Blog: Music - Page 26

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Creator support: A new take on user-centric licensing

Mark Mulligan

26 Apr 2019

Music music industry music licensing

User-centric licensing (i.e. stream pay-outs based on sharing the royalty income of an individual user split across the music they listen to) has stimulated a lot of debate.I first explored the concept of user-centric licensing back in 2015and stirred up a hornet nest, with a lot of very mixed feedb...

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The future of artist marketing is multivariate testing via playlists

Zach Fuller

18 Apr 2019

Streaming Music music industry

Artist marketing remains a costly and often thankless endeavour. Inclusive of artists and repertoire, record labels spent approximately $1.6 billion on marketing in 2017 with 73% of that ($1.2 billion) being spent by majors.

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Profiling the live consumer: Streaming and the live music business

Hanna Kahlert

17 Apr 2019

live music Music music industry

This article is derived from MIDiA’s Profiling the Live Consumer report, available here . The power balance in music has swung from recorded to live, but will it stay? Live productions have been the prime revenue pusher for the music business since peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading undermined the inh...

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Spotify, the decline of playlists, and the rise of podcasts

Mark Mulligan

11 Apr 2019

curated playlists music marketing Music marketing strategy

The following is a small excerpt from MIDiA’s third edition of its landmark State of the Streaming Nation report. Most things that Spotify does are scrutinised and cross-examined within an inch of their lives, with vested interests trying to second guess what may be the intended or unintended cons...

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Audio creator remuneration: DIY artists need x12.8 more streams and major label artists need x91 more streams to earn the same as podcast creators

Georgia Meyer

9 Apr 2019

Audio Podcasts remuneration

Podcasts are currently front of mind in the media landscape. The greatest gap in information knowledge for media professionals is understanding where podcasts fit into a unified media outreach strategy fit for 2019.

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Downtown acquires AVL: Value chains in a post-direct distribution era

Zach Fuller

28 Mar 2019

avl downtown Music

When Spotify announced that it was going to launch direct distribution on its platform, it was clear the various digital distributors that emerged in the post-Napster wave of online music (Tunecore, CD Baby, Ditto, etc.

AI and the disruption of the music persona

Zach Fuller

22 Mar 2019

Music music industry AI

Discussions on AI and music continue to grip the music industry, with fears we stand on the precipice of a post-musician world, yet in many ways we have been here before. History dictates that shifts in music composition are influenced more by the context in which it is consumed rather than the tech...

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Why Facebook could be the future of social music, but isn’t yet

Mark Mulligan

21 Mar 2019

Facebook facebook music social music

Facebook recently secured licensing deals with music rightsholders in India (via Music Business Worldwide ), an important step in what has thus far been an underwhelming social music strategy since first inking rights deals in June 2018.

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Calling all Artists!

Mark Mulligan

14 Mar 2019

Amuse artist income Artist survey

In partnership with independent distribution company Amuse, MIDiA Research is undertaking a detailed study of the music artist landscape. We are fielding a survey to the artist community , exploring issues such as: What success looks like to you Career aspirations The importance of signing to a reco...

Why India Matters to Spotify, and Why it May Not Deliver

Mark Mulligan

28 Feb 2019

emerging markets India india streaming

Warner Music and Spotify have been involved in a rather unseemly and very public spat this week over Spotify’s India launch . I’ll leave for someone else, the discussions of the potential implications of a blanket license for songwriter rights in India for an on-demand streaming service.

Taylor Swift, Label Services and What Comes Next

Mark Mulligan

22 Nov 2018

#MERKY ADA Billy Bragg

Taylor Swift has done it again, striking a deal with UMG that includes a commitment from the world’s largest label group to share proceeds from Spotify stock sales with artists, even if they are not recouped (ie haven’t generated enough revenue to have paid off the balance on their advance so no...

Can Spotify Ever Meet Investors’ Expectations?

Mark Mulligan

1 Nov 2018

Netflix Record labels Spotify

Spotify just posted another solid set of results, adding four million subscribers and beating profit and revenue estimates, yet its share price fell. What’s going on? Spotify is on track for where it should be, slightly below, but on track.

Quick Take: Will Stream Djing be the Renaissance of Soundcloud?

Zach Fuller

19 Oct 2018

SoundCloud Music

After a difficult two yearsthat saw acquisitions fall through and a lack of meaningful uptake of its subscription service, SoundCloud have needed some positive news. Reveredwithin the creator community though still struggling to make a profit, SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainorannounced today at Amsterdam...

Spotify, DistroKid and the Two Sided Marketplace

Mark Mulligan

17 Oct 2018

DistroKid Spotify spotify as a label

Spotify has taken a minority stake in DistroKid . In itself, it may be a slightly left field but relatively insignificant move, except that it is in fact one small but important step on a much bigger journey.

Are Record Labels Facing an A&R Crisis?

Mark Mulligan

30 Jul 2018

a+r crisis ar Labels

A succession of conversations with record labels over the last couple of months has made me start to ponder whether we are approaching a tipping point in streaming era A&R. At the heart of the conversations is whether the growing role of playlists and the increased use of streaming analytics is ...

Facebook Aims to Bring The Fun Back Into Music

Mark Mulligan

5 Jun 2018

Ad Supported dubsmash Facebook

Facebook has announced its long mooted move into music. As widely anticipated the service offering focuses on using music to add context to social experiences. The official blog outlines two key use cases: Adding music to videosDoing live stream lip syncs in Facebook Live videos For now the roll out...

‘Nice for What?’ and the Slow Death of the Album

Zach Fuller

10 Apr 2018

Apple Music beggars banquet death of the album

I write this week’s blog conflicted between the music fan who grew up on the album and the MIDiA analyst looking at the numbers (an eternal struggle). Alongside the feature-length film, the LP was one of the definitive artistic mediums to emerge in the 20th century, but it was also bound to the sa...

Spotify D(PO)-Day

Mark Mulligan

3 Apr 2018

DPO IPO Spotify

Arguably the most anticipated day in the history of digital music is upon us. By the end of it we will have the first hint at whether Spotify is going to fall at the Snap Inc. or Facebook end of the spectrum of promising tech IPO, or DPO in the case of Spotify.

Will AI Replace The Artist Altogether Or Will It Serve As Another Creation Tool?

Zach Fuller

28 Feb 2018

artificial intelligence electricity ernst gombrich

In covering tech trends, we try to avoid chasing after the latest buzzwords at MIDiA. Artificial Intelligence certainly ticks the boxes of Gartner’s famed hype cycle model , i.e. technologies that attract VC funding and obligatory media headlines before falling into a trough of disillusionment, of...

Why YouTube Is Going Big At Sundance

Tim Mulligan

19 Jan 2018

Bodied Eminem Online video

Interesting things are happening at YouTube. In February 2017 it launched YouTube TV, a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service with live video and catch up incorporated into its core functionality.

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