What happens when Tencent owns 10% of UMG?

Zach Fuller

22 Aug 2019

Innovation

umg

music industry

To sound like a broken record, things are about to get difficult for Spotify. To the company’s credit, since its launch a decade ago rumours of its demise have always been greatly exaggerated, with the company regularly proving sceptics wrong through its ability to consistently retain the largest ...

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The Global Music Publishing Market
Streaming Shifts the Conversation

Zach Fuller

August 2019

Apple

Spotify

Spotify

The effects of music streaming having supplanted both the download and the CD as the mainstream format for recorded music (accounting for 50% of total recorded revenue in 2018) are being keenly felt across the music publishing industry. The DNA of streaming consumption (playlists, lower mechanical royalties, less revenue on average for superstar ca...

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Quick Take: This is how much TV show brands are diverging between linear and streaming

Karol Severin

20 Aug 2019

index

Media

Strategy

Looking at streaming numbers against total viewership and brand awareness reveals some stark differences between streaming and traditional pay-TV. The fact that a TV show can now be in the top five most streamed of the quarter, and simultaneously not even reach the top 100 in terms of brand awarenes...

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CBS, Viacom, and media mergers: Is it different this time?

Zach Fuller

15 Aug 2019

CBS

Disney

Media

Media mergers have a storied history, and one that is often not too positive. Whether it is Time Warner or AOL, talk of synergies often fades when confronted with consumer appetite – but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, perhaps it is worth considering how this time it may be different.

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Podcasts are capturing children's attention

Amanda Stears

14 Aug 2019

Podcasts

Audio

audio strategy

With Disney’s latest announcement of a bundle deal for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, the video streaming landscape just got more intensely competitive for both consumers and content providers alike. For OTT providers, the ability to retain customers has become just as vital as acquiring new users – N...

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Take Five (The big five stories and data you need to know)

Mark Mulligan

12 Aug 2019

Take Five

Business Strategy

Apple ups its artist analytics but do artists care? Kobalt and Spotify both helped reshape the music industry’s understanding of what role data should play and how it should be presented. Apple announced its Apple Music for Artists (AMFA) is coming out of beta with a whole host of cool dashboards ...

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The State of the Podcast Nation

Hanna Kahlert

12 Aug 2019

Media

podcast market

Podcasts

Podcasts are an overnight success many years in the making. Even when taking a more cautious view, there are signs of a vibrant ecosystem emerging that is arguably the first entirely new media sector since the emergence of console games.

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Data Says: Esports events are more about live entertainment than gaming

Karol Severin

8 Aug 2019

Gaming

Media and Marketing

esports

Imagine you’ve got three behaviourally defined consumer segments: PC Gamers Console Gamers Live concert goers Which group is most likely to attend an esports event? Intuitively, it has to be Gamers, right? This is not the case.

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The mouse that roared: Disney calls time on traditional pay-TV and Netflix in the US

Tim Mulligan

7 Aug 2019

Disney

Video

Business Strategy

Aspredicted, Disney has decided to flip the switch and unleash a pay-TV (and Netflix) killer by announcing a Q4 bundle of its streaming services in one joint aggressively-priced offer. On November 12th, 2019 when Disney launches its new direct-to-consumer (D2C) service Disney+, it will be possible t...

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Not so Galactico – What went wrong for La Liga?

Alistair Taylor

7 Aug 2019

broadcast deals

La Liga

Sports

Joris Evers, La Liga’s head of communications, confirmed last week that the rights holder has withdrawn its tender for broadcast rights to Spanish soccer’s premier league in the UK and Ireland after failing to receive any acceptable bids, due by the 25th July (via SportsPro ).

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Backing both horses: The thinking behind Tencent’s UMG stake

Mark Mulligan

6 Aug 2019

Tencent

Tencent Music Entertainment

umg

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-track...

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Tencent renewal: NBA the envy of global rports rights holders?

Alistair Taylor

1 Aug 2019

live sports

National Basketball Association

NBA

The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent have announced a five-year extension of their existing partnership, with Tencent acting as the NBA’s official digital partner until the culmination of the 2024/2025 season.

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Music publishing and the catalogue question

Zach Fuller

29 Jul 2019

music catalogue

Music publishing

Recorded music

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Somewhere in a field back in the summer of 2008, Rage Against the Machine used this line as the bridge in their opening song ‘Testify’ during their Friday headline act.

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Is YouTube MLB’s answer to tap into younger audiences?

Alistair Taylor

29 Jul 2019

YouTube

MLB

Sports

On July 18th, Google-owned YouTube livestreamed the first of its exclusive Major League Baseball (MLB) matches, acquired through a partnership announced with the MLB at the end of April 2019. YouTube’s first exclusive live game distribution deal with the MLB covers 13 games during the second half ...

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Thinking the unthinkable – Netflix as gatekeeper

Tim Mulligan

29 Jul 2019

AVOD

Strategy

SVOD

Life after Netflix’s disappointing Q2 earnings has been challenging for the iconic global streaming hegemon. Netflix has achieved hegemonic global subscription video on demand (SVOD) status through a smart combination of serving up second-tier licensed content alongside zeitgeisty original and exc...

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What a post-peak Netflix could look like

Tim Mulligan

25 Jul 2019

Netflix

Strategy

Video

Last week was a bumpy ride for Netflix – a company that is used to being on the right side of Wall Street and the consumer. The world’s leading streaming service made a noticeable miss with is quarterly membership growth numbers increasing by 2.

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The Frank Ocean days may be gone, but streaming disintermediation is just getting started

Mark Mulligan

24 Jul 2019

Marketing

Music

Business Strategy

Music Business Worldwide recently ran a story highlighting that both Spotify and Apple Music were backing independent artist (i.e., independent of record label rather than an indie label artist) Aaron Smith, including featuring him in priority playlists such as Spotify’s New Music Friday.

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State of the Podcast Nation

Mark Mulligan

July 2019

Apple

Spotify

Radio

Podcasts are an overnight success many years in the making. Podcasts were first added to Apple’s iTunes ecosystem in 2005, only to then spend a long time in the shadows. Now, however, they occupy the centre stage with radio companies, podcast vendors, streaming services and traditional media companies alike all trying to carve out roles.

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The State of the Music Publishing Nation

Hanna Kahlert

22 Jul 2019

Music

Music publishing

Business Strategy

This blog highlights some key points from MIDiA’s latest flagship report, the State of the Music Publishing Nation . Now that streaming is settling into its role as the de-facto mode of consumption (contributing to 50% of music industry revenues last year), the acceleration of publishing growth is...

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Sports and sponsorships: MLB seeks revenue home run

Alistair Taylor

22 Jul 2019

Sports

Strategy

Video

Major League Baseball (MLB) could finally allow for sponsorship patches appearing on its teams’ uniforms, the league confirmed to the Sports Business Journal . US sports have historically steered clear from patch sponsors on game day apparel, until 2006 when the Major League Soccer’s Real Salt L...

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