Lead: as synchronisation grows in importance, a new wave of tools is emerging to make that whole process work seamlessly and smarter, covering both micro-licensing and pitch management. We look at the key players here, what they do and where they are taking synch – plus consider how AI is set to shake things up […]

For a leading global digital music distribution platform we’re currently looking for a Regional Manager to build the presence and position in the UK and manage the office in London.   Job description Your key responsibility is growing UK client-base and managing the operations in the UK. Main components of the day to day business […]

While the dust continues to settle from the Article 13 battle in Europe – at least temporarily – YouTube has announced a revamp of how its Community Guidelines strikes work. This is the system by which channels get three strikes before facing “more severe consequences” for breaking YouTube’s guidelines. In a blog post announcing the changes, YouTube […]

The last time Music Ally wrote about social-music app Dubsmash was in December 2016, when it had just raised a $9.6m funding round in order to fight back against fast-rising rival Musical.ly, which was gaining more traction with a similar app for shooting and sharing lip-sync videos. We know how that story ended: Musical.ly’s user-base continued to […]

Music Ally first encountered French startup Antescofo in 2016, when the company was a finalist in the Midemlab startups competition. It was touting technology that would let amateur musicians playing at home be accompanied by a full orchestra. The company went on to launch its app, called Metronaut, to do exactly that. Now Antescofo has announced a $4.5m […]

There is more consolidation afoot in the music-licensing world, with Songtradr announcing yesterday that it has acquired British firm Big Sync Music. The latter company focuses on sourcing music for brand campaigns, and counts Dove, Samsung, Amazon, Johnnie Walker and Axe among its clients. Songtradr intends to combine the agency’s contacts and knowledge with its […]

A new book by Music Ally’s Eamonn Forde digs deep into the demise of EMI as a standalone major-label, following its £4.2bn acquisition by private-equity company Terra Firma in 2007. This extract details the ambitious – but ultimately unfulfilled – plans to relaunch the EMI.com website as a digital-music service. Going into its acquisition, Terra […]

Ariana Grande may be setting the US charts alight, but there’s  a less-positive story about how women are faring in the UK charts, published by BBC News. “Three times as many male as female pop stars appeared on last year’s biggest hit singles… Ninety-one men or all-male groups were credited on the Official Chart Company’s top […]

Musicians have always been able to upload their tracks directly to SoundCloud without needing a distributor or label. Now the company is adding a new feature: distribution of those tracks to rival music-streaming services. This is part of the SoundCloud Premier program, which has so far focused mainly on getting artists paid for usage of […]

Apple may be announcing its long-rumoured video-streaming service next month, and analysts are chewing over the implications. One, Tim O’Shea of Jefferies, has published a report with some big numbers – but also some questions about the impact such a service would really have on Apple’s wider business. O’Shea suggested that Apple will charge $15 a month […]

Wired Magazine’s Kevin Kelly has form when it comes to big tech ideas: he came up with the ‘1,000 True Fans’ concept in 2008, for example, positing that for artists and creators to make a sustainable living online, the core fans who’d pay $100 a year to support them were the key. Anyway, now he’s […]

We’ve written a fair bit about the use of bots to automatically respond to fans on Facebook Messenger. But what about turning your tweets and (if you’re a company) LinkedIn posts over to a bot? That’s the gist of Swiss startup Twinybots. “Our service will post content on socials networks without your intervention. But you can […]

British artist Little Simz is preparing for the release of her third album ‘GREY Area’ through AWAL, and as part of its marketing campaign is using music stickers on Instagram. The album comes out on 1 March, but every day between now and its release, a new 10-second snippet of one of its tracks will […]

“What’s the point of marketers like me, why would you commission research, when an egg knocks Kylie Jenner off the top spot on Instagram?!” There were jokes and sharp insight in equal measures in music marketer and Chatty Penguin founder Cally Hocknell’s presentation at the FastForward conference in Amsterdam on Friday. She was referring to the […]

It wasn’t just Spotify facing the prospect of class-action lawsuits from songwriters over streaming royalties in recent years. Rhapsody (now operating as Napster) was also on the wrong end of a case brought by David Lowery, Victor Krummenacher and David Faragher. Now the company has released details of a settlement that will see it paying […]

A year ago, Music Ally reported on a study calculating the value of the ‘independent creator economy’ in the US, from an organisation called the Re:Create Coalition. It claimed that musicians, filmmakers, artists and other creators earned nearly $6bn from online platforms including YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, eBay and Etsy in 2016. We also noted that the coalition […]

When we wrote about the competitive-gaming (esports) market last year, we noted that many of the reports about that market’s size quoted from a February 2018 study by research firm Newzoo. Now it’s back again with some new predictions for 2019. “Revenues will reach an impressive $1.1 billion in 2019, a year-on-year growth of +26.7%,” claimed the company. […]

Here’s an interesting new tactic for music-streaming marketing: Apple Music is encouraging subscribers to get their mates onto the service too. “Give Apple Music to your friends,” explained a promotion that was push-notified to subscribers, according to news site AppleInsider. “Apple Music is better with friends. So give one of yours a free month.” The deal […]

British band Mumford & Sons have become the latest artist to produce some exclusive music for Amazon Music. Although in this case, the songs are already well-known: what’s exclusive are new ‘reimagined’ versions of ‘White Blank Page’ and ‘Forever’. Amazon is suggesting that fans say ‘Alexa, play the Amazon Original by Mumford and Sons’ to […]

Idagio is one of the companies (see also: Primephonic) trying to build a business out of a music-streaming service focused purely on classical music. It has a new milestone to report: more than 1m app downloads globally, with an admittedly-less-useful stat that it now has subscribers in 180 countries. It’s taken four years to reach the […]

When Spotify announced that it was buying podcast companies Gimlet Media and Anchor, it declined to say how much it was paying, other than that they were part of a wider $400m-$500m earmarked for podcast acquisitions. “We’re not commenting on that today, because we have other transactions in the works, and I don’t want transactions […]

The vinyl revival continues, and is still warmly welcomed by artists, labels and record stores alike. A panel at the FastForward conference in Amsterdam last week explored some of the trends around the format. The panel included Giancarlo Sciama, former EMI/Universal exec turned catalogue marketing consultant; Karen Emanuel, founder and CEO at Key Production; Claire […]

The current popularity of hip-hop and R&B on music-streaming services is enabling labels to sign more artists, and thus take more creative risks, according to Nicole Wyskoarko, EVP of urban operations at Interscope Geffen A&M. “This is an amazing time to be in urban music. We’re able to really monetise urban music on a scale […]

We’ve been writing and thinking about artificial intelligence (AI) creativity in the context of music for a while now. There’s a fascinating story at the moment about another facet though: AI’s ability to write news stories and fiction. Nonprofit research company OpenAI has created a new AI model called GPT2, which is (according to the […]

Snap is one of the companies commissioning original short-form video ‘shows’ for its platform. News site Digiday has some good gossip about the numbers involved in Snapchat commissions. “Snap is offering to pay companies $40,000 to $50,000 per episode for original series to premiere on Snapchat, according to four entertainment execs with knowledge of the matter,” it […]

Next Wednesday is the Brit Awards, the flagship annual awards show for the British music industry. It’s fair to say the organisers are leaving no stops un-pulled out when it comes to the digital activity around the event. There’ll be a live stream on YouTube of the show to viewers outside the UK, fronted by […]

Playlists continue to grow in prominence (within the music-streaming world) and importance (for artists looking for their breakout moment). So what are the latest trends that artists, managers and labels should be thinking about and responding to? A panel at the FastForward conference in Amsterdam today explored them. The panelists included Aditi Arora, director of […]

Job description FUGA Aggregation & Services is looking for an experienced, passionate and ambitious professional to head up our global digital marketing & promotions department. As a key part of our content exploitation team you will be instrumental in defining the FUGA brand and build on our strong position in independent digital music distribution.   […]

Never slow to spot a new branding opportunity, Kiss have teamed up with The Emoji Company to create their own line of emoji, which will be splashed across *consults press release* “Apparel, Accessories, Footwear, Electronics, Figures and Collectibles, Drinkware, Fan Merch, Home Goods, Stationery, and more”. The deal for ‘KISS x emoji®’ was brokered by […]

A new US startup called Loop Media plans to launch a video-streaming service focusing on short-form content, including music videos. The company will also focus on film trailers, game trailers and TV clips, with plans to make all this content available in public spaces, as well as on people’s smartphones. “Loop plans to link in-home […]

Sofar Sounds is the startup that’s behind a global network of music concerts held in people’s homes and other interesting locations – according to Billboard it now has shows running in 428 cities around the world. It also has a new CEO: Jim Lucchese, the former CEO of The Echo Nest, and (after that company was […]

Mobile-industry research site Telecompaper has published some new figures on the popularity of music-streaming apps in the Netherlands. It pegs Spotify as the leader, with its app now installed on 33% of Dutch smartphones, according to the company’s latest Dutch Apps Market report. It suggests that Apple Music, on 5%, is some way behind. Telecompaper also […]

Music-streaming service Qobuz will go live in the US today: a launch that the company has been teasing for several months. The company will be offering its established blend of hi-res streams AND downloads to American users for the first time. “Nobody else is offering high-res music like this,” its US managing director Dan Mackta […]

Job Title: Director of Connected Fans Strategy   Location: Los Angeles or New York   Connected fan relationships are at the core of mtheory’s artist development strategy. We are seeking a highly curious individual to help lead us in identifying the core principles around the connected fan relationship – including knowing who the fans are, […]

Supercell is the Finnish mobile-games publisher behind monster hits like Clash of Clans and Clash Royale – so popular that Tencent acquired an 84.3% stake in the company in 2016 for $8.6bn. The company’s CEO Ilkka Paananen has just published some figures for Supercell’s 2018, as well as milestones for its biggest games. The bad news: […]

Apple will reportedly hold its next big press event on 25 March at its Steve Jobs Theater venue. BuzzFeed described the event as “subscription-services focused”, which is thought to point towards the launch of a news-subscription service – although perhaps also an announcement about Apple’s video strategy. The news-subscription plans are making headlines though, and not entirely […]

Deezer has announced the next swathe of artists who’ll benefit from its ‘Deezer Next’ promotion in 2019. British artists Sam Fender and Lewis Capaldi will be global priorities for the streaming service this year, with Capaldi having stepped up from being a Deezer Next artist in the UK last year. They follow Deezer’s global artists […]

Warner Music Group is making some interesting appointments at the moment. We reported on its hiring of The Orchard co-founder Scott Cohen earlier this week. Now WMG has appointed former Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton as non-executive chairman of its board. He’ll combine the job with his current role as chairman of Snapchat’s parent company […]

The team of Swedish researchers behind new book ‘Spotify Teardown’ have already roused the ire of the streaming service, which criticised their methods of digging in to its system. But with the book on the verge of release, the authors have given an interview to Rolling Stone that puts forward their view. “The issue became: How does one […]

The ‘value gap’ debate isn’t just a European or American thing. In India, too, there is a discussion going on (and, indeed, a fully-fledged political consultation exercise) on how safe harbours should operate. The Indian government is considering new legislation – the  Information Technology [Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules – and Indian music-industry body IMI has published […]

Pitchfork spares no punches in its profile of social-video app TikTok, drawing an unflattering comparison between the value of its parent company Bytedance, and the level of royalties being paid to musicians for use of their work. That said, a tale does emerge of viral TikTok videos sparking streams of music on YouTube and other platforms […]

The post Country Profile – United Kingdom 2019 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Dance artist and DJ Steve Aoki was early in to esports, and now he’s become the first artist to nab a starring role in the latest mobile game based on Star Trek. Aoki is appearing in Star Trek Fleet Command as a character called Officer D’Jaoki, joining the game yesterday. This isn’t a brand new relationship with […]

Earlier this month, distributor The Orchard’s co-founder Scott Cohen announced that he was ‘retiring’. It seems that this will involve very little golf, gardening and/or complaining about the buses though. He’s been hired for an as-yet undisclosed role at Warner Music Group, working on what MBW describes as ‘innovation’ (as opposed to working for WMG’s in-house equivalents […]

A fifth of songs that made Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 chart in the US used samples, according to a report published by Tracklib – a company that focuses on sample-clearance. “It’s been fairly consistent the last few years: usually between 20-25%. Looking back 10 years, the number was 14%,” explains its ‘State of Sampling’ report. “The increasing […]

Much of the limelight in terms of European policy is being hogged by the new copyright directive and Article 13 this week. However, a group of European tech firms and industry bodies want to remind policymakers of another area for modernisation: that covering ‘platform-to-business’ – how large internet platform-owners like Google, Apple and Amazon treat European businesses […]

Full title: Head of Partnership Development (Northern, Eastern & Central Europe) Location: Kings Cross Salary: Circa £75,000 per annum Term: Permanent Closing date: Friday 15 February 2019 The Role We are looking for a Head of Partnership Development (Northern, Eastern & Central Europe) to manage the overall revenue and operational responsibility for the Northern, Eastern and Central Europe […]

The Outhere Music Group is one of the world’s leading independent producers of Classical and Contemporary music. It is home to the mythical Alpha Classics and Linn Records labels and to several more focused labels such as Aeon, Arcana, Fuga Libera, HatHut Records, Outnote, Phi, Ramée and Ricercar. Because Outhere has an unrelenting passion for […]

It’s a long time since, scale-wise, Vimeo was in anywhere near the same league as YouTube in the video-streaming world. Still, the company – now owned by media group IAC – continues to grow its business. Vimeo’s revenues grew by 54% to $160m in 2018, according to IAC (as reported by Reuters) while the service’s […]

It was clear last week just how much welly Spotify is willing to put behind podcasts in the year ahead, with up to $500m earmarked for acquisitions of tech and content – including its deals for Gimlet Media and Anchor. Now Spotify has announced details of its next original, exclusive podcast: an eight-part documentary called […]

One of the points we’ve been making about augmented-reality (AR) technology over the past year is that the biggest impact for artists from it will come from campaigns using the big social/tech platforms with AR features: Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook etc. Now Childish Gambino is testing another angle: appearing as an animated character in the ‘Playground’ […]

We wrote last week that we were waiting for the latest weekly YouTube Music charts to go live, so that we could gauge the bump that dance artist Marshmello got from his concert in YouTube. Not least because anecdotally, nearly every child aged 8-13 we know has been hammering his tracks on YouTube ever since […]

Shiri? Isn’t that what you talk to on your iPhone when you’ve had a few-too-many gins? But no: Shiri is actually a new music app launched by the National Library of Israel, with a catalogue of more than 400k tracks by Israeli artists. It’s been launched to promote local musicians, as well as to make […]

We’ve written a lot about Indian streaming services Gaana, Saavn (now JioSaavn) and Wynk Music over the last couple of years. Their next source of competition may come from telco Vodafone, which recently merged with another Indian mobile operator, Idea Cellular. The latter company already has its Idea Music app, which combines streaming, downloading, playlists […]

We’re getting a sense of how music-identification app Shazam, acquired by Apple in September 2018, will be used by the company to promote Apple Music. Last night, anyone tagging a track during the Grammys ceremony unlocked a ‘Grammy Awards experience’ listing the songs performed during the event. There was also a special offer: new subscribers (to Apple […]

Two open letters published this week have laid bare new divisions within the music industry over the proposed new European copyright directive – and its Article 13 section dealing with user-uploaded content platforms like YouTube. Yesterday, a letter whose signatories included the IFPI and Impala (representing labels) and ICMP (representing publishers) called for the directive […]

Yesterday, music-industry bodies the IFPI, Impala and ICMP published a letter calling for the European copyright directive to be scrapped. Now a group of bodies representing musicians, songwriters, managers and producers have criticised the intervention, and the gloves are truly off. “It is hugely disappointing to see the music labels and publishers disregard the interests […]

More than 10 million people watched Marshmello’s first concert in video-game Fortnite last weekend. Now Nielsen has put out some figures showing how the event caused a big spike in his on-demand video (i.e. YouTube) streams. Billboard reports that his track ‘Check This Out’ saw a nearly 24,000% increase in views on the day of the concert, […]

Abbey Road Studios wants to recruit more teams with women founders to its Abbey Road Red startup accelerator, according to the studios’ MD Isabel Garvey. “We are acutely aware that we have no female founders, and very few women in our founder teams, and we are trying to be a little more diverse,” said Garvey, […]

Spotify’s latest update to its terms and conditions of use was published yesterday (7 February), and one of the new clauses is picking up some interest from tech-news sites. New to the list of forbidden activities for Spotify users: “circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements in […]

“I think we’re looking at a new way of doing music, which is a collaboration between human expertise, human taste, and human raw talent in creating music and recording it, with the machine’s ability to combine those things and generate music all day long. And make it sound like a human made it.” “Just imagine […]

Lead: Smoke and mirrors have always been part of music, but when it comes to data, truth is starting to play second fiddle to hype. The nefarious and ruthless are finding ways to “massage” social media and streaming numbers while offering the desperate and gullible a quick fix. But the platforms are getting wise to […]

It’s the week for big podcasting news. Spotify has made waves with its acquisitions of Gimlet Media and Anchor, but other podcasting firms are also capitalising on current interest in the medium. US startup Himalaya Media, for example, has raised $100m in funding to push its podcast-listening app and distribution platform. The app launched in […]

Spotify said yesterday that podcasts are just the ‘start’ of its ambitions to focus on all forms of audio. What next? We’d suggest that meditation / mindfulness will be high on the company’s radar – and not just because one of its first subscription-bundle partnerships was with meditation app Headspace back in 2016. Investor interest […]

Taking a bite out of broadcast radio is at the heart of Spotify’s move into spoken-word content – and is high on the agenda for other streaming services too. The opportunity (but also the challenge) is illustrated by the latest figures from British radio-measurement body Rajar. It says that 88% of the UK population – […]

It’s a compliment, of sorts, if your company’s share-price falls by 15% after you announce plans to step down. Although we doubt Mike Giannetto will be celebrating: he won’t quit as Sonos’ chief financial officer until later in 2019, so for now, that share-price remains his problem to worry about. In fairness, the plunge wasn’t […]

Metal-focused streaming-radio startup Gimme Radio is raising money, but through equity-crowdfunding rather than turning to VC firms. The company has launched a campaign on crowdfunding platform SeedInvest. It’s trying to raise $1.5m with a minimum amount of $500 per investor, and if it succeeds, Gimme Radio would be valued at $6m. The campaign also offers […]

Crowdfunding firm PledgeMusic’s efforts to dig itself out of its current financial troubles continues: this time with a suspension of all active campaigns running on its platform. Billboard reported that PledgeMusic announced the news in an email sent to artists. It follows the company’s public statement last week apologising for delays in paying artists. “The […]

Singapore-based music/tech startup Musiio has raised $1m in seed fundingfrom investors including Wavemaker Partners, Exponential Creativity Ventures and other angel investors. The startup uses artificial-intelligence technology to analyse catalogues of music for a range of clients. As its CEO Hazel Savage explained at the recent NY:LON Connect conference, the company can power automated search through […]

It may raise a few eyebrows to learn that major-label Warner Music Group now has an executive role whose title includes ‘president of independent music’. Actually, it’s not a surprise: the company’s new president of independent music and creator services is Eliah Seton, who’s been promoted from his previous position as president of ADA Worldwide, […]

“Today, it is estimated that more than 5 billion people have mobile devices, and over half of these connections are smartphones,” explains the latest study from the US-based Pew Research Center. It proceeds to explore some of the differences between countries: fertile material for anyone in the music industry thinking about smartphone habits around the […]

Snapchat’s parent company Snap, Inc published its latest quarterly financial results yesterday, and while there are still headaches for the company, the actual business is growing well. Snap’s Q4 revenues were up by 36% to a record $390m, while its losses narrowed from $350m in Q4 2017 to $192m a year later. However, Snapchat’s daily […]

Producer and artist Swizz Beatz has called for artists to get a bigger share of streaming royalties. “I’m friends with all the streaming companies, but what I will say on record to them is we’re not getting enough money for those services and those companies to be trading for billions of dollars,” he told MarketWatch. […]

As music-streaming competition heats up in the Middle East, Deezer has announced a new boss for the region: Tarek Mounir. He will join the company on 1 April as CEO for MENA and Turkey, with a focus on ‘growing Deezer’s B2B and advertising business’ in the region, as well as working with its global team […]

Until December 2018, Zach Katz was BMG’s president of US repertoire. Now he’s turning music/tech investor, in partnership with manager Scooter Braun, cryptocurrency firm Ripple, and Something Gold boss Shara Senderoff. They’ve co-founded an investment firm called Raised in Space Enterprises, which will focus on music/tech startups. Billboard reported that the company will look to […]

Research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) has issued its latest estimates on the smart-speaker market in the US. It claims the number of speakers in use grew from 37m at the end of 2017 to 66m at the end of 2018, including 13m bought in the fourth quarter of the year. The relative market-shares […]

Two of the three major labels are facing new class-action lawsuits filed in New York, which focus on the right of artists under the so-called ’35-year law’ there. That’s the legislation that in theory allows artists to file Notices of Termination to regain ownership and control of their copyrights 35 years after that music was […]

Rumours that Spotify was about to shell out $200m-plus on podcast production company Gimlet Media were correct: the acquisition was announced today. But Spotify is also buying a second company, Anchor, which makes an app that people can use to create their own podcasts. The value of the acquisitions has not yet been announced (Spotify […]

  Job Title: Account Manager, Music Industry (EMEA) Department: Sales Location: Corporate Headquarters: London, NW1 Reports to: Head of Sales (Rights & Royalties – EMEA) Direct Reports: None Compensation: Competitive base salary + Uncapped Commission Pay Frequency: Last working day of every calendar month Position Status: ☒  Full-Time ◻  Part-Time ◻  Internship-Paid ☒  Regular ◻ […]

Spotify has published its latest quarterly financial results, covering the final quarter of 2018. The post Spotify financial results: revenues up by 30% as premium subs reach 96m appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Amuse is the Swedish music company that’s part distributor – a platform for artists to upload their music to streaming and download services – and part record label, working more closely with talent that’s emerged from its distribution arm. Launched internationally in 2017, the model is similar to that of Kobalt’s AWAL with its combination of […]

Warner Music Group has published its latest quarterly financial results, which reveal that the company’s revenues grew by 15.1% year-on-year. That was just over $1.2bn in the fourth quarter of 2018 (WMG’s fiscal Q1). Of that, digital revenues grew by 17.6% to $627m, with the company reporting an operating profit of $147m and a net […]

One of the key parts of the Music Modernization Act (MMA) was the plan to create a new collective to license and administer mechanical rights in the US. Yesterday we got more details on the pitch from the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and Songwriters of North America (SONA) for their ‘Mechanical Licensing Collective’ (MLC), […]

Social apps from overseas, particularly China, have been dominating the upper reaches of app stores in India. Now the government is responding, with new regulations aimed at ‘intermediary’ apps that get their content from users. The Financial Times reported that any such apps with more than five million users in India ‘need to set up […]

Live video is an increasingly common way for musicians to interact with their fans, from album and tour launches on Facebook to fan Q&As on Instagram and even streaming gaming sessions on Twitch or YouTube. One aspect of livestreaming that still flies under the western music industry’s radar, though, are standalone live-video apps like YouNow, […]

Will children ever tire of YouTube? Surely not! Yet that’s the suggestion being made in a new report published by research firm Kids Insights, which is out today. “According to our data across all ages 4-18 the number of children spending time each day watching YouTube has declined from 61% to 51% in a persistent […]

We know that in-car radio has historically been a key source of music discovery. And we also know that rideshare services (Uber and Lyft included) are very-popular ways to get around cities. Startup Steereo is bringing those two ideas together, with a music-promotion service based around paying drivers to play new music to their passengers. […]

After a troubling start to 2019 (and to be honest, a pretty worrying 2018 for artists whose payments were delayed) PledgeMusic is asking for patience as it sorts out its financial issues. “The situation that PledgeMusic has found itself in is unacceptable and to all of the artists, managers, labels and fans who have put […]

This time last year, the US Recording Academy was facing strong (and deserved) criticism for poorly-worded comments by its boss Neil Portnow about how women needed to “step up” in the music industry. 12 months on, the Academy is offering something more constructive: a ‘Producer and Engineering Inclusion Initiative’ which aims to increase the opportunities […]

The post Country Profile – China 2019 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Welcome to the first Music Ally Report of 2019. We’re taking a look at some of the key challenges that lie ahead for our industry this year – and how they might be tackled. From diversity to startups via fake music and taking a bite out of radio, we hope it’s a constructive take on […]

Those rumours that dance artist Marshmello was going to play a concert within video-game Fortnite were right: it happened on Saturday. In fact, he played two concerts, 12 hours apart, to ensure people could attend at a suitable moment for their timezone. What’s startling is how many people the first of those concerts attracted. Pollstar […]

About us We are a growing international music company that offers a friendly and collaborative working environment with great benefits and a leadership team who values every employee. Our mission is to be a better kind of music business. That’s why we offer the best creative support, provide the best access to platforms and work […]

Quitting specific social networks – temporarily or permanently – is an increasingly-common pastime. But does it improve your life? A study at Stanford University has been finding out, focusing on Facebook with a study of 2,844 of its users in the US. A subset of them deactivated their accounts for four weeks. And the main […]

We wrote about startup HitRecord for the first time last October, when it launched a project with artist Logic. He was the highest-profile musician so far to take advantage of HitRecord’s platform for creative collaborations: posting the bones of a new track and inviting fans to flesh it out with their own contributions – with […]

Spotify announces its latest quarterly financial results on 6 February, but research firm CIRP has got in early with some predictions – based on (caveat alert!) a survey of 500 Spotify listeners in the US. It reckons that Spotify added two million paying premium subscribers in the US during the final quarter of 2018, while […]

AWAL serves a growing roster of emerging and already established artists and labels. We are now expanding our UK Marketing team to include a new Senior Director of Marketing.  Reporting to the General Manager, the role will involve working closely with artists, managers and label clients to set up, implement and deliver industry leading, innovative […]

As the Head of International Marketing, you will be responsible for managing AWAL’s international marketing teams who create and deliver successful, innovative & global marketing campaigns for our growing roster of Artist and Label clients. You will work directly with all our clients and with senior leaders in the AWAL team as well as develop […]

Facebook published its latest financial results yesterday, with quarterly revenues up 30% year-on-year to $16.91bn, leading to a net profit of $6.88bn in the fourth quarter of 2018. Mobile advertisements accounted for around 93.5% of Facebook’s overall revenues last quarter. For the year as a whole, Facebook generated just over $55.8bn in revenues, up 37% […]

If you’ve ever been tempted to spend money inflating your Instagram followers, SoundCloud streams or other social metrics, here’s the latest useful warning not to. The state of New York has reached a settlement with a now-defunct firm called Devumi, after attorney general Letitia James launched an investigation into the company last year. In an […]

In January, United Airlines caused a stir with a promotional banner at one of its events, announcing that Apple was its biggest corporate customer, spending $150m a year with the airline – including $35m on flights to Shanghai in particular. When a photograph of the banner leaked, it was widely reported, sparking a swift statement […]

Attention in the debate about secondary ticketing and touting has shifted to Germany this week, where the Hanover regional court has made an important ruling. According to the court, it is officially anti-competitive to sell concert tickets at a price more than 25% above the original cost. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by […]

Benji Rogers is returning to the company he co-founded, PledgeMusic, as a ‘volunteer strategic advisor and observer to the board’ in an effort to help the crowdfunding company deal with its financial troubles and get artists paid. “I have been in discussions with the management team and board of Pledge over the last few days […]

Japan may be the world’s second-largest recorded-music market, but in terms of music-streaming, it is still early days for a country where CD is still the prime format. Midia Research has raised some concerns about the rate of streaming growth in Japan: “Up 30% in 2018, which puts it on a par with US for […]

US firm SoundExchange has published its year-end numbers for 2018, and like other bodies collecting and distributing royalties for musicians and rightsholders, it enjoyed a record year. “We distributed more sound recording performance royalties to recording artists and rights owners than in any other year of our 15-year existence – a record $953m,” announced SoundExchange […]

As it prepares to close its acquisition of Pandora, satellite-radio service SiriusXM has published its latest quarterly financials. We already new from the company’s trading update earlier this month that it ended 2018 with 34 million subscribers in the US. Now we also know that SiriusXM’s revenues grew by 6% to $5.8bn last year – […]

We’ve been writing about text-marketing startup SuperPhone since 2016, when musician Ryan Leslie raised $1.5m to build a tool for artists to communicate with fans via SMS. Now it’s got some competition from a startup called Community, discovered by Wired when actor and investor Ashton Kutcher promoted it to his fans. “I miss having a […]

The popularity of video-game Fortnite has recently sparked a series of lawsuits from rappers and dancers, angry at the game including some of their signature moves without asking for permission or paying any kind of licensing fee. Some musicians have a more positive relationship with Fortnite though: EDM star Marshmello, for example, who’s broken online-viewing […]

We reported earlier this month on the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by US labels against Russian stream-ripping site FLVTO. Now the RIAA is launching an appeal against the decision, which was based on whether a US court had jurisdiction over the site. “The court got it wrong. Its decision represents a big step backward […]

Spotify has been banging the drum this week for Spotify Ad Studio, its self-serve advertising platform that launched in September 2017, and is available in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. The company now says it’s Spotify’s “fastest-growing advertising channel” (based on quarterly revenue and advertiser growth). “We’ve already seen success with a variety of […]

Warner Music Group’s latest partnership is with Doğan Group in Turkey: owner of the country’s biggest independent label, and also of online-video channel NetD. The deal will see Doğan Music Company (the label) distribute WMG’s physical catalogue in Turkey, as well as “represent its repertoire to Turkish-owned digital music platforms”. That will also see the […]

British collecting-society PPL has reported some figures for 2018: its international collections, for public and TV/radio performances (plus private copying) of its members’ tracks. The organisation collected £70.9m ($93.3m) in 2018, up 43% year-on-year, and a new record for PPL, which now has 92 international collection agreements in place. Those include deals signed in 2018 […]

Crowdfunding service PledgeMusic has been taking more criticism this week for delays in its payments to artists using its platform. One of those artists were rock band Fastball, who as a post from industry-blogger Bob Lefsetz explained earlier this month, were owed $20k by the company. Now, according to Variety, they have been paid more […]

It’s not just Article 13 and new copyright legislation causing controversy within the European Union. The EU could also be in line for a new law involving a 3% tax on the European revenues of technology companies, although as Bloomberg reports, several countries are resisting the idea. As is Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, according to […]

Apple has published some new rules for how in-app subscriptions should be advertised to people using iOS apps. Those rules include clearly explaining the terms of a subscription to new customers, including the billing amount. “In the purchase flow, the amount that will be billed must be the most prominent pricing element in the layout. […]

Why DID Instagram’s co-founders and the remaining co-founder of WhatsApp leave Facebook in 2018? More fuel for the gossip was provided by a New York Times report this weekend reporting that CEO Mark Zuckerberg “plans to integrate the social network’s messaging services — WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger… The services will continue to operate as […]

Remember Frank Ocean’s ‘Endless’ album? It’s okay if you don’t: its release in August 2016 was rather trumped by the launch a day later by ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ – the latter on his own label, with ‘Endless’ having seen out his contract with UMG subsidiary Def Jam. At the time, the move was thought to […]

It’s not just T-Series doing well at signing subscribers up for Indian-music YouTube channels. Zee Music Company has announced its own milestone: 30 million subscribers for its flagship YouTube channel, which mixes film and non-film music. “Zee Music Company is now 30 million subscribers strong on YouTube India. A big THANK YOU to all for […]

Lead: While Netflix viewers are currently obsessing over Marie Kondo and her rules on de-cluttering the home (instructing viewers to only hold onto the things that “spark joy”), a different approach needs to happen in digital marketing. Rather than binning everything but the essentials, archivists and markets should be retaining as much as they can […]

Thought for the day: “Women want real men, men they can count on and yes, look up to. No amount of feminist theory will change that.” Or here’s another one: “Intersectionality is a form of identity politics, in which the value of your opinion depends on how many victim groups you belong to.” And just […]

Spotify’s ‘2018 Wrapped’ promotion had plenty of people boasting about how much time they’d spent listening to their favourite artists last year. But for some Spotify users, the Wrapped microsite was more baffling: if some of their ‘favourite’ artists were acts they had no memory of listening to. An investigation by the BBC Trending team […]

Panels where people from the music industry talk about the music industry in front of people from the music industry are obviously useful in terms of exchanging ideas and taking the temperature of the business. But equally it is important – especially in an age of discovery algorithms, big data, targeted marketing, in-app revenue opportunities […]

Spotify and Deezer’s recent launches in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have highlighted the region’s status as a strategic priority for the music industry – although these companies (and Apple Music) are facing strong competition from local streaming service Anghami. Trends in the MENA region were the focus for a panel session at Music […]

Five music/tech startups pitched their wares at the NY:LON Connect conference this afternoon in London: Amadeus Code, Musiio, Rootnote, Scored and ClicknClear. The audience voted on which was their favourite, and ClicknClear prevailed. An achievement more impressive because of the high quality of all the pitches, and the technology they showcased. Here’s our roundup of each […]

Facebook doesn’t break out revenues for Instagram when publishing its financial results – just like Alphabet doesn’t give standalone figures for YouTube. That leaves a gap for analysts to fill with their own estimates. One, Jefferies, has put out a figure for Instagram. “We believe that Instagram is a material driver for growth in ’19 and […]

Universal Music Group’s Bravado division has been bolstered this week by the acquisition of merchandise and branding firm Epic Rights, for an undisclosed amount. Epic Rights works with the likes of Kiss, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, AC/DC and Britney Spears among other artists. CEO Dell Furano will be staying on as part of the acquisition. “I’m very proud […]

Distribution firm CD Baby has inked an interesting deal with publishing-rights organisation SACM in Mexico. “CD Baby will be offering free standard submissions to all registered SACM members,” explained the distributor. “SACM is equally honoured to recognise CD Baby as their “preferred” and recommended distributor. Representing more than half of all Mexican artists, this is […]

Virtual-reality music startup MelodyVR launched its app last year, timing it around the launch of Facebook’s Oculus Go VR headset. Now the companies are taking their partnership to a new level. MelodyVR “will release a new version of the MelodyVR music platform, featuring updated features and functionality, for use on a forthcoming Oculus device” according […]

It’s not just the likes of Spotify, Deezer and Pandora trying to take a bite out of traditional radio by moving into podcasts. Indian streaming service Hungama Music is following suit with the launch of what it’s terming ‘original audio programming’. That means radio-style shows in languages including Hindi, Telegu, Punjabi, Bengali and Marathi, but starting […]

RealNetworks has announced that it has doubled its stake in music-streaming service Napster to 84%, after agreeing a deal with co-owner Columbus Nova Technology Partners. RealNetworks is paying $1m in cash up-front, a further $14m “over time subject to certain conditions”, although the final bill could reach $40m if Napster is sold (or has a “similar liquidity […]

Guess who the most popular musician in the world was last week based on YouTube views? Not Ariana Grande, who’s currently Spotify’s top artist: she was only 21st in YouTube’s weekly rankings for 11-17 January – admittedly before the release of her latest track ‘7 Rings’, which has done 60m+ views in its first five days on […]

This week, rumours that Spotify is preparing to launch a $100 in-car speaker as its first hardware resurfaced. It’s a sign of the wider excitement around the potential for music-streaming in cars. Hi-res music-technology firm MQA is part of that trend: earlier this month, it showed off how its studio-quality music can be experienced in […]

From songwriters suing streaming services to big-bucks catalogue acquisitions, the music-publishing world has made plenty of headlines in recent years. Downtown Music Publishing CEO Justin Kalifowitz suggested that publishing is “the biggest piece of the pie” for most musicians and that it is seeing “stable and steady growth in established markets”. But, however, he felt […]

Darren Hemmings is the head of British marketing agency Motive Unknown, but he’s also been prominent in the public discussions about wellbeing in the music industry, and some of the pressures that people face. Now he’s written a blog post about his personal experience of 2018 as “the year when I finally decided to Get My Shit […]

Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon may dominate many of the discussions about music-streaming, but there is more to the global streaming market than the biggest players. A strand at Music Ally and Music Biz’s NY:LON Connect conference in London today explored life beyond the big beasts, although it started with Nielsen Music’s VP global Helena […]

Amaechi Uzoigwe, manager of hip-hop stars Run The Jewels, thinks that artists can make their own luck in the streaming era, despite the challenges of breaking through the noise. “Streaming is one of the greatest things to happen to music. Streaming media is one of the greatest things to happen to entertainment. And the accessibility […]

It is still, frankly, anyone’s guess what form the UK’s upcoming exit from the European Union will take – and the chaotic state of the British government right means it’s still possible ‘Brexit’ won’t happen at all. For musicians and music companies this is all worrying: particularly those trying to plan tours in Europe after […]

In 2018, Turkish recorded music association Mü-Yap expects digital music revenue in Turkey to grow by about 25%, while Metin Uzelli, a veteran of the Turkish music industry, predicts that the overall market will grow by 10-15% as the streaming boom there slows slightly. These views come from our latest country profile, on Turkey. Bülent […]

When news emerged that Sony’s RCA label had parted ways with R. Kelly, campaigning group UltraViolet called on Spotify and other streaming services to (once again) take action against this particular star. Yet the memory of last year’s controversy when Spotify *did* de-playlist Kelly (and rapper XXXTentacion) for ‘hateful conduct’ outside their music remains fresh. […]

The latest FastForward music-industry conference will take place in Amsterdam on 14-15 February, and curator Media Insight Consulting has announced a wave of new speakers for the event. They include keynotes from Sofar Sounds CEO Rafe Offer; Interscope Geffen A&M EVP of urban operations Nicole Wyskoarko; and sports-data analytics firm OptaPro’s EVP Ben Mackriell. Other […]

Music Ally first wrote about French startup Whyd back in 2012, when it was a discovery website for people to collect music from YouTube, SoundCloud and other sources in one place. By 2016, the company had pivoted to focus on building its own smart speaker as a rival to Amazon’s Echo. Now it’s shifting again, […]

Last Thursday (17 January) was the deadline set by the UK’s competition watchdog the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) for secondary-ticketing sites to change the way they listed tickets offered for resale. New rules included the requirement to show what seat in a venue a ticket is for, as well as the identity of the seller […]

There has been a steady build-up of pressure on Sony and its RCA Records subsidiary to drop R. Kelly, in the wake of the latest set of allegations about his personal life. It has now emerged that Sony and R. Kelly, in Billboard’s words, “have agreed to part ways”. The news comes after several artists […]

It ain’t Christmas any more, Mariah! Ariana Grande has seized the Spotify 24-hour-streams record that Mariah Carey snaffled in December. The latter’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ was streamed 10.8m times on Christmas Eve, but now Grande’s new track ‘7 Rings’ has the record, after nearly 15m streams in the 24 hours after […]

The post Country Profile – Turkey 2019 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Israeli music/tech firm Revelator is launching a new spin-off called Original Works, whose ambitions include processing and paying out streaming royalties to musicians and rightsholders on a daily basis. The post Revelator’s Original Works to handle rights and daily payments appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Video-streaming service Netflix published its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2018 yesterday, and thus also the full calendar year. The company ended 2018 with 139 million paying members, having added 29 million of them during the year. Its revenues grew by 35% year-on-year to $16bn, while its operating profits nearly doubled to $1.6bn. […]

Bandcamp has long been the platform for a host of independent artists and labels to sell physical music and merchandise, as well as downloads. Now the company itself is getting a physical manifestation: it has opened a record store in Oakland, California. It’s more than just a shop, though. “We’ll feature a selection of records that […]

The UK’s independent-music trade body AIM is preparing for its first AIM Sync global sync-licensing conference, which takes place in London on 28 January. Ahead of the event, some of the speakers told Music Ally about their hopes for sync-licensing in 2019, from an independent perspective. The tone was one of optimism, with labels seeing […]

We first wrote about British startup ClicknClear last year (when it was known as Clickamix) with its plans to license music for use in performance sports like cheerleading, figure skating and gymnastics. The company has since started working with more than 100 music rightsholders, including Universal Music Publishing, Warner Music and BMG. Now ClicknClear has […]

We’ve written about startup WaveAI in recent months, with its plans to launch an AI-music-creation app called Alysia. This week, the app went live on Apple’s App Store for iPhones and iPads. It’s pitched at music fans as well as musicians: they can choose background music in a range of styles and genres, then generate […]

News site Quartz has an interesting article analysing the song lengths on the last few albums by artists including Kendrick Lamar, Drake and Kanye West. Its conclusion: “Popular music is shrinking. From 2013 to 2018, the average song on the Billboard Hot 100 fell from 3 minutes and 50 seconds to about 3 minutes and […]

Europe has a new campaigning group taking aim at inflated ticket-reselling. It’s called the Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT for short) and has been founded by a group of promoters who’ve worked with artists including Adele, Björk, Bruce Springsteen, Ed Sheeran, Iron Maiden, the Rolling Stones and Radiohead among other artists. The new body […]

Spotify’s push around podcasts at the CES technology show last week included the release of some new figures about how people are listening to this content on its service. “On Spotify, we saw listening increase by 175% over the last year,” explained the company in a post on its Spotify for Brands blog. And yes, […]

The music industry was celebrating on 12 September 2018 when the European Parliament voted (by 438 votes to 226) to pass the Article 13 section of the proposed new European Copyright Directive. The wording of the legislation seemed to back the position taken by the music industry over the liability of platforms like YouTube for […]

When we write about voice assistants and smart speakers, we tend to assume that these trends are happening first in the home, and will then move to cars. Actually, a new study from Voicebot suggests that this may be muddled thinking. “Smart speakers and other devices with embedded voice assistants get a lot of media […]

Wavy is a music/tech startup that we have to admit slipped through our net: an iPhone app using augmented-reality technology to create ‘experiences’ around music tracks. The idea was that it would collaborate with musicians on AR videos, which fans could then use to create their own clips for sharing. Anyway, Wavy has now been […]

If you’re following the mobile apps and gaming markets, a couple of reports published yesterday will make interesting reading. App Annie has put out its annual ‘The State of Mobile’ report, which claims that across Apple’s App Store, Android’s Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China, there were 194bn worldwide downloads in 2018. […]

British company Spitfire Audio has built a business around sample libraries and virtual instruments for artists and producers to use when making music. Now the company is branching out with the creation of its own label, SA Recordings. The label launches today with an EP by Spitfire’s lead composer Oliver Patrice Weder, which will be […]

Expect another day of ‘If Netflix can increase its prices why can’t Spotify?’ headlines, after the video-streaming service announced plans for a 13-18% increase in the US. That includes a two-dollar rise for Netflix’s most-popular subscription plan in the US, which will now cost $13 a month rather than $11. The cheapest $8 plan will […]

We’ve been expecting Spotify to launch in India sometime in the spring, based on previous gossip from industry sources. However, Variety reckons the streaming service could go live even earlier than that – as soon as this month. “Spotify is rumored to be hosting a launch party in Mumbai on January 31, which means they’re […]

Ninja Tune artist The Cinematic Orchestra have relaunched their website with a fun twist: it wants fans to use it offline. “To Believe… disable your internet connection now,” it explains, when they land on its homepage. If they do, the screen fades to black and then provides details about ‘A Caged Bird / Imitations of […]

Paloma Faith, then Little Mix, and now Michael Bublé. The Canadian crooner is the latest artist to get his own Alexa skill – a voice-controlled app for Echo smart speakers and other devices using Amazon’s virtual assistant. Fans saying ‘Alexa, open Bublé Daily’ will get access to the skill, which has launched in the UK, […]

Capitol Records artist Maggie Rogers is the first musician that YouTube has chosen for its Artist On The Rise marketing program in 2019. The initiative is focused on ‘up-and-coming’ talent, with Rogers having first come to prominence in 2016 in a video of a masterclass held by Pharrell Williams in New York, when one of […]

Hip-hop DJ Charlie Sloth left the BBC’s Radio 1 under a cloud last year, having invaded the stage at an industry-awards ceremony when another broadcaster won the category he was nominated in. At the time, Sloth had already announced plans to depart – the controversy meant that happened 10 shows earlier than expected – with […]

Indian music company T-Series still hasn’t managed to knock gamer PewDiePie off his perch as YouTube’s most-subscribed-to channel: it’s on 80.5 million subs at the time of writing, compared to PewDiePie’s 80.9 million. Given their respective growth over the past year, it seems only a matter of time before T-Series is top dog – but […]

As the streaming landscape is continuing to grow and change, AWAL is looking for a personable, analytical and results-focused Senior Director, Digital Accounts to run our UK & International Digital Accounts team. This opportunity will allow you to work with an incredibly diverse roster of up and coming as well as established acts, helping to […]

JOB SUMMARY AWAL is looking for a flexible, confident and highly organised International Marketing Director, based out of our London office. Reporting to the General Manager, the role will involve working directly with our artists, managers and label clients and alongside our network of International Marketing Managers, distribution partners and licensees to plan. This is […]

There may be trouble brewing for TikTok and the other ‘short-video’ apps that have proven so popular in China over the last year. The Financial Times reported on a new set of industry guidelines, directed by the Chinese government, which will hold these apps responsible for all content posted by their users. Examples of content […]

YouTube’s latest educational video is aimed at all creators, not just musicians, but for any artists who like to turn the air blue with ‘industrial language’ it’s worth a watch. It explains how “vulgarity or inappropriate language” affects whether a video can be monetised with advertising or not. Ads are fine for “light profanity (shit, […]

A petition signed by more than 1,200 artists and music-industry people calling on the UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May to ‘reconsider Brexit’ has been delivered to her official residence, 10 Downing Street. The petition was drawn up by the Music4EU campaigning group, with signatories including Spotify UK MD Tom Connaughton; Annie Lennox; Fatboy Slim; Snow […]

Just as Apple gets set to launch its HomePod (Siri voice-assistant included) in China, so local tech giant Tencent is preparing to launch a new smart-assistant of its own. It’s called Xiaowei, and according to Bloomberg will make its debut within Tencent’s hugely-popular WeChat messaging app. “The assistant will link to a plethora of Tencent’s […]

Like jazz, classical music is a sector that is often described as being under-served by the big, global streaming services, thanks to challenges including its extra layers of metadata, not to mention the length of its tracks – a half-hour performance doesn’t monetise well in a per-stream environment built for single songs. Anyway, British industry […]

It’s very early days for San Francisco-based startup Wavecut: its website isn’t up and running yet, and its profile on investment site AngelList (which is how we found it) merely says that the company is “structuring the world’s audio”. Oh, and that its CEO is Dave Goldblatt, a former product operations specialist at Facebook and […]

The latest front in the music industry’s battle against ‘stream-ripping’ sites is in Australia. These sites, which enable people to convert (for example) YouTube videos into downloadable MP3s, have been a bugbear for the global industry for some time now. News site The Industry Observer reports that the Music Rights Australia body is applying for […]

Besides having a party with posh food and Rita Ora, Spotify’s presence at the CES technology show in Las Vegas this week has seen podcasts loom large. We reported earlier this week on its announcement of a new, exclusive deal with journalist and broadcaster Jemele Hill to launch a new podcast on Spotify. Now the […]

We’ll be blunt: anyone who tells you that labels are dead is talking out of their trumpet. But anyone who tells you that an artist can’t succeed without a label is just as big a fibber. The truth of the matter is that the ability for artists to thrive outside the traditional labels system in […]

Lead: A new year and a new slate. To kick off the year, we speak to marketers around the business and around the world about what tools they think will be indispensable and what trends they believe will shape 2019. From AR filters and scarcity to algorithmic personalisation of playlists, the continued rise of Latin […]

One of the aspects of the music industry’s return to growth is the willingness of music companies (and, indeed, individual artists) to invest in music/tech startups. With that in mind, a feature in the New York Times interviewing venture-capital firms about the investment market makes for interesting reading. Its proposition is that the startup-funding market […]

Many people in the music industry are trying to get a handle on social-video app TikTok: particularly how young people are using it, and what kind of culture is growing around their shared clips. If you’re one of those people, New York magazine’s exploration of TikTok is well worth a read – especially because it […]

Former Spice Girls manager and American Idol creator Simon Fuller is hard at work with a new band in 2019, Now United, which includes members drawn from a host of countries. He’s been talking to Billboard about why (audio) streaming hasn’t been playing a role in the band’s early days. “[Today’s] music industry is all about: […]

Jemele Hill used to be a host on sports TV network ESPN, and was in the news herself last year when she tweeted that “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists”. Hill left ESPN in September and subsequently joined The Atlantic, but now she’s also signed a […]

The entertainment industries are very interested in a future of autonomous (self-driving) cars, because if we’re not driving our cars, that may free us up for other kinds of entertainment experience beyond audio. Music, TV/film and games companies alike are keen to understand the opportunities this may bring. If you’re thinking about this from a […]

Imagine being Mark Zuckerberg, trying to think of your annual ‘personal challenge’ for 2019, after the 2018 that Facebook had. Yet the social network’s CEO is sticking to his guns of choosing a new challenge every January (in the past that’s included learning Mandarin, building an AI for his home and running 365 miles). And […]

The ‘David Bowie is’ exhibition was a real treat for keen (and even casual) Bowie fans, debuting at the V&A Museum in London in 2013 before touring the world. Last year, plans were revealed to turn the exhibition into an augmented-reality app, and this week it’s been released for Android and for iOS by Sony […]

Distributor CD Baby has published a big figure for its business in 2018: “well over” $100m of payouts to the independent artists who use its service. The company released the figure in a blog post in which it promised that “we’re expecting to pay out even more for the coming year as we open up […]

SiriusXM ended last year with around 34 million subscribers for its US satellite-radio service, including 28.9 million classed as ‘self-pay’ subscribers (as opposed to being on a trial or having it bundled with their car). The latter figure was 40% more than SiriusXM had predicted in its original financial guidance for 2018, so it was […]

It’s a year since streaming service Tidal unveiled its ‘Masters’ feature, offering studio-quality hi-res music for subscribers to its top-end ‘HiFi’ tier. That was a partnership with hi-res music firm MQA, but it was only available from Tidal’s desktop client, rather than its mobile app. Until now, that is. At the CES show in Las […]

NPR and Edison Research have published their latest ‘Smart Audio Report’about the growth of smart speakers in the US. It claims that around 53 million Americans now own these devices – 21% of the adult population. 14 million of those got their first smart speaker in 2018, according to the survey. The study also tracks […]

Spotify has a new way for brands to spend money with the company: by sponsoring its Discover Weekly algo-personalised playlist on the streaming service’s free tier. “For the first time, we are unlocking Discover Weekly for brands to sponsor this personalised moment end-to-end,” is how Spotify described the move. Microsoft is one of the first […]

Trebles all round at Universal Music Group: the company is worth €29bn ($33.2bn) now! Although perhaps hold off on the company-wide conga for now, since this is just an estimate from Deutsche Bank, as UMG’s parent company Vivendi prepares to sell off up to 50% of its music group. “With the hype around UMG stake […]

There has been some debate over the title of India’s top music audio-streaming service, with multiple companies staking their claim. Most recently, in December 2018, Gaana said that it now had 80 million monthly active users (MAUs), which would make it the country’s top service “with a fair margin” according to CEO Prashan Agarwal. So […]

This week, it’s the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Get ready for a blizzard of new-gadget announcements, from TVs and speakers through to robots and smart toilets. The show’s organiser is industry body the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), and every year it publishes its predictions for tech sales in the year ahead, as […]

A new class-action lawsuit filed in the US against Beyoncé’s company Parkwood Entertainment will be triggering a few urgent meetings within management companies and labels in the week ahead, we suspect. The lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a fan in New York called Mary Conner, who is blind. It argues that Beyoncé’s own […]

Monthly subscriptions are doing a pretty good job for the music industry in the context of Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services. The idea of individual artist subscriptions has been tested regularly by startups and crowdfunding platforms, without yet catching on. Something admitted by manager Jake Udell in his latest blog post, which focuses on […]

B2B digital-music service 7digital published an update on its business on Friday, with three separate pieces of news. Among them, the news that 7digital is in talks with European retailer MediaMarktSaturn about the future of its Juke music-streaming service, which 7digital powers. “MMS has indicated that it may wish to change the current arrangements and this […]

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Spotify are among the apps that have launched ‘lite’ versions aimed mainly at markets where mobile networks are slower, and/or where mobile data is more expensive. Now social-video app TikTok has quietly followed suit, launching a pair of ‘Lite’ apps (one with a lower-case ‘l’ in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and other […]

More details are emerging about the fake Beyoncé and SZA albums uploaded to streaming services just before Christmas, which gathered old tracks and unreleased demos from the artists under different artist names (Queen Carter and Sister Solana respectively). Music distributor Soundrop has revealed that the albums were uploaded through its pipeline, telling Rolling Stone that it took […]

Music-streaming service Deezer ended 2018 with seven million subscribers: half of its 14 million monthly active users. CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht revealed the figure in an interview with Music Ally, as he explained how Deezer’s business has evolved since he joined the company in December 2014, at a time when its business was heavily dependent on […]

The fallout from Apple’s announcement earlier this week that its quarterly revenues would be lower than predicted continues: the company’s share price tumbled by nearly 10% yesterday as markets reacted to the news. Apple did put out some good news yesterday though: the latest festive figures for its App Store. “App Store spending topped $1.22bn […]

YouTube will be the exclusive livestreaming partner for American music-festival Coachella this year – the ninth year for the partnership. In fact, the deal is expanding, with YouTube now the exclusive playlists and livestreaming partner for both weekends of the festival – previously it only streamed the first weekend. “Additionally, YouTube Music and YouTube Premium […]

Just over a year ago, Taylor Swift teamed up with mobile-games publisher Glu Mobile to launch The Swift Life, her own app for fans to connect with one another, share their own content, and get her latest news, photos and videos. Now it’s shutting down, which the official announcement suggests is because the app was […]