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Business News Deals Digital Media
Universal Music owner buys online radio technology firm
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 18 December 2015
Universal Music owner Vivendi – which is seeking to expand its interests in media and entertainment having sold of its big tel co assets – has taken a majority stake in online radio platform provider Radionomy, which owns the SHOUTcast streaming system, ad-network TargetSpot and, for fans of olden-days streaming, the Winamp player. The Dutch firm bought SHOUTcast and Winamp off of AOL back in 2014.
Vivendi has taken 64.4% of the company, with the rest of the firm’s shares owned by founder Alexandre Saboundjian, its employees and Union Square Ventures. The French conglom says that its investment will help Radionomy to “capitalise on the expected evolution of the digital audio market towards targeted advertising, thanks to its technical tools and its partnerships”.
The firm added: “With this investment in digital radio, Vivendi expands its presence in the value chain that flows from talent discovery to content production and distribution. Collaboration between the digital audio platform and the Vivendi businesses will be established and a number of innovative offers will be developed. Radionomy also complements the talent support programme which contributes to the Vivendi Group’s sustainable development”.
