losing money. Breaking even would probably require a substantial, but not improbable, growth in subscribers in the midst of increased competition.   In the first half of 2013, Rhapsod ...

  32. Neil Young’s Pono Music Faces Two Big Obstacles

    August 14, 2013 4:30 PM EDT This story originally appeared on Evolver.fm Neil Young made a big splash when he brandished a yellow object on Late Night With David Letterman last year. This was the mystical Pono audio player, inspired by Young apparently seeing a woman liste ...

  33. Prince Enters the Twittersphere, Launches 3rd Eye Girl Video

    August 13, 2013 11:36 PM EDT The Purple One has come to Twitter. Prince, who once called the Internet "completely over," posted several tweets on Tuesday through the account of his current group, 3rd Eye Girl. The tweets, poking fun at his online aversion, include ...

  34. Dave Lombardi Appointed VP of Promotion for Caroline, CMG's Independent Services Division

    August 13, 2013 5:11 PM EDT Dave Lombardi has been ptomoted to VP of promotion for Caroline, the independent services division of Capitol Music Group. In his new position, Lombardi will be responsible for Caroline's promotion department, which includes conceiving and ...

  35. Ticketmaster President Nathan Hubbard Exits Company

    August 12, 2013 8:56 PM EDT Ticketmaster president Nathan Hubbard has exited the Live Nation-owned ticketing company. Sources confirm to Billboard.biz that Hubbard will step down as Ticketmaster president in a deal to be finalized in the coming days. Ticketmaster North Am ...

  36. Lady Gaga vs. Katy Perry: Superstar Digital Song Sales Showdown

    August 12, 2013 7:14 PM EDT This week could be a historic one for digital song sales. New singles from Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are heading for big debuts on Billboard's Digital Songs chart next week -- and both should rack up major sales. Perry's new single &q ...

  37. Google+ Plugs In SoundCloud for Its 343 Million Users (Exclusive)

    August 12, 2013 12:05 PM EDT Google+ is slowly but surely catching up to Facebook. The social network, by some metrics considered to be the second-largest after Facebook, has integrated SoundCloud's audio embeds, the two companies announced Monday.  SoundCloud in May a ...

  38. The Echo Nest's Three Steps for Targeting Music Services' Most Valuable Users (From This Week's Issue)

    August 12, 2013 11:43 AM EDT Taste profiles, most often used to serve up recommendations and connect listeners to other users with like-minded tastes, has the potential to serve another purpose -- predicting which new customers will become high-value ones. According to a r ...

  39. Outside Lands: Live Music Meets Live Hacks

    August 10, 2013 9:00 AM EDT Music hack-a-thons, a fairly common occurrence thanks to a proliferation of application programming interfaces, is taking on a twist this week at the Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco -- allowing the hackers to sound out their digit ...

  40. Asking Alexandria, Tye Tribbett Heading for Top 10 on Billboard 200

    August 09, 2013 8:53 PM EDT As previously reported, folk-rock duo the Civil Wars seem to be set for its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart week with its new self-titled release. Industry sources suggest the album might bow with 105,000 copies sold through the wee ...

  41. Business Matters: What is a Stream Worth? Not Much

    August 09, 2013 7:06 PM EDT Here's another way to think about the difference between purchases and streaming: value by MB. Much has been written about the small royalties artists and labels get for streaming media relative to purchased music. Less – if anything – has ...

  42. Behind Matchbox Twenty's Techy Tour – One of the First Uses of 'Geofencing'

    August 09, 2013 4:38 PM EDT Matchbox Twenty may have been around since 1995, with its alt-rock grooves steeped in the post-grunge era, but their digital chops are firmly in the 21st Century. The band, currently on tour , is deploying a dizzying array of digital tools t ...

  43. Youku Tudou Narrows Second-Quarter Loss

    August 09, 2013 3:30 PM EDT Youku Tudou narrowed its loss in the second quarter, and the Chinese online video company believes the outlook is positive as consuming video on multiple screens becomes the standard in China. Quarterly revenue rose 30 percent from the year-ago ...

  44. Shakira Hits Six-Month High on Social 50 Chart

    August 09, 2013 2:44 PM EDT Shakira bounds into the top five on the Social 50 chart, rising 10-2 to hit her highest position in over six months. (She was last this high on the Feb. 9-dated chart, when she was No. 1.) This week's move is owed to Shakira’s fans love of ...

  45. Robby Krieger Talks Manzarek Tribute, Doors App

    August 09, 2013 2:28 PM EDT Robby Krieger has plenty on his creative plate these days. But he still misses his Doors bandmate and longtime partner Ray Manzarek, who died of bile duct cancer on May 20 at the age of 74. "It's taking awhile to get over it," Kri ...

  46. Beats Music Beefs Up Curation Team, Says Service Is 'Coming Soon'

    August 09, 2013 11:45 AM EDT Beats Music, while still under wraps, has been methodically building up its curation team over the past year, hiring a team of genre experts and programmers that give clues to how the music service plans to differentiate itself from the pack ...

  47. Chart Moves: Buddy Guy's Best Week Ever, Imagine Dragons' Sales Stay Steady, Bruno Mars' Top 20 Streak

    August 09, 2013 9:30 AM EDT This week on the Billboard 200, Robin Thicke nabbed his first No. 1 album -- a little over a decade after his debut. "Blurred Lines," led by the smash single of the same name, opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 177,000 cop ...

  48. Chart Moves: Robin Thicke's Rare Double No. 1 Achievement, Maroon 5's New Top 10 Hit on Hot 100

    August 09, 2013 9:15 AM EDT As previously reported , Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a whopping ninth week. The song also earns the largest airplay audience ever on the Hot 100 Airplay chart, racking up 219.8 million in a ...

  49. Bubbling Under: Panic! at the Disco Lifts Lolo Onto Charts

    August 09, 2013 9:00 AM EDT Each Friday, Billboard presents "Bubbling Under," a weekly look at new and noteworthy acts making their way toward Billboard chart success. Up this week: Lolo, Andre Mieux, Bush Hawg and Jenny and the Mexicats. Thanks to a featured voc ...

  50. Google Brings Streaming Music Service to Europe

    August 08, 2013 4:09 PM EDT Google is rolling out its streaming music service, Google Play Music All Access, in Europe. After its U.S. launch in May, it hit Australia and New Zealand in July. As of Thursday, the Internet giant started its European rollout in the U.K., Irel ...

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