EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK:    If you’re pitching Sponsored Listening this article is for you!  Heidi Browning does a masterful job of articulating the inherent strengths of our SL offering, and ties in efficacy with our usage metrics across 208 studied campaigns. Heidi also manages to weave in plugs for muted video, lat-long, VAE, addressability, and in-app product innovations.  And then she tops it all off with case study shout outs for Kellogg’s. LVCVB, and Taco Bell!  So much good stuff, but you may need a nap after reading this one.  J http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/283672/advertisers-take-a-page-or-a-listen-from-pandor.html

LABELS MAKING BANK:  Another day, another batch of data on the growing prominence streaming occupies within the labels’ revenue picture.  The attached RAIN article on the big three labels’ 1H revenue growth is for label-direct royalties only, so Pandora isn’t factored in here.  Regardless, it’s amazing to see the overall growth – especially with Spotify’s payments.  This matches yesterday’s Motley Fool insights, about rising content costs making a Spotify IPO look less likely.  Expect more reports like this over the coming quarters and years. http://rainnews.com/mark-mulligan-just-how-well-is-streaming-really-doing/

TOTAL AUDIENCE . . . REALLY?:  And finally, Nielsen is out with PR hit piece touting the different media types’ shares of the “Total Audience”.  Conveniently, Nielsen left out Digital Audio from this infographic, although they did manage to include Digital Video.  Maybe they left Digital Audio out because they still don’t measure it?!?  The other misleading element here that they only report broadcast TV and Radio by total reach – both numbers still look impressive.  But Nielsen carefully avoids adding Time Spent to their calculation, which is the real erosion problem for the broadcasters.  #smoke&mirrors  http://rainnews.com/nielsen-infographic-shows-radios-steady-audience-share-minus-streaming/

Have a great Thursday guys!