Blog: Universal 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.

How to make artist centric artist centric

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Mark Mulligan

6 Sep 2023

Streaming Royalties

Music streaming

Music Royalties

Deezer and UMG announced a major (in both senses of the word) shake up of streaming music royalties. This is arguably the biggest streaming market development in years, as it will set the tone for market-wide change.

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Just what is Tencent’s Endgame?

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Mark Mulligan

16 Jun 2020

Tencent’s combined $200 million investment in WMG follows on the heels of its $3.6 billion joint investment in Universal Music. It is hardly Tencent’s first investments in music, having spent $6.2 billion on music investments since 2016.

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What UMG’s IPO Means for the Business of Music

Mark Mulligan

14 Feb 2020

Access Industries

music as an asset class

Finishing 2019 on $6.4 billion, Universal Music is to go to IPO hot on the heels of Warner Music’s announcement to do the same. This of course also follows the Tencent-led agreement to acquire 10% of UMG for $3 billion with an option to acquire another 10%.

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Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) December 9th 2019

Cover image for Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) December 9th 2019

Mark Mulligan

9 Dec 2019

Go east: Universal Music launched Red Records, an Asian repertoire joint venture label with AirAsia Group. With Western repertoire accounting for around only a third of all streams in Asian markets, UMG needs local bets to benefit from the Asian opportunity.

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Abbey Road 50 Years On: The Two Worlds of Music Listening

Mark Mulligan

7 Oct 2019

artist audiences

artist fanbases

Half a century after it first after it first topped the charts, the Beatles’ Abbey Road is back at the summit of the UK charts. With the anniversary editions retailing for between $20 and $100, the impact on Universal Music’s revenue will be even more pronounced than the chart position, as we saw with the deluxe editions of the White Album (which had editions priced up to $145) helping the Beatles become the fourth-biggest UMG artist in revenue terms in 2018.

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Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) August 23rd 2019

Cover image for Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) August 23rd 2019

Mark Mulligan

23 Aug 2019

Taylor Swift, pre-sale love: Taylor Swift tends not to adhere to prevailing industry trends. As a millennial artist with a strong Gen Z following, streaming should rightly be the core of her recordings career.

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Backing Both Horses: The Thinking Behind Tencent’s UMG Stake

Mark Mulligan

6 Aug 2019

As long expected, Tencent is poised to take a stake in Vivendi, reported to be 10%. While the news might not be surprising, there are a number of important factors at play: Tencent fast-tracked? Given that various entities stated their interest in investing in UMG, Vivendi appears to have fast-tracked Tencent.

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Big Machine (Inadvertently) Just Did a Promo Ad for Label Services Deals

Mark Mulligan

1 Jul 2019

The sales of Taylor Swift’s former label Big Machine Records to Scooter Braun has resulted in an ugly spat that has been played out very publicly. First Braun enthused about acquiring a ‘brilliant’ company and the global ‘opportunities’.

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2018 Global Label Market Share: Stream Engine

Cover image for 2018 Global Label Market Share: Stream Engine

Mark Mulligan

13 Mar 2019

Recorded music revenues grew in 2018 for the fourth consecutive year, reaching $18.8 billion, up $2.2 billion from 2017. Streaming was the engine room of growth, up 30% year on year to reach $9.6 billion.

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Just Who Would Buy Universal Music?

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Mark Mulligan

14 Jan 2019

Access Industries

Vivendi continues to look for a buyer for a portion of Universal Music . Though the process has been running officially since May 2018 , the transaction (or transactions) may not close until 2020. In many instances, dragging out a sale could reflect badly, suggesting that the seller is struggling to find suitable buyers.

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Taylor Swift, Label Services and What Comes Next

Mark Mulligan

22 Nov 2018

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 not yet eligible to earn royalty income).

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Could Spotify Buy Universal?

Mark Mulligan

11 May 2018

Vivendi is reported to be proposing to its board a plan for spinning out Universal Music. It is certainly the right time for a spin off (always sell before the peak), but a full divestment would leave Vivendi unbalanced and a shell of its former self.

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Spotify and the Music Industry: Who Needs Who More?

Zach Fuller

6 Apr 2018

Following Spotify’s DPO earlier this week, much of the financial commentary around the listing emphasised the company’s loss-making status. Those familiar with Spotify’s business model know this is attributable to the sizeable fees the company pays out to rights holders—the gatekeepers to the very content that allows Spotify to exist.

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Quick Take: Universal’s Partnership with Facebook

Zach Fuller

22 Dec 2017

content monetisation

Following its renewed deal with YouTube earlier this week, Universal has signed another landmark agreement for digital monetisation, this time with Facebook. Described by the world’s largest recorded music label as ‘unprecedented’, Facebook users,under the terms of the partnership, will now be able to upload videos that contain licensed music across Facebook’s assets.

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Disney, Netflix and the Squeezed Middle: The Real Story Behind Net Neutrality

Cover image for Disney, Netflix and the Squeezed Middle: The Real Story Behind Net Neutrality

Mark Mulligan

15 Dec 2017

Unless you have been hiding under a rock this last couple of weeks you’ll have heard at least something about the build up to the decision over turning net neutrality in the US, a decision that was confirmed yesterday.

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What’s In A Number: Can Streaming Really Be Worth $28 Billion?

Mark Mulligan

30 Aug 2017

lehman brothers

Goldman Sachs just made some headlines with its assessment that Universal Music is worth $23.5 billion and that the paid streaming market will be worth $28 billion in 2030 (up from $3.5 billion in 2016 and close to double the size of the entire recorded music business in 2016).

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The Three Eras Of Paid Streaming

Cover image for The Three Eras Of Paid Streaming

Mark Mulligan

28 Jul 2017

3 ages of streaming

3 eras of streaming

3 phases of streaming

Streaming has driven such a revenue renaissance within the major record labels that the financial markets are now falling over themselves to work out where they can invest in the market, and indeed whether they should.

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Announcing MIDiA’s State Of The Streaming Nation 2 Report

Cover image for Announcing MIDiA’s State Of The Streaming Nation 2 Report

Mark Mulligan

5 Jun 2017

2016 was the year that streaming turned the recorded music business into a good news story, with revenue growth so strong that it drove nearly a billion dollars of total growth. Leading streaming services spent the year competing with ever more impressive metrics while playlisting and streaming exclusives became cornerstones of the wider music market both culturally and commercially.

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Who’s Leading The Streaming Music Pack?

Cover image for Who’s Leading The Streaming Music Pack?

Mark Mulligan

25 May 2017

Google Play Music All Access

At MIDiA Research we are currently in the final stages of producing the update to our annual landmark report: The State Of The Streaming Nation, a report which compiles every streaming market data point you could possibly need.

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Universal And Spotify’s Deal Is An Even Bigger Deal Than It Looks

Mark Mulligan

4 Apr 2017

music licensing

Universal Music and Spotify have finally agreed on terms for the streaming service’s new licensing deal which reportedly includes better rates tied to growth targets and premium windowing. Check out Tim Ingham’s piece for detail on the deal.

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