Blog: Streaming Music - Page 3

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Are Record Labels Facing an A&R Crisis?

Mark Mulligan
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 making label A&R strategy proactive or reactive? Is what people are listening to shaped by the labels or the streaming service? To subvert Paul Weller’s 1980s Jam lyrics: Does the public get what the public wants or does the public want what the public gets? An old dynamic reinvented Radio used to be the main way in which audiences were essentially told what to listen to.
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Four Companies That Could Buy Spotify

Mark Mulligan
21st Century Fox
Alibaba
amc theatres
For much of 2016 it looked nailed on that Spotify would IPO in 2017 and that the recorded music industry would move onto its next chapter, for better or for worse. The terms of Spotify’s $1 billion debt raise (which mean that Spotify pays an extra 1% on its 5% annual interest payments every six months beyond its previously agreed IPO date) suggest that Spotify was thinking the same way too.
min read
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