RAIN Summit Europe

Dozens of top radio and online audio executives from across Europe will be converging in Belgium in less than six weeks for the second annual RAIN Summit Europe, to be held on Thursday, May 23rd at the stylish Hotel BLOOM! in Brussels.

As with other RAIN Summit events such as last week's successful RAIN Summit West in Las Vegas (more coverage here and here), web radio professionals will gather to discuss all facets of Internet radio and online audio, participating in panel discussions and presentations and advancing the development of the business of online audio across Europe.

Topics on the agenda will range from business to technology to programming and include best practices for measurement of online audio, multiplatform content distribution, mobile streaming, sales strategies, and programming for audience growth.

Presentations will be given by James Cridland of Media UK, David Deslandes of Deezer, and Simon Gooch of SBS Radio Sweden/RadioPlay.

Other confirmed speakers already include an impressive mix of Internet radio and online audio executives, including:

• Ali Abhary, CEO, Spectrum Medya, Turkey
• Jan-Willem Bruggenwirth, Managing Director, 538.nl, The Netherlands
• Matthew Carver, Radio Coordinator, EGTA, Belgium
• Ben Drury, Founder/CEO, 7Digital, U.K.
• Hakan Kostepen, Executive Director, Product Strategy & Innovation, Panasonic, U.S.
• Jan Poelmann, RMS, Germany
• Robert Proctor, CEO, Audioboo, U.K.
• Alain Reyes, Head Manager, NRJ, France
• Patrick Roger, VP/Global Sales & Marketing, Adswizz, France
• Jöel Ronez, Director of New Media, RadioFrance, France
• Christian Schalt, General Manager, rs2 and KISS FM (Berlin), Germany
• Kjarten Slette, Head of Music, WiMPmusic, Norway
• Holger Weiss, CEO, Aupeo, Germany
• Steve Whilton, Director of Product, Last.fm, U.K

More speakers will be announced regularly in RAIN in upcoming days. Panel descriptions are available here.

Registration is limited for this event (last year's gathering in Berlin sold out). You can register for the event using either Eventbrite or Amiando.

Radionomy has attracted more than 13 million unique listeners worldwide since it launched in 2008, the company announced today. Its web radio service now includes more than 6,000 user-programmed stations that "generate more than 42 million listening hours each month."

The French-Belgian company also announced plans to open U.S. headquarters in San Francisco. "It is the perfect place to base our U.S. operations and a perfect launching pad for our U.S. introduction," said Thierry Ascarez, VP of Business Development of Radionomy. The new U.S. office will "focus on sales, marketing, further platform development, and establishing new partnerships," said Radionomy (here).

You can find out more about Radionomy and its plans from CEO Alexandre Saboundjian at RAIN Summit Europe (more info here).

We're delighted to announce our first-ever RAIN Summit Europe will take place October 5, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. It will include a keynote presentation from Spotify's General Manager for Europe, Jonathan Forster.

Forster (pictured below left) is responsible for the overall development of Spotify’s European business, leading the strategy and development of advertising sales at Spotify and managing Spotify’s workforce across the region including the UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Finland, The Netherlands and Denmark. Spotify is the most listened to streaming service in Europe, with more than 20 million registered users worldwide.

The first-ever RAIN Summit Europe will take place at the award-winning nhow Hotel ("Berlin’s Music and Lifestyle Hotel").

RAIN Summits are a popular and fast-growing series of world-class Internet radio conferences, geared to broadcasters on the web (e.g., Clear Channel Radio, CBS Radio, and Entercom), and Internet-only webcasters (e.g., Pandora, Slacker, and AccuRadio) alike.

Since 2003, the annual RAIN Summit West in Las Vegas, coinciding with the NAB Show, has been a premiere educational and networking event for the webcasting industry. We'll also host a Summit in Dallas this September.

In addition to Forster, RAIN Summit Europe will include executives from the Association de European Radios, Spectrum Medya, AudioEmotion, Adswizz, Absolute Radio, Deezer, Triton Digital and others.

You can find the Summit's initial line-up of speakers at the RAIN Summit Europe website here. We'll announce more speakers soon, so stay tuned!

You can register to attend RAIN Summit Europe here.