Amazon lands NFL streaming rights…So what? And… Should Twitter be charging? Plus, rants and raves about Netflix’s new ratings system, the value of authenticity (or lack thereof) in Pepsi’s aborted new campaign, and more. It’s episode 61 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. This episode is brought to you by StackAdapt,  an omnichannel digital advertising platform that helps brands accelerate customer acquisition. Sources: htt

So let’s say you’re a radio station that attracts a male audience, but when play-by-play airs on another station, BOOM – off go listeners from your station to theirs. What do you do when your fans want to hear that play-by-play and they leave your station to hear it? Well, consider this: What if they could get the play-by-play and get it from you – no rights or rights fees necessary? What if they could get the play-by-play and get it from you - no rights or rights fees necess

MusicFIRST really needs to have their heads examined. They’re in a tizzy because, allegedly, Pandora executives have done what executives at companies post-IPO do – cash out some shares.  And since these folks own a lot of shares, that can add up to a lot of money. But what does this have to do with the central question of onerous music royalty rates and the Internet radio industry’s long-term ability to profit in the face of them? Forgive the Econ 101 lecture, MusicFIRST, bu

Every now and then I read something which is so totally off the wall it demands a thoughtful response. So it is with Bob Lefsetz’s recent screed on Pandora. Lefsetz, who is more a lightning rod than a beacon for insight, is a former music industry exec who has so many chips on his shoulder, his shoulders are virtually all-chip.  WIRED described him thusly: “Blogger (and digital-era pamphleteer) Bob Lefsetz couldn’t make it in the music biz—until he started ranting about how i

And so the critically important fight over music rights fees wears on. Pandora lobbies in favor of the Internet Radio Fairness Act now before Congress so as to make not only its business but the business of every current and future company playing music online more viable (keep in mind, Pandora has yet to turn a profit thanks largely to withering and model-killing rights fees foisted on the industry by the labels). The MusicFIRST coalition (shouldn’t it be called LabelsFIRST?