The Platform-Agnostic Artist Building Audiences In A Decentralized Media Landscape

It used to be much simpler. Fixed programming formats in Television, Print and Radio meant you knew where an audience was and how long they would be there for, yet creators now find themselves in an echo chamber where the tyranny of choice means their potential audience never stays in the same place for long. They are now competing in the attention economy, but across many platforms simultaneously. This convoluted media arena means that the onus is for creators of music and visual forms to understand the nature of their audience more than ever before, and how their work can be discoverable in the context of these emerging consumption habits.The result is a decentralised landscape that requires a platform agnostic attitude and cross-channel fluency.

• The present mixture of freemium, subscription and telco bundles has created a vastly different music consumption experience from the traditional model
• In the            years since Spotify launched, streaming has become the de facto mode of consumption for many music fans
• Playlists have replaced Albums for            of music consumers 
•            more of consumers are using curated playlists through Spotify and Apple Music than they did six months previously
• Visual formats are no longer constrained by the platform considerations of previous eras
• The image-centric and increasingly video-based post-platform landscape reveals distinctions in how pure music offerings (Spotify, Apple Music) are different in their consumptions patterns compared to audio-visual (YouTube, Snapchat)

Companies and brand mentioned in this report: Anghami, Apple, Amazon, Deezer, Digster, Disney, Google, KKbox, MixRadio, MTV, Netflix, Pandora, Rhapsody, Soundcloud, Spotify, Tidal, Vevo, YouTube