Blog: Streaming Music

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.

Is streaming music's final form? And if not, what's next?

Cover image for Is streaming music's final form? And if not, what's next?

Tatiana Cirisano

3 Apr 2025

Business Strategy

Key takeaways from this blog: Music is not stuck – it is shifting. Fans now engage through remixes, memes, and behind-the-scenes content, not just through streaming Streaming is losing cultural ground.

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The music industry’s weakest link: Getting from A to B

Cover image for The music industry’s weakest link: Getting from A to B

Tatiana Cirisano

20 Mar 2025

Business Strategy

Key insights from this blog: The music industry is missing a key step when it comes to supporting and growing artists As the landscape of the industry has changed, most notably a loss of a mainstream monoculture, the traditional ways of discovery and promotion no longer work for new and smaller arti...

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Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Cover image for Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Mark Mulligan

18 Feb 2025

I recently wrote about the unflattening of music :how creativity, craft, and fandom can – if done right – counter the growing commodification of music. Not surprisingly, I focused on the music side of the equation, but in doing so I missed the other big flattening challenge music faces.

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What got you here won’t get you there: how Spotify built a new business

Cover image for What got you here won’t get you there: how Spotify built a new business

Mark Mulligan

17 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Since its inception, Spotify has been, and continues to be, the streaming music market’s lightning rod. This is due to its continued ability to maintain leading market share and the fact it is the only leading global DSP that is independent and therefore has to focus place more focus on commercial...

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Music subscriber market shares 2023: New momentum

Cover image for Music subscriber market shares 2023: New momentum

Mark Mulligan

8 Feb 2024

music subscriber market shares

Streaming market share

With UMG leading the charge to reshape the music industry into a more label-friendly form, 2023 may, with hindsight, go down as the year before everything changed . Whatever lies ahead though, new models will take time to deliver benefits.

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Spotify re-positions two-tier licensing (we are getting closer, and it can be even better)

Cover image for Spotify re-positions two-tier licensing (we are getting closer, and it can be even better)

Mark Mulligan

24 Nov 2023

Two tier licensing

Streaming Royalties

Spotify released a blog post laying out how it wants the world to understand its new two-tier royalty system. The positioning is clear, leading with the statement that it will drive “an additional $1 billion toward[s] emerging and professional artists” and the PR push included several supporting...

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Streaming’s problems will not be fixed by royalties alone

Cover image for Streaming’s problems will not be fixed by royalties alone

Mark Mulligan

15 Sep 2023

Streaming Music

Music streaming

Streaming Royalties

UMG and Deezer’s artist-centric royalty proposal got the amount of attention both parties probably wanted , if not necessarily the type of attention they were after. However, the intent was to kick start an industry debate, and that objective was clearly achieved.

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The music industry obsesses over artist performance statistics – where are label performance statistics?

Cover image for The music industry obsesses over artist performance statistics – where are label performance statistics?

Keith Jopling

10 Apr 2023

Streaming Music

One of the watchwords in labels recently has been a focus on the ‘value proposition’ for artists, and it is easy to see why. In the streaming and social age, where independent self-releasing artists can get their music out into the world without a label, why should they sign to one at all? Up un...

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Everyone hurts – the problem with ‘fixing’ streaming

Cover image for Everyone hurts – the problem with ‘fixing’ streaming

Mark Mulligan

6 Feb 2023

Streaming Royalties

Streaming economics

Streaming Music

Everyone hurts – the problem with ‘fixing’ streaming Apple’s Q4 2022 revenue fall was further illustration that the global economic environment is affecting everyone. During such times, companies look for ways to avoid the worst of the impacts, partially through ‘efficiencies’ but also t...

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Has the streaming slowdown arrived?

Cover image for Has the streaming slowdown arrived?

Mark Mulligan

10 Jan 2023

Streaming Music

global streaming revenues

ERA, The UK trade association for entertainment retailers released its annual estimates for the UK entertainment market, showing strong growth for video but less impressive increases for music and games.

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Why Amazon Music is primed for success

Cover image for Why Amazon Music is primed for success

Mark Mulligan

1 Nov 2022

Streaming Music

Amazon Music today announced that it was extending the number of songs available on its Prime Music tier from two million to one hundred million. It is kind of a big deal, but not that big a deal when you consider the actual value of these additional 98 million tracks.

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Vinyl now matters more to the music industry

Cover image for Vinyl now matters more to the music industry

Keith Jopling

11 Oct 2022

Streaming Music

It is the final quarter of 2022 and almost time for Spotify Wrapped – that thrilling rush of data that knows more about your music listening habits than you do yourself. However, my Wrapped will be redundant this year, since at least half of my listening time has migrated to playing vinyl records ...

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With Meta’s revenue share program, can rights holders and platforms finally agree?

Cover image for With Meta’s revenue share program, can rights holders and platforms finally agree?

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Jul 2022

Streaming Music

user-generated content

Content Creators

Over the last week, Meta made headlines three times in relation to music on its platforms (Instagram and Facebook). First, royalty-free music provider Epidemic Sound sued Meta for allegedly allowing users to incorporate its music without the proper licenses.

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Why Spotify’s TAM is only part of the story

Cover image for Why Spotify’s TAM is only part of the story

Mark Mulligan

9 Jun 2022

addressable audience

Spotify just held an investor day in which it ran through its vision for growth. Spotify has long touted the concept of its total addressable market (TAM), its path to a billion users and the role of emerging markets as the surest path to this figure.

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Music industry earnings 2021: Riding the wave

Cover image for Music industry earnings 2021: Riding the wave

Mark Mulligan

6 May 2022

Streaming Music

Universal music’s Q1 2022 earnings showed continued growth but a noticeable slowdown in streaming growth, with streaming revenues up 12% year-on-year (YoY) in USD term compared to a growth of 35% one year earlier.

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Spotify’s Loud and Clear is about fandom, not royalties

Cover image for Spotify’s Loud and Clear is about fandom, not royalties

Tatiana Cirisano

24 Mar 2022

Streaming Music

Streaming Royalties

Spotify has updated its Loud & Clear website exploring how it pays royalties to rightsholders, and it claims that more artists are earning income on the platform than ever before. Many in the music industry will spend today picking apart these claims, and they will be right to do so.

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What the boom in young artist catalogue sales says about the music market

Cover image for What the boom in young artist catalogue sales says about the music market

Tatiana Cirisano

11 Feb 2022

music catalogue

music catalogue M+A

Streaming Music

The catalogue-sales boom is one of the most talked about music trends of the past two years. Most of the conversation has, understandably, revolved around aging icons, like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, whose catalogues have fetched hundreds of millions of dollars each.

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Unpacking music royalty investment NFTs

Cover image for Unpacking music royalty investment NFTs

Tatiana Cirisano

26 Jan 2022

Streaming Music

Last Thursday, a Royal NFT drop allowing fans to purchase a share in the streaming royalties of two Nas songs sold out within minutes. The drop was delayed by a week after high demand crashed Royal’s site, signaling potential for the concept of fans and artists co-owning music rights.

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Is live-stream composition the new formula for a hit album?

Cover image for Is live-stream composition the new formula for a hit album?

Ashleigh Millar

1 Oct 2021

We are no stranger to TikTok and its impact on the music industry, which is changing the structure of the business one viral video at a time. Artists and composers are flocking to the innovative social media app with hopes of finding musical success, similar to that of 24KGoldn and Nathan Evans.

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How Bandcamp could really fix the music business

Cover image for How Bandcamp could really fix the music business

Mark Mulligan

25 Jun 2021

Independent artists

Streaming Music

“A thought: has streaming become the place to address consumers and the likes of Bandcamp the places to engage fans? i.e., fans and fandom inherently matter less on streaming because it/they are a minority.

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