NARM

Triton Digital has joined industry group NARM and its digital initiative digitalmusic.org to "further progress the digital audio industry."

NARM is the National Association of Recording Merchandisers.

"At NARM, our goal is to advance the promotion of music by providing our members with insights and education to support their business models," said Jim Donio, President of NARM.

Mike Agovino, Chief Operating Officer of Triton Digital, said, "We are in exceptional company and look forward to working as one to shape and transform the digital music industry through innovative technology and meaningful connections."

Triton Digital is a digital service provider for traditional and online radio. The company is a sponsor of our upcoming RAIN Summit Europe event, May 23 at Hotel Bloom in Brussels. CCO and general manager of data and measurement Rob Favre and SVP and general manager of international markets Jay Supovitz will participate in panel discussions. Info and registration links are on the RAIN Summit Europe page.

Jennifer Lane, in her Audio4Cast blog, takes the record industry to task for its treatment of webcasters on its WhyMusicMatters.com website.

The music industry site serves as a directory for consumers to find legitimate, licensed music services. Lane describes the site's presentation of various services offering "downloads/mp3s," "streaming," and more.

But while on-demand and music subscription services (as well as services in a category called "Premium Internet Radio") are given bold-face "headline" names, brief text descriptions, and thumbnail images, most webcasters are relegated to a "statutory services" page "where the listener has to click through hundreds of alphabetized radio stations (no logos, no descriptions, no links) to find one," according to Lane.

"I’m disappointed in the site," she writes. "Unfortunately, this site is a glaring in-your-face example of a bad business partnership. Internet radio services, Pandora in particular, are paying a lot of money in royalties to SoundExchange, the royalty collection arm of the RIAA, and in return they get a listing buried deep in the site with no logo or link."

She continues: "Is there any other business you can think of where the vendors treat their retailers so badly? Because that’s what this is, it’s streaming services buying the rights to content and offering it to consumers. And clearly the RIAA and NARM are bad business partners for Internet radio."

Read her blog here.