Tools: Amazon Music for Artists. Navigating to success on Amazon
On many levels, Amazon has already proven its worth in shaking up the music streaming business – not least because it offers the most diversified selection of subscription tiers to consumers. It also made headlines last year by propelling Ellie Goulding’s Amazon-exclusive (a cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’) to the top of the UK charts, […]
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Source: Music ally
Sandbox Issue 251: Streaming and Music’s new formats
Lead: The playlist hasn’t killed the album… yet. Instead, artists and labels are caught between both and are starting to experiment with the shapes that releases can now take. Justin Bieber has begun chopping up his album into a series of EPs, designed in part to find the sweet spot on streaming services that drive […]
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Source: Music ally
Facebook financials reveal ‘significant’ Covid-19 impact
You’d be forgiven for the tart reply ‘Well of course they do’ – even the world’s largest social network can’t be immune from the Covid-19 pandemic’s economic impact. “We experienced a significant reduction in the demand for advertising, as well as a related decline in the pricing of our ads, over the last three weeks […]
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Source: Music ally
Source3 founder raises $1.5m for Bonsai career-mentoring startup
Music Ally readers may be familiar with Patrick Sullivan, who co-founded video copyright protection company Source3 and sold it to Facebook in 2017. (That team had previously set up RightsFlow and sold it to YouTube in 2011.) Sullivan’s new venture is Bonsai which is designed to give individuals seeking career advice access to one-to-one video meetings online with […]
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Source: Music ally
Holy £*@!: Deezer uses AI to filter out song profanities
Spotify launched its Spotify Kids app partly to reassure parents that their children would not encounter ripe phraseology when streaming music. Now Deezer is also looking into the challenge of ensuring family listening doesn’t accidentally turn the air a distinct shade of blue. The team behind its Spleeter stem-isolating tool have added in a ‘Keyword Spotting System’ […]
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Source: Music ally
SiriusXM to launch artist channels for Bowie, Eagles and more
US satellite-radio firm SiriusXM is launching a bunch of authorised artist channels on its service on 1 May. It’s a raft of big catalogue artists: David Bowie, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, George Strait, Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Prince and The Rolling Stones. Produced with the artists’ teams / estates, the channels will broadcast a mixture of […]
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Source: Music ally
Fortnite ‘Party Royale’ social mode includes ‘main stage’ concert venue
The idea that Fortnite is more than a game, it’s a social network has been floating about for a while – tweens and teens especially have been using it as a virtual space to socialise (and, indeed, watch the odd music concert) for a long time.
The game’s new mode reinforces that point though. It’s called ‘Party Royale’ and it ditches the killing in favour of non-lethal interactivity: from driving challenges to virtual restaurants, a football pitch, nightclub and cinema to hang out in.
The perfect space, in other words, to perhaps hold some smaller-scale events with music, film and other entertainment partners, to complement the larger-scale Travis Scott / Marshmello / Star Wars set-pieces hosted within the main Fortnite island.
“It feels like I’m in a Fortnite theme park, obviously within a video game,” is how YouTuber Ali-A described it when taking his viewers on a tour yesterday – complete with a ‘constant performances’ festival-style venue.
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Source: Music ally
Serving the Superfans: takeaways from today’s BPI / ERA / Music Ally online insight session
Today was going to be the day for an insight session put on in London by British industry bodies the BPI and ERA in partnership with Music Ally about ‘Serving the Superfans’. Covid-19 put paid to the in-person plans, so the event was taken online via Zoom. Here’s our report of some of the key takeaways.
Music Ally’s Eamonn Forde introduced the event by talking about some of the findings from his ‘Serving the Superfans’ report which will be published next week, to follow on from today’s event.
He talked about the long history of the superfan, which stretches back to a performance in Paris by Franz Lizt in 1844, which was notorious for provoking fan hysteria.
“That essence of fandom hasn’t really changed that much. It’s about an overwhelming love for an artist and their music, and complete identification with that. The artists and fans are the two constants here, it’s just how they are connected and reach each other that has changed,” said Forde.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify’s mantra for radio vs on-demand streaming: ‘Everything linear dies’
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and CFO Paul Vogel have been fielding questions from analysts following the company’s publication of its Q1 2020 financial results earlier today, and their interview with Music Ally shortly afterwards.
There were not many surprises, but Ek’s desire to (as he described it several times) “uplevel” the conversation around Spotify and what its competition is was the major standout.
“Both short and long term, we are always thinking about Spotify’s role within the larger ecosystem. While most [external] focus is on competition between streaming services, we continue to be focused on the billions of users who are listening to linear radio,” said Ek.
Multiple times during the call he came back to the notion that the big audio trend of the next 20 years is a move from “linear to on-demand” – which in the music world, is mainly about radio to streaming. At one point he even said “everything linear dies”.
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Source: Music ally
Two new reports on smart speakers and voice assistants
More research firms have been putting out numbers on the market for smart speakers and voice assistants. Juniper Research claims that by 2024 the number of devices with voice assistants in use will “overtake the world’s population” with more than 8.4bn devices – up from a predicted 4.2bn at the end of 2020. It sees big growth […]
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Source: Music ally
Red Light Management’s Hot Command signs esports partnership
Red Light Management – through its Hot Command gaming subsidiary – is partnering with esports company HyperX for a series of online streaming events. It will match Red Light’s artist roster with major esports names on HyperX’s books. The companies have not yet announced specifics of any of these pairings, but it’s another sign of […]
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Source: Music ally
Instagram Live is getting a donations feature – for charities
Instagram is opening up its Live feature to allow users to create a fundraiser initiative where 100% of the money raised will go to a nominated cause. There are a number of caveats – notably that fundraisers can only be undertaken for nonprofits and Instagram has its own list of approved nonprofits that any money raised can […]
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Source: Music ally
Ampled fan-funding platform waives artist fees for 2020
Earlier this month, we profiled Ampled, a new platform for artists to raise money directly from fans. At the time we noted that Ampled’s original business plan initially involved taking 15% of each transaction on its platform, with the aim of lowering that cut in the future. Now there’s been a change. “As a response to […]
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Source: Music ally
Children’s music booms on platforms from YouTube to JioSaavn
One of the factors in YouTube’s viewing increase (see story higher up this bulletin) is the fact that schools are closed in many countries, and children are getting (even) more time on screens. At the younger end of the age range, that’s having a notable impact on the figures for children’s music channels. Witness the latest […]
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Source: Music ally
Report: TikTok app added 5.6m US users in March alone
It won’t come as a big surprise to learn that TikTok is one of the digital services benefitting from the Covid-19 lockdown – in usage, if not necessarily in revenues. According to eMarketer, in March TikTok added more than 12 million unique visitors in the US alone. Wait: ‘visitors’? These are based on figures from comScore, […]
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Source: Music ally
Impala publishes 10-step ‘recovery roadmap’ for music in Europe
European indie body Impala has published its latest thoughts on the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on the music industry. It’s a ten-step ‘recovery roadmap’ that sets out what it would like to see governments across the European Union doing in the coming months. Immediate steps that Impala would like to see include EU states recognising music and culture […]
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Source: Music ally
Alphabet’s Q1 included ‘significant slowdown in ad revenues’
It should come as no surprise that Covid-19 is figuring prominently in the Q1 financial results of every public company. Alphabet announced its figures yesterday, and warned that although its revenues were up 13% to $41.2bn in the first quarter of 2020, in March it saw a “significant slowdown in ad revenues”. YouTube is part of […]
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Source: Music ally
Pandora ad revenues up but monthly listeners are still falling
US satellite radio firm SiriusXM published its Q1 financial results yesterday, including updated figures for its Pandora subsidiary. The good news for Pandora: its ad revenues were up 4% year-on-year to $241m. The not-so-good news: its monthly active users are still falling: down from just over 66 million a year ago to 60.9 million now. Ad-supported […]
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Source: Music ally
Spotify’s Daniel Ek talks churn, fan funding and why Covid-19 ‘might be a much better time to release music’
The Covid-19 pandemic is leading some labels to postpone big album releases, especially those for which tours were a big part of the marketing plans. Some big artists, like Dua Lipa and The Weeknd, have put out their albums as planned. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek thinks they may offer encouragement to other artists and labels […]
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Source: Music ally
Despite Covid-19 Spotify grew its subscribers to 130m in Q1 2020
With recent reports that audio music streams had fallen during the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve been waiting for Spotify’s Q1 2020 financial results with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. Would they reveal a decline in listening, but more importantly, about an impact on paid subscriptions?
The figures are out, and it’s good news – for now at least. Spotify ended Q1 with 130 million subscribers, up by 31% year-on-year, having added six million during the first quarter of this year.
Spotify ended the quarter with 286 million monthly active users, also up by 31% year-on-year, having added 15 million during Q1.
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Source: Music ally
Today’s positive coronavirus-related industry stories (28 April)
TikTok is launching a new feature, ‘Donation Stickers’, that will enable creators on the app to encourage their followers to donate to charities. This isn’t only about music, but music industry charities MusiCares and Help Musicians are two of the first to be supported through the feature. The stickers can be added to videos, and […]
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Source: Music ally
Spotify launches ‘Daily Wellness’ music and podcasts playlist
Spotify unveiled its latest personalised playlist yesterday, although for now ‘Daily Wellness’ is only available in the US and UK. Like ‘Your Daily Drive’ which launched in June 2019, the new playlist blends music and podcasts, except the focus now is on helping listeners find “positivity, mindfulness, or peace” throughout the day. Also new: ‘Daily Wellness’ […]
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Source: Music ally
Saudi Arabian fund acquires 5.7% stake in Live Nation
The sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia has acquired a 5.7% stake in Live Nation, for a price estimated at nearly $500m. Live Nation is a public company, so this was a transaction on the open market, revealed in a filing by the ‘Public Investment Fund’ with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to Billboard, this […]
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Source: Music ally
Report: subscriptions growth ‘relatively unaffected’ by Covid-19
We’ll put the big caveat up front: predicting the impact that the Covid-19 coronavirus will have on any industry or sector this year rests on the supremely shaky notion that anyone can predict what will happen with the pandemic itself over the next eight months. Some countries are getting back to work and easing social […]
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Source: Music ally
Lion Babe used Instagram for ‘Around The World At Home’ tour
We wrote earlier this month about L Devine’s inventive ‘URL Tour’ in which she held livestreams on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, as if each platform was a stop on a tour. Now US duo Lion Babe have put their own spin on a digital tour with ‘Around The World At Home‘. It’s based on only […]
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Source: Music ally
Carlos Vives launches #NoTeVayasDeTuCasa video-call campaign
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, we’re seeing a growing number of artist marketing campaigns – and even the music that’s at the centre of them – address the crisis. The latest marketing example is from Colombian artist Carlos Vives, whose latest single is called ‘No Te Vayas’ (translation: ‘Don’t Go’). That theme has been adapted for […]
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Source: Music ally
Maestro is the startup partner for Erykah Badu’s livestreams
Earlier this month, we wrote about Erykah Badu building her own livestreaming destination rather than using the big social platforms to reach her fans during the Covid-19 lockdown. Now we’ve got some more information about the technology she used to do it. Badu’s partner was a startup called Maestro, which helps artists to create and stream shows from […]
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Source: Music ally
Zedd launched his Twitch channel by playing hot game Valorant
Dance artist Zedd has launched an official Twitch channel. It went live on Saturday with a stream of a 90-minute concert video from his Orbit World Tour. “I’m so excited to relive this show with everyone this weekend, and while so many of us are staying at home right now, I hope that this show will […]
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Source: Music ally
Want the Travis Scott Fortnite action figures? That’ll be $75
If you missed the Travis Scott concerts in Fortnite, and don’t want to have to watch with excitable YouTubers chattering over the top, there’s now an official ‘full event video’ (with well-chosen camera angles to get the full impact) on Scott’s own YouTube channel. It’s already been watched by nearly three million people at the time of […]
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Source: Music ally
Today’s positive music industry-related coronavirus news (27 April)
The UK’s Music Venue Trust (MVT) is launching a campaign called #saveourvenues, which aims to drum up support for 556 ‘grassroots music venues’ that it says are in danger of permanent closure in the UK. “The situation is dire, government support has been exhausted, and it now falls to artists, music fans, local communities and the […]
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Source: Music ally
Lego and Universal Music team up for kids’ products in 2021
Universal Music Group’s latest partnership is with Lego. Announced this morning, it’ll see the pair teaming up for “the development of a new suite of Lego products launching in 2021, created to encourage and inspire the next generation of musicians, creatives and fans”. Details of what those products will be have not been announced yet: […]
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Source: Music ally
Report: UK physical music sales halved during Covid-19 crisis
It’s hardly a surprise that physical music sales have taken a big hit during the Covid-19 pandemic, through a mixture of physical stores being closed, and Amazon prioritising other products for its online store. Now the Financial Times has been talking to some companies in the UK to quantify the decline, suggesting that “sales of vinyl records […]
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Source: Music ally
Facebook will soon let page owners charge for livestreams
In terms of reach, Facebook is a hugely powerful platform for livestreams, which is why many artists have been using it during the Covid-19 lockdown period for performances, fan Q&As and other live broadcasts. Making money directly from those broadcasts (as opposed to indirectly through promoting streams, merchandise etc) hasn’t thus far been the goal. […]
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Source: Music ally
UMG’s Michael Nash thinks music subscriptions will be resilient to Covid-19 impact
A flurry of recent reports have noted that in the initial weeks of the Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown, music streams declined. Should the industry be worried? Universal Music Group’s EVP of digital strategy Michael Nash has dampened down those fears.
“The subscription business, which is the big driver for revenue, is relatively stable based on its underlying dynamics. You’ve got the recurring billing relationship with the consumer, and so even if consumption’s down a little bit, the revenue that’s being divided up among the artists and labels is relatively constant,” he said yesterday.
Nash was speaking in an online panel that was part of the Artist Rights Symposium II, organised by the University of Georgia Music Business Program at Terry College of Business.
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Source: Music ally
Startup Gotickety talks Example tie-up and streaming plans
We last covered Gotickety when it launched in September 2018, calling itself the “Candy Crush for the Music Industry” where users of the app play games in order to win meet and greets with musicians, personal video messages from stars as well as tickets/merchandise. The company has now revealed the results of a recent partnership with […]
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Source: Music ally
Trojan Records taps fans for Young, Gifted and Black campaign
It’s the 50th anniversary of the release of ‘Young, Gifted and Black’ by Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths, and label Trojan Records is gearing up to celebrate it in style. It has launched a campaign of the same name, with an emphasis on fans. “Join in the celebrations by uploading a photo/video of yourself along with […]
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Source: Music ally
Spotify’s music podcast Dissect returns with Beyoncé focus
Remember the days when you couldn’t stream Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ album anywhere except on Tidal? The album eventually made it to other streaming services (including Spotify) in April 2019, three years after its initial release. More evidence of times having changed: ‘Lemonade’ is the subject for the latest season of Spotify’s music podcast ‘Dissect’, with two episodes […]
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Source: Music ally
12.3m fans showed up for Travis Scott’s first Fortnite concert
The first of Travis Scott’s ‘Astronomical’ concerts within Fortnite happened overnight, and it was a big hit with the game’s players. “Over 12.3 million concurrent players participated live in Travis Scott’s Astronomical, an all-time record!” tweeted the official Fortnite account. That means Scott beat the 10.7 million audience for Marshmello’s Fortnite concert in February 2019.
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Source: Music ally
Fortnite reveals items and challenges for Travis Scott Astronomical event
Travis Scott is coming to Fortnite this weekend with his ‘Astronomical’ event. Ahead of the multiple performances, the game has added several Scott-themed virtual products to its item shop. Fans wanting all of them will be spending nearly $35.
Here’s how that breaks down. There’s an Astronomical Bundle including two skins (characters) – Travis Scott and an Astro Jack alter-ego – as well as two ‘back bling’ decorations. Its official price is 3,500 of Fortnite’s V-Bucks currency, although that’s currently discounted to 2,500.
A separate Astronomical Gear set costs 1,600 V-Bucks – currently discounted to 1,100 – and includes a Diamond Jack harvesting tool (a replacement for the game’s default pickaxe), a Goosebumps wrap to customise weapons, and a Head Banger emote (dance move).
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Source: Music ally
AR firm Magic Leap lays off staff and refocuses on enterprises
Is more than $2.6bn of funding enough to insulate a tech startup from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic? Not in the case of augmented-reality firm Magic Leap. “The recent changes to the economic environment have decreased availability of capital and the appetite for longer term investments. While our leadership team, board, and investors still […]
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Source: Music ally
Artist Plastician builds a Twitch audience… with pub quizzes
How’s your dubstep and UK garage knowledge? If you’re clued in, you might want to tune in for artist Plastician on his Twitch channel, where he’s been holding regular pub quizzes on the genres. He’s one of the DJs profiled in a new Pitchfork article about livestreaming, which notes that Plastician has gone more down the interaction route […]
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Source: Music ally
YouTube set for sing-along version of Beatles’ Yellow Submarine
This Saturday (25 April) a sing-along edition of The Beatles’ 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine will be screened on the band’s official YouTube channel. The film – which was remastered and restored for theatrical and DVD release in 2018 – has never been available on YouTube before. Well, not in an official capacity. This screening is […]
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Source: Music ally
Pharrell Williams and SoundCloud launch talent compilation
Pharrell Williams and his I Am Other creative company are working with SoundCloud to create a compilation for new artists. Artists hoping to take part must upload a track to SoundCloud with the #SCxiamOTHER hashtag, then the best 10 (or possibly more) will be picked by Williams and his team. The resulting ‘SoundCloud Presents: i am OTHER, […]
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Source: Music ally
Today’s positive coronavirus-related industry news (23 April)
Start today with YouTube’s announcement of a slate of Covid-19 related original shows, with several involving music. Stay Home With: Yungblud will explore the UK artist’s quarantine life, with viewers encouraged to donate to the No Kid Hungry charity, for example. Also positive is Abbey Road Studios’ new Topline Songwriting Competition, with songwriters, artists and producers invited to […]
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Source: Music ally
Hipgnosis acquires a 70% stake in Mark Ronson’s publishing
Hipgnosis Songs Fund is at it again. The thirsty-for-catalogue publishing company has acquired 70% of Mark Ronson’s publishing/catalogue. “Mark has been amongst the most exciting creators in the world over the last 20 years co-writing and producing records for the most important artists of their time including Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and Dua […]
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Source: Music ally
Spanish body Promusicae breaks down potential Covid-19 impact
Spain was once seen as one of the toughest markets for recorded music thanks to the popularity of piracy. The country’s turnaround, fuelled by streaming, has been a big positive story for the music industry in the past decade. Recent figures published by industry body Promusicae revealed that the Spanish market grew by 22.5% in […]
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Source: Music ally
Country Profile – Spain 2020
The Spanish music industry was showing signs of real progress in 2019. And then COVID-19 struck
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Source: Music ally
Spotify ‘Artist Fundraising Pick’ tool is going live today
Last month, we reported on Spotify’s announcement that artists would soon be able to “link out to a verified funding page for themselves, for another artist in need, or for a separate initiative of their choice” from their profiles on the streaming service.
The new feature – named ‘Artist Fundraising Pick’ – goes live today, and Spotify has revealed more details of the fundraising partners who artists will be able to link out to.
“Just like artists can select any piece of music to highlight on their profile as an Artist’s Pick, they can now highlight a fundraising destination (in addition to their Artist’s Pick),” explained the company in a blog post.
Spotify is launching the feature with three partners who artists will be able to raise funds for themselves, their bands and crews with: Cash App, GoFundMe and PayPal.me. The first of those has a closer partnership with Spotify, too.
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Source: Music ally
Snapchat now has 229m daily users (but still big net losses)
Snapchat’s parent company Snap published its latest quarterly financial results yesterday, revealing another jump in its daily active users total. At the end of March, Snapchat had 229 million daily active users, up by 20% year-on-year, having added 11 million in the first three months of this year. “On average, more than 4 billion snaps were […]
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Source: Music ally
Facebook confirms $5.7bn investment in JioSaavn’s parent telco
In March, we reported on speculation that Facebook was in negotiations to buy a 10% stake in Indian telco Reliance Jio, the parent company of music streaming service JioSaavn. Now Facebook has confirmed that it has made a $5.7bn investment in the company, which will make the social network its largest minority shareholder. Music wasn’t mentioned in the press […]
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Source: Music ally
Netflix added 15.8m paying subscribers in first quarter of 2020
We’re still waiting to find out what effect the Covid-19 pandemic is having on music streaming subscriptions. All eyes on Spotify’s Q1 financials next week for that. But Netflix’s first-quarter figures were published yesterday, giving us a glimpse at the impact on video subscriptions. Netflix added 15.8 million net new paid subscribers in Q1, benefiting from […]
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Source: Music ally
Warner Music Group opens its live vaults for PlayOn Fest
This weekend (24-26 April), Warner Music Group is hosting the virtual PlayOn Fest where listeners can “relive epic performances one time only”. Over the three days, past shows from a huge range of acts, among them Coldplay, Green Day and Janelle Monáe (we only picked these three as they rhyme, but there are MANY more) will be […]
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Source: Music ally
Belle & Sebastian launch new fan-centric collaboration project
British band Belle & Sebastian are turning to their fans to crowdsource their thoughts and feelings about self-isolation and life under lockdown. ‘Protecting The Hive’ is a two-part project where fans will be asked to submit lyrics and song themes and the band will then turn them into music. The first fruits of this is a […]
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Source: Music ally
There’s now an AI to ‘generate deepfake dances’ for TikTok
Do you want to upload amazing dancing videos to TikTok like The Young People do, but are hamstrung by a lack of dancing skills? Fear not: AI is coming to your rescue. Possibly. Check out a new startup called Boogie, whose teaser website claims its technology will “generate deepfake dances with a single image” and thus […]
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Source: Music ally
Spotify rolls its podcast ad-insertion tech out in Germany
In January, we reported on Spotify’s announcement in the US of its ‘Streaming Ad Insertion’ [SAI] technology: a system to boost advertising within its original and exclusive shows by giving brands and podcast makers alike more data on listeners and ad performance. Now SAI is rolling out elsewhere in the world, starting in Germany. The location is no […]
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Source: Music ally
Patreon lays off 13% of staff amid Covid-19 uncertainties
Fan-funding firm Patreon is laying off 13% of its staff, which according to TechCrunch is 30 employees. The company cited the Covid-19 pandemic as the cause. “It is unclear how long this economic uncertainty will last and therefore, to prepare accordingly, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with 13% of Patreon’s workforce,” said a […]
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Source: Music ally
Sonos launches its own ad-supported radio service
Connected-audio firm Sonos has always taken a Switzerland approach to supporting the various music streaming services, but it’s easy to forget that radio has been a big use case for its devices too, thanks to integrations with the likes of TuneIn and iHeartRadio as well as individual radio groups’ apps. “Today, nearly half of all […]
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Source: Music ally
Spotify launches its own set of curated podcast playlists
Spotify has a new plan to get people listening to podcasts, and it follows the blueprint of its music service in its focus on human curation. The company has launched three podcast playlists initially in six countries: the US, UK, Germany, Sweden, Mexico and Brazil. ‘Brain Snacks’ will focus on the educational side of things […]
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Source: Music ally
Mixcloud launches a livestreaming feature for its creators
Streaming service Mixcloud has always been focused on uploads: DJ sets and radio-style shows uploaded for people to stream on-demand. Now, in a timely move, it’s adding a livestreaming feature. That’s audio (not video) livestreaming, as befits the platform. The company says the new Mixcloud Live feature will enable creators to stream live, archive the […]
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Source: Music ally
Today’s positive coronavirus-related industry news (21 April)
Spotify has added more partners to its Covid-19 Music Relief project. Having started with donations to MusiCares, PRS Foundation and Help Musicians, it is now also donating to funds and charities in France, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Australia, Brazil and Canada. Meanwhile, David Guetta’s livestreamed concert at the weekend generated 9m views on Facebook and nearly […]
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Source: Music ally
Warner Music Group invests in African distributor Africori
Warner Music Group is increasing its footprint in Africa with an investment in Africori, a distribution, rights management and artist development company. The deal will give Warner’s ADA distribution division access to a range of African artists through Africori’s roster of 6,500 artists and 700 labels, taking on their distribution and marketing globally. Warner will […]
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Source: Music ally
Apple Music adds 52 new countries taking its total to 167
Apple Music is expanding again, with its footprint now taking in an additional 52 countries. That means the service is now available in 167 countries, with Africa and Latin America prominent in the list of new additions – the former in particular, where the rollouts include 25 countries. MBW reported that the expansion includes the launch of Apple’s […]
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Source: Music ally
Travis Scott to premiere new track during Fortnite ‘tour’
There was lots of excitement around the huge audience for dance artist Marshmello’s concert in video game Fortnite in February 2019: 10.7 million players showed up to watch (and dance). Since then, there have been some other partnerships between Fortnite’s publisher Epic Games and the music world: an island based on Weezer; a dancing emote based on Rick Astley’s […]
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Source: Music ally
Facebook is taking on Twitch with an app to watch gaming
Facebook is launching a new app today: Facebook Gaming. It’s training its sights squarely on the territory occupied by Twitch: people playing games and streaming the footage online for others to watch. According to the New York Times, the launch has been brought forward from June. “Investing in gaming in general has become a priority […]
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Source: Music ally
TikTok spikes persuade more labels to change track titles
Earlier this year in our piece about how we worked with Atlanta rapper K Camp to capitalise on the TikTok success of his track ‘Lottery’, we explained that changing its title on streaming services to ‘Lottery (Renegade)’ because the second word was what kids were searching for – thanks to the producer tag in the clip that went […]
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Source: Music ally
Beatstream Box Office adds tech for ticketed live-audio streams
Startups and services based on live music are having to pivot quickly (if, hopefully, temporarily) amid the Covid-19 pandemic. We wrote about ticketing app Dice’s launch of a livestreaming-focused Dice TV feature last week, and now fellow British startup Beatstream Box Office is making its own changes. The company’s main business is giving fans paid access to […]
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Source: Music ally
BPI yearbook highlights growth for British rap artists
British music body the BPI releases its annual All About the Music yearbook today, and to promote the launch it’s talking about some of the findings around rap / hip-hop in the UK. The genre accounted for 21.5% of all consumption last year in terms of singles, which is a new high since the BPI began […]
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Source: Music ally
One World: Together At Home raises $127.9m for Covid-19 relief
This weekend, a parade of stars teamed up for the One World: Together At Home livestream, organised and curated by Global Citizen and Lady Gaga to benefit the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund. How did the event do? By yesterday it had already raised a total of $127.9m, of which $55.1m will go […]
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Source: Music ally
Taylor Swift cancels all her live performances in 2020
There are some tough conversations going on behind the scenes at the moment about when the live music scene might get back to any semblance of normality. If you’re still hoping for this autumn, Taylor Swift’s announcement that she’s cancelling all remaining concerts for 2020 isn’t good news. “Health organizations and governments around the world […]
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Source: Music ally
Tommy Boy president: ‘YouTube could become our number one DSP’
Friday saw the first ever Music Ally TV weekly show, broadcast using video-conferencing platform Zoom. Our guests included Rosie Lopez, president of Tommy Boy, and the topic at hand was YouTube.
“We’re feeling very optimistic about YouTube. We’re projecting that YouTube could potentially become our number one DSP in the future,” said Lopez. “It’s a lot of work… but it is a platform where you literally get what you put in, back out, if you put time into it, [and] if you have a great team.”
Lopez went on to note that YouTube is more than just a “profit centre” for Tommy Boy: it’s also “a way to grow the family, the close-knit people that come in and check on us on a daily basis”. She added that its social features are key to that.
“On Spotify, we can’t comment back to people who love our music. On YouTube we can,” she said. “On YouTube you’re gonna hear what people like, you’re gonna hear what they don’t like, and if you learn to pay attention, you’re gonna learn a lot from your audience on YouTube!”
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Source: Music ally
Amazon to begin testing its staff for Covid-19 infection
Amazon has announced that it will begin testing some of its ‘frontline’ workers for Covid-19, even if they are not showing any symptoms. “Regular testing on a global scale, across all industries, would both help keep people safe and help get the economy back up and running,” wrote CEO Jeff Bezos in his annual letter to […]
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Source: Music ally
More data emerges on Covid-19 impact on YouTube ad rates
In terms of traffic, YouTube is getting an almighty battering at the moment, with people working from home (and just as importantly, children’s schools closed). But we’ve reported already on talk of the advertising rates on YouTube falling, as brands pause or pull their advertising budgets as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now there’s some more […]
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Source: Music ally
GENE genie: LA Priest creates online modular machine emulator
Domino Recordings act LA Priest has his second album, GENE, due for release in June. To promote the first single from the album, ‘What Moves’, he has created what he is calling the GENE Machine that lets users play around with the track’s audio. It is essentially an online emulator of the analogue drum machine that Dust […]
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Source: Music ally
Apple tipped to launch over-ear wireless headphones this year
Apple’s wireless AirPods earphones have been a big hit, but if you don’t like sticking things in your ears, they may not appeal. Never fear: Apple may well be working on some ‘over-ear’ wireless headphones, according to a report from Bloomberg. It claimed that Apple is “working on at least two variations, including a premium version […]
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Source: Music ally
Dice ticketing app adds livestreams with new Dice TV feature
We’ve already seen the biggest companies in the live music world, from Live Nation to Eventbrite, reveal some of their plans for cost reductions to help them get through the coronavirus crisis. What about smaller startups whose businesses are based on live music though? Ticketing app Dice is one of them, and this morning it has revealed part […]
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Source: Music ally
Roblox to stream One World: Together at Home concert in-game
The list of services that will be streaming tomorrow’s One World: Together at Home benefit concert for Covid-19 relief is lengthy, taking in Apple, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, MTV, Roku, BBC Music, the Guardian, Alibaba and iHeartRadio among others. One of the most interesting names on the list, though, is Roblox. Often described as ‘the YouTube of […]
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Source: Music ally
Now That’s What I Call Music app adds free, ad-supported tier
The Now That’s What I Call Music (‘Now’ for short) compilation series has been running since 1983, evolving in the streaming era with playlists on the big DSPs, but also its own subscription-based mobile app. It costs £4.99 a month and has a tightly-focused catalogue of chart hits. Now the app has added a free tier, […]
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Source: Music ally
Tools. HypeAuditor: Analytical Platform for transparent & fraud-free influencer marketing
HypeAuditor has become a key tool in identifying fraudulent influencer accounts; now it has added a new influencer discovery tool, enabling those frequently working with influencers to promote artists/releases and to more easily find the right fit. The platform says it has a database of 11m+ influencers across Instagram and YouTube, scraping information from publicly […]
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Source: Music ally
What can the music industry learn from the biggest YouTube channels?
For all that the music industry likes to complain about YouTube, the two are irreversibly entwined. Indian music company T-Series has had the most popular YouTube channel for years now, recently crossing 100bn lifetime views on the platform, while music videos make up the lion’s share of YouTube’s top 10 clips. But that certainly doesn’t […]
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Source: Music ally
Sandbox Issue 250: The power of smaller playlists
Lead: The likes of New Music Friday and Today’s Top Hits might theoretically get your music in front of the most people; but if they are not listening, then what’s the point? In a business that has long run on the assumption that “big is best”, the opposite is proving true when it comes to […]
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Source: Music ally
Country Profile – United Kingdom 2020
The BPI and ERA remain positive about the outlook for the UK’s recorded music industry, despite COVID-19 and Brexit representing extremely tough challenges for the business
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Source: Music ally
Study: privacy worries DO put people off products and services
This is one of those things that may seem obvious, but it’s useful to have some hard data for. The Pew Research Center in the US has been surveying Americans about whether privacy concerns would stop them from using a product or service. 52% of respondents said that they had recently decided not to use something […]
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Source: Music ally
Houseparty video-chat app signed up 50m new users in last month
50 million people have signed up to video-chatting app Houseparty in the last month alone, according to its CEO Sima Sistani, speaking in an interview with Bloomberg. The app is riding the same stay-at-home wave as Zoom (which has grown from 10 million daily active users at the end of 2019 to more than 200 million […]
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Source: Music ally
Drake’s ‘Toosie Slide’ heads towards 3bn views on TikTok
Drake released his new track ‘Toosie Slide’ on 2nd April, and as we reported before, TikTok and other social platforms were part of its marketing strategy right from the start, thanks to the recruitment of some prominent dancer influencers. How’s that campaign going? Well, there have been more than 2.8bn views of TikTok videos using the #toosieslide […]
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Source: Music ally
Today’s positive coronavirus-related industry news (16 April)
There’s more news from the MusiCares Covid-19 Relief Fund in the US, which has now secured contributions from collecting societies ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. The fund is now past the $10m mark on the back of support from all quarters of the music industry. Meanwhile, in the UK another collecting society, PPL, is donating £700k to […]
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Source: Music ally
Opposition filed to Liberty Media plans to increase iHeartMedia stake
In December 2019, it was reported that media group Liberty Media was seeking to increase its stake in radio and streaming group iHeartMedia – possibly to a level that would give it control of the latter company. Now a range of artist rights and consumer groups have written to the US Department of Justice outlining their opposition to […]
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Source: Music ally
Scott Cohen: Covid-19 could be live industry’s ‘Napster moment’
Warner Music Group’s chief innovation officer for recorded music, Scott Cohen, thinks that the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic could be a ‘Napster moment’ for the live music industry. Cohen was speaking in a ‘From Holograms to the Holodeck’ online panel last night convened by the Social Broadcasting Company. “With this Covid-19 disruption, is this doing to […]
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Source: Music ally
Music Ally Startup Files: Ampled’s artist-owned ‘relationship platform’
As the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic drapes the world in uneasiness, many of our established economic systems are blinking under the cold light of community-centric scrutiny – including the music industry.
The impact on streaming is still being debated, but the abrupt shutdown of the live music industry – and the disappearance of the income associated with it for musicians – is very clear. That in turn is sparking renewed discussion about the wider financial support system for artists and songwriters.
Artist and Ivors Academy committee member / PRS for Music director Tom Gray didn’t mince his words when recently addressing major label and streaming service executives alike in a Twitter thread about the current structure. “It is time, under the present circumstances for these people to fix the problem if they give a fuck about the ecosystem.”
Startups have a role to play in how this system evolves too. Ampled is one of them, although ‘startup’ may not be the best description. It’s an artist-owned cooperative, which is building a platform for fans to directly support musicians.
Music Ally wrote about its launch in January this year, but now we have spoken to founders Austin Robey and Collin Lewis about what they’re doing. The interview was conducted before the coronavirus pandemic took a worldwide grip on society – in case you’re wondering why it’s not discussed – but some of their thoughts may be even more relevant in the light of developments since.
Why is it a cooperative? “It’s the only way to address systemic inequalities in the platform economy,” says Robey. “We’re fundamentally optimistic. Cynicism is why entrenched music industry incumbents are not qualified to make a company like this.”
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Source: Music ally
#NextStageChallenge seeks tech solutions for music industry’s Covid-19 challenges
A group of European music companies and organisations are launching a two-week hackathon called #NextStageChallenge, which aims to find inventive solutions to some of the challenges that the Covid-19 pandemic has created for musicians and the music industry.
There’s a open call for submissions until 24 April, with the hackathon kicking off on 27 April across three areas: access (creation, production, broadcasting, curation); Fan Engagement (audience, user experience, immersive technologies) and Value (monetisation, monitoring, rights management).
At the end of the two weeks, the best submissions will be chosen to join an accelerator program, capped off by a conference to show their solutions off to the wider industry.
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Source: Music ally
Socan CEO Eric Baptiste resigns and steps down immediately
There’s a change at the top for Canadian collecting society Socan, as its CEO Eric Baptiste has resigned and stepped down with immediate effect. Why so abrupt? “With the end of the current CEO contract approaching, Eric thought it was time to move on and a mutual decision was reached with the Board to end […]
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Source: Music ally
Startup Dirac raises $6m and adds Spotify veteran to board
We’ve covered a number of startups in the ‘audio tech’ sector in recent times: among them Accusonus (which raised $3.3m in November 2019); Sonarworks (which showed off a personalised audio app called SoundID in January); and Tunefork (whose app for people with hearing loss impressed at Midemlab 2019). Now there’s another one for the list: Swedish startup Dirac, which describes […]
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Source: Music ally
Soundsgood closes its playlisting platform after being acquired
We first wrote about French startup Soundsgood back in 2015 when it launched after signing up a range of tastemakers to curate bespoke playlists across all the major DSPs of the time. Two years later, it was among the winners in the Midemlab contest for startups, triumphing in the marketing and data/analytics category. Over time, Soundsgood focused more on […]
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Source: Music ally
Sony/ATV teams up with music production marketplace BeatStars
Music Ally first wrote about production marketplace BeatStars back in June 2012, when we noted that it had already been dubbed ‘the iTunes of beats’. Eight years on, it’s now famous as the website where Lil Nas X bought a trap beat for $30 and used it to make a track called ‘Old Town Road’. In June last year, BeatStars […]
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Source: Music ally
COVID-19: Time to turn disruption into innovation (guest column)
This is a guest column from Pieter van Rijn, CEO of FUGA:
“All around the world we are facing an unprecedented crisis, the likes of which haven’t been seen on this scale since before most of us were born. Like most industries, this also has also had implications for the music business, some parts more than others. We are getting all too used to hearing of festival, tour and conference postponements or employees losing their jobs.
Against these truly overcast skies, there are ways to make the best of the situation. We’ve all been forced to refocus on what we do and why, as we reimagine our workforces working from home. While disruptive, this focusing process not only enables us to cope best in the short term but to emerge stronger once the clouds clear.
Of course, working from home presents its challenges; for those looking after children normally at school, for singles and even more so single parents. But most of us who traditionally commuted to the office every day have been surprised by how much can be achieved. We have also quickly shaken off some outdated norms — a video conference with a baby or pet being introduced at the start of the meeting is if anything quite charming.
In this period of disruption, taking the time to revisit your objectives and key results provides an opportunity to clarify staff members’ priorities. And in fact, being removed from the general melee of an office can make it easier for team members to focus more clearly on their individual objectives.
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Source: Music ally
Music Ally Report :: Q1 2020 Edition
Our main Music Ally report is getting bigger and going quarterly! This is the first edition of the new report including some of the new elements we’ve been planning, with more to be added in the Q2 report in early July. We couldn’t ignore the coronavirus pandemic, of course, so there’s a feature exploring some […]
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Source: Music ally
Covid-19 advertising slump is hitting YouTube channels
In terms of viewing, YouTube is thought to be having a big moment amid the Covid-19 pandemic. But are its advertising revenues also climbing? A story on Medium’s OneZero suggests that there may be something to worry about on that front. “YouTubers say that the rates companies pay to advertise on their videos are dropping significantly. That […]
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Source: Music ally
Jimmy Iovine invests in esports franchise FaZe Clan
Formerly of Apple Music (and, of course, before that a long and storied career as a producer, label executive and headphonepreneur) Jimmy Iovine is getting into esports. No, he’s not in training for the next Fortnite World Cup (although we’d absolutely pay to watch that) – Iovine has invested in one of the biggest esports franchises, […]
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Source: Music ally
Dolly Parton and Laura Marling release surprise albums
Well, in the case of Dolly Parton it’s ‘re-release’ since her “93 Song Surprise” is the digital relaunch of six of her albums from earlier this century. ‘Little Sparrow’ (2001), ‘Halos & Horns’ (2002), ‘For God & Country’ (2003), ‘Live & Well’ (2004), ‘Those Were the Days’ (2005) and ‘Better Day’ (2011) are the six, […]
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Source: Music ally
AIMS API uses AI to mine catalogues of recorded music
The latest startup using artificial intelligence technology to make sense of large music catalogues is AIMS API, from the Czech Republic. The company describes itself as “an API service that searches and recommends music within your catalogue based on reference audio tracks”. The startup’s background is in the production music world: co-founder Martin Nedvěd ran production […]
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Source: Music ally
SoundExchange has distributed more than $7bn since 2003
US royalties-collecting organisation SoundExchange has hit a new milestone: $7bn of distributions since it was created in 2003. The company passed $5bn of distributions in late 2017, and was thought to have reached $6bn in early 2019. The news came as SoundExchange announced that its distributions during the first quarter of 2020 were $224m, up 1.5% year-on-year. The firm […]
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Source: Music ally
Disney+ video service signs up 50m subscribers in five months
It took Spotify eight and a half years to sign up 50 million subscribers; it has taken Disney+ five months. And yes, that’s an unfair, apples to oranges comparison in terms of different kinds of services at different times. It’s just to show the startling scale of the initial growth of Disney’s video-streaming service. Launched in the […]
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Source: Music ally
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down made a music video on Zoom
As video-conferencing app Zoom continues to grow massively for business and personal use alike, it was only a matter of time before artists started using it to make music videos. Take a bow, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, for being one of the first. The band’s new ‘Phenom‘ video was made using Zoom, […]
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Source: Music ally
Instagram has plans to help artists monetise livestreams
Instagram is one of the best platforms for quickly drawing an audience for an artist’s livestream, if they have a healthy following on the app. However, when it comes to those artists making money from their broadcasts, Instagram Live is still at a very early stage. This thread of tweets makes for very interesting reading on […]
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Source: Music ally
BPI study reveals strength in streaming of catalogue tracks
British music industry body the BPI has been analysing its data on music streams in 2019. It includes the finding that tracks from that year accounted for 21.1% of all streams, with tracks released in 2018 accounting for 18.6%. That means the lion’s share of streams in 2019 in the UK came from tracks released […]
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Source: Music ally
TikTok launches ‘Live Sessions’ with popular UK artists
The live sessions and the livestreaming just keeps coming. TikTok has created a new Live Sessions series in the UK based around British artists. The first acts signed up to appear are Ashnikko (10th April), Mabel (14th April), Tinie Tempah (21st April), Jax Jones and Ellie Goulding (dates TBC). The aim is that each artist […]
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Source: Music ally
CNN buys ‘private discovery’ app Canopy to focus it on news
CNN has acquired the assets of startup Canopy and hired the company’s development team to work on NewsCo, the codename for the broadcaster’s planned news and information platform. We’ve written about Canopy several times: it was co-founded in 2018 by former Spotify executives Brian Whitman (previously co-founder of The Echo Nest) and Annika Goldman. The idea was […]
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Source: Music ally
Trolls World Tour film’s marketing includes Spotify and Pandora
“Is Trolls World Tour the most important film of 2020?” wondered a piece in the Guardian earlier this week. That may sound like hyperbole, but the main point was that it’s the first big movie of the year that’s going straight to streaming (due to cinemas being closed). If parents aren’t willing to shell out up to […]
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Source: Music ally
Safe In Our World launches mental health hub for Covid-19
We haven’t written about Safe In Our World before, but it’s essentially the British games industry’s equivalent of Help Musicians: a charity focusing on mental health and wellbeing for people in that industry. Like that organisation, Safe In Our World has launched a ‘hub’ focused on Covid-19 / coronavirus, and while it’s aimed at games-industry people, […]
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Source: Music ally
Tracking the trends of the ‘self-isolation entertainment boom’
Midia Research has published a report on the entertainment categories benefiting from what it is terming ‘The Self-Isolation Entertainment Boom’. Traditional media, notably TV and especially radio, is growing, with the report noting that in Italy 72% of respondents say they are currently watching more TV. Given radio has been slipping in importance in recent years, Midia […]
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Source: Music ally
Today’s positive coronavirus-related industry stories (8 April)
We’ve broken the big positive story out as our lead today, but there are other good things to report on too. Variety has a report on how ticketed-livestreams platform StageIt is growing during the pandemic: it made $884k in the last two weeks alone, compared to $500k in the whole of 2019. That translates into revenues […]
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Source: Music ally
Mobile video service Quibi launches to mixed reviews
Music Ally has been covering the build-up to the launch of mobile video subscription service Quibi for a while now, including the $1.75bn of pre-launch funding that it has raised, and its plans for a music-focused show. Now Quibi has launched, to reviews that are the classic mixed bag. Engadget nailed its colours to the mast with the headline ‘Quit […]
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Source: Music ally
Songstats is the latest startup providing music analytics
After past acquisitions of music analytics startups Next Big Sound (by Pandora), Semetric and Asaii (both by Apple) the industry once again has a clutch of independent dashboards competing to help artists, managers and labels make sense of their streaming and social stats. We’ve written regularly about the likes of Soundcharts and Chartmetric, but the […]
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Source: Music ally
The Roots ramp up original content for their YouTube channel
Usually the house band on The Tonight Show, excellent hip-hop collective The Roots are using this period of social distancing to work on their YouTube channel. They already have 267,000 subscribers to the channel and 165.3m lifetime views, but the coming weeks will see the group ramp up their original content. There’ll be DJ sets from Questlove, […]
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Source: Music ally
How closed venues can help the vulnerable during the pandemic
So many concert and cultural venues are closed at the moment, with their owners wondering whether they’ll be able to ride out the period until lockdowns end and punters can return. Here’s something that could be interesting to think about in the meantime though: a guide for cultural venues on how they can support homeless and […]
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Source: Music ally
Vinyl sales ‘expected to drop heavily’ says Vinyl Alliance
Industry body the Vinyl Alliance has been surveying its members about the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on their businesses. Spoiler: it’s not good. Its findings note that “even though many brick and mortar stores divert to online sales, sales are expected to drop heavily” – not least because Amazon has “temporarily moved its focus […]
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Source: Music ally
StubHub faces class action lawsuit over coronavirus refunds
With a huge number of festivals and concerts postponed or cancelled entirely amid the coronavirus pandemic, event organisers and ticketing companies have been mulling their options. One solution is to offer customers ticket vouchers (for when events are rescheduled) rather than cash refunds, as a way to stay financially afloat during the current period of […]
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Source: Music ally
How Does Music Marketing Personalisation look like in 2020?
Marketing used to be based around demographic categories or social archetypes, but the more marketers and digital platforms know about you, the more personalised they can become in terms of both messaging and products. There are enormous opportunities here but also a growing need to tread carefully around just how deep and tailored marketing can […]
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Source: Music ally
Tools. Zaiko: Ticketing in times of Coronavirus
For the music industry, it was live that got hit first and hit hardest by COVID-19; but technology is helping to plug some of those gaps caused by the mass cancellation of shows and festivals. Tokyo-based platform Zaiko is known as a white-label ticketing platform but quickly built a ticketed concert live stream solution […]
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Source: Music ally
FanBytes ByteHouse is a Big Brother-style house with UK TikTok stars
Imagine trying to launch a project at this specific point in time that involved a group of TikTok stars living together in a Big Brother-style house. Impossible. Luckily for agency Fanbytes, said TikTokers moved into its new ‘ByteHouse’ before the current social-distancing lockdown in the UK, so its project can proceed as planned. That project […]
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Source: Music ally
Report suggests Apple might buy live-VR startup NextVR
Music Ally has been writing about virtual-reality startup NextVR since 2015, when it raised a $30.5m funding round from investors including the Madison Square Garden Company for technology that would enable music concerts and sports events to be broadcast live to VR headsets. T he company had already streamed a concert by Coldplay. It then signed a deal with […]
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Source: Music ally
Dolby On could help musicians sound better on Twitch livestreams
Audio company Dolby has just launched its Dolby On app for Android, following its earlier release for iOS. It allows users to record high-quality audio and video on their smartphone. More interestingly, however, the company has also announced that the iOS version of Dolby On now works with live-video platform Twitch, enabling users to livestream […]
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Source: Music ally
Drake tapped dancing influencers for ‘Toosie Slide’ release
If you’ve been spotting Drake’s new track ‘Toosie Slide’ all over your socials in recent days, it’s no accident. Rolling Stone has a piece explaining how the artist enlisted some popular dancing influencers to promote the single. Toosie, Hiii Key, Ayo & Teo (the latter are a duo) are the influencers in question, popular on TikTok, Instagram […]
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Source: Music ally
The Rattle goes non-profit while Tileyard goes north
Two of London’s physical music-tech communities have announced plans for their future. The Rattle, which now has bases in London and Los Angeles to bring musicians, producers, music professionals and startups into the same community space, has announced that it is diverting 100% of its profits to help artists struggling with the financial impact of […]
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Source: Music ally
Tencent plans Africa expansion for Joox music streaming service
In its last set of financial results, Tencent Music revealed that it had 644 million mobile monthly active users of its online music services, including 39.9 million who were paying. That represents the scale of its business in its homeland, China, but now its parent company Tencent Holdings is planning some music-streaming expansion in another part […]
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Source: Music ally
Pollstar says 2020 global live revenues would have been $12.2bn
In the 1980s and 1990s, Bullseye was a popular darts-based British TV game show, complete with a ‘look at what you could have won’ element where losing contestants were shown the grand prize they’d just failed to win. It’s hard not to be reminded of that by Pollstar’s announcement on Friday of its estimate for what global live-music […]
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Source: Music ally
TikTok has label licences, but publishers are threatening to sue
We reported last week on TikTok signing short-term licensing deals with major labels, as a bridge to longer agreements at a later date. However, Bytedance’s social app still has some licensing headaches on the publishing side, and US body the National Music Publishers Association is threatening to make them worse. According to the Financial Times, […]
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Source: Music ally
Report: there were 358m music subscribers by the end of 2019
The IFPI has delayed the publication of its Global Music Report, with no new date yet set for its analysis of recorded music figures for 2019. A new report from Counterpoint Research is plugging one of the knowledge gaps: the number of people subscribing to music services globally. It claims this figure grew by 32% in 2019 […]
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Source: Music ally
Twitch will get games for streamers and viewers to play together
Amazon has been publishing games for a while now: its Amazon Game Studios division has been around since 2015. However, the company is preparing a new push, investing “hundreds of millions of dollars” in its games development and distribution business according to the New York Times.
That includes big-budget PC games, but we’re just as interested in what the report describes as “new casual games that broadcasters on its popular Twitch streaming service can play alongside viewers in real time”.
This is all based on briefings with Amazon executives, so it’s fact rather than speculation. “We love this idea that you have a player, a streamer and a viewer all sharing in this synchronous interactive environment of Twitch,” said Amazon’s VP for game services and studios Mike Frazzini.
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Source: Music ally
Zoom has 200m daily users, but CEO promises to fix its problems
A month ago, most of us had never even heard of video-conferencing app Zoom. Now it feels like we’re all on it having work meetings and catching up with friends and family.
The company behind it has revealed that Zoom was being used by 200 million daily users in March – up from an average of just 10 million at the end of December 2019. Amazing growth, but Zoom’s ubiquity has also exposed some problems with the platform and its technology, and a number of articles questioning its security and privacy policies.
Now CEO Eric Yuan has published a blog post about Zoom’s growing pains, which also seeks to reassure users spooked by those reports.
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Source: Music ally
YouTube Kids may be the top video streaming app of 2020 so far
Apptopia is one of a cluster of app analytics firms (see also: App Annie, Sensor Tower) mining the app stores for data on the size and growth of the apps market.
Its latest report is co-published with a customer engagement firm called Braze, and focuses on the video streaming world. The part that caught our eye was the report’s table of the top 10 streaming apps in 2020 so far, measured by time spent within the app.
It’s no surprise to see Netflix, YouTube and Amazon Prime Video in the top five globally, with Indian service Hotstar – and Disney+ lurking in sixth place. But none of the apps mentioned above were in the top slot.
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Source: Music ally
Startup SupaPass is now a ‘website and app creation’ platform
Back in July 2016, we profiled a British startup called SupaPass, which had just launched an app for musicians to run their own subscription services: starting at £1 a month for access to their music, videos, social posts and other exclusive content. Imogen Heap would be one of its most high-profile artists.
We hadn’t checked in on the company for a while, but SupaPass is still going, armed with $600k of new funding – taking it to $3.5m in total – and a strategic pivot of its business.
The company is now pitching itself as an “all-in-one website and app creation platform” for all kinds of clients. Artists and labels are still a key target, but it’s also angling for podcasters, fitness and wellbeing stars, TV and film companies, charities, conferences and any other businesses with engaged audiences.
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Source: Music ally
L Devine’s digital ‘URL Tour’ helped her sell out of merch
One of the most inventive approaches to livestreaming so far this year came from British artist L Devine, who went on an online-only ‘URL Tour’ when a planned physical tour was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Instead of towns or cities, the URL Tour was structured around platforms: Instagram Live on 16 March; Twitter on 20 March; Facebook Live on 23 March; TikTok on 26 March; and YouTube Live on 30 March.
How did it go? We recommend Billboard’s post-mortem with Devine for that: the tour involved a mixture of different sets and themes, tuned for each platform, with plenty of benefits.
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Source: Music ally
Encore launches ‘music messages’ including NHS donations
Personalised video messages from celebrities are officially A Startup Thing, thanks to companies like Cameo and Taki, where people can pay for celebs to record them (or their friends / family) a unique video clip.
Now music/tech startup Encore has launched a spin on the idea for musicians. Its core business is providing a website for events organisers to book musicians. Its new thing is called Encore Music Messages, and extends the ‘artist bookings’ business into personalised videos.
“Book a musician to create a customised music video for you or a friend,” as its website explains. The price starts at £15 per video (around $18.50) with £2.50 from each video going to National Health Service charities.
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Source: Music ally
Side Door expands to include ticketing for livestream concerts
There are plenty of ways for artists to perform concerts at home and livestream them during the current period of social distancing and self-isolation, but not quite so many ways to charge fans to watch.
One recently-launched option is a startup called Side Door. Its core business is (or rather: will be, once the lockdown ends) facilitating Sofar Sounds-style ‘micro-performances’ to be booked in people’s homes and other unusual venues.
However, the company has now developed a feature to sell tickets for livestreamed shows, and will be waiving its commission for anyone using its service during April. Co-founder Dan Mangan is a musician himself, and attracted more than 600 ticketholders to his last concert on 28 March.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify app now works with Siri voice assistant on Apple Watch
We haven’t heard that much about Spotify’s European anti-competition complaint against Apple for a while, despite rumblings last year about a potential investigation. However, there have been some moves by Apple to open up its ecosystem in ways that address some of the complaints that Spotify had.
One concerns access to its Siri voice assistant, which was opened up last autumn with ‘SiriKit’ as part of the iOS 13 software. Spotify has already taken advantage on some Apple devices, and yesterday that extended to its Apple Watch app too. Small steps, but encouraging ones for these bitter rivals.
In separate Spotify news, it looks like we’ll soon be seeing the launch of its ‘Follow Feed’ feature in Spotify’s mobile app. First spotted in late February, it’s an in-app news feed of “new releases from artists you follow and more”.
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Source: Music ally
European music orgs call for more pandemic-tackling investment
A collective of 40 European music bodies are calling for the European Union and also national governments to deliver more support to the music industry and its creators, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“In light of this dire situation, we call for emergency as well as sustainable public support and structural policies at EU, national, regional and local level to consolidate the music ecosystem, and help it thrive again in all its diversity,” explained the group, led by Impala.
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Source: Music ally
SoundCloud makes its pitch to artists as a music distributor
SoundCloud made several announcements yesterday, and alongside its financial support for creators, there was also the launch of a new ‘marketing and distribution engine’ called Repost by SoundCloud.
It’s a very interesting move for the streaming service: “professional marketing and monetization services and industry-leading distribution features, with priority chat support”.
In essence, it’s a pitch for SoundCloud to be an artist’s digital distributor, including taking their music to other DSPs and social platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok and Instagram, and with features to “pitch for playlists, set up pre-save campaigns, claim your content on YouTube, and pay collaborators simply”.
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Source: Music ally
Sandbox Issue 249: What music can learn from YouTube’s biggest channels
Lead: Music is critical to YouTube while the music industry (beyond the politics of the value gap debate) is hugely reliant on the platform. But so too are other content types. We look at the biggest channels on YouTube generally – including categories such as comedy, education, film, sports and gaming (as well as music […]
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Source: Music ally
Calm and Headspace lead list of top meditation apps in the US
Meditation apps is a space that we’ve been following for a while now, as more of those apps license music and form partnerships with the music industry in other ways. Given the current global situation, it should come as no surprise that mindfulness apps of all kinds are seeing a spike in downloads. Analytics firm […]
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Source: Music ally
Startups battered by a coronavirus-driven ‘great unwinding’
The New York Times has published an interesting (if also bleak) article exploring the challenges that the coronavirus pandemic is presenting for tech startups in particular. It’s a good read, especially for people within the music industry who work with music-tech startups. One Silicon Valley exec who specialises in restructuring failed startups describes the current period as […]
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Source: Music ally
What music can learn from YouTube’s biggest channels
The latest edition of Sandbox went out to subscribers last night and the cover feature runs through the biggest YouTube channels outside of music (although we do add in T-Series for good measure) to look at what they do, how they do it and what music can learn from them all. There is comedy (in […]
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Source: Music ally
Grimes and WeTransfer want creatives to rework her new video
Artist Grimes has just released the video for her new track ‘You’ll Miss Me When I’m Not Around’, which sees her performing the song against a green-screen background. That design decision was actually part of a partnership with internet firm WeTransfer, with the goal being to encourage creatives (and fans) to take the raw footage from the […]
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Source: Music ally
EMI Archive Trust creates Sound Of The Hound podcast series
The EMI Archive Trust has created a new podcast series that looks at the history of recorded sound. It is called ‘The Sound Of The Hound’ (in tribute to Nipper, the canine made famous in the His Master’s Voice painting that gave the label and the HMV retail stores their names) and is presented by […]
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Source: Music ally
Some iHeartMedia staff furloughed as CEO foregoes his salary
Last week, we reported on US radio, live and streaming group iHeartMedia withdrawing its financial guidance for 2020 and drawing on $350m of a pre-agreed credit facility to tide it through the coronavirus pandemic. However, yesterday there were some more developments. Radio industry site RAMP got its hands on an internal memo revealing a range of cost-cutting measures to […]
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Source: Music ally
BPI & ERA Insight Session: Serving The Superfans – 29 April
Music Ally is partnering with ERA and the BPI to create a special report and livestreamed event looking at superfans and how to best market to them. The report will be published to coincide with the virtual conference which takes place on 29th April from 4pm to 6.30pm (GMT). The sessions during the afternoon include: […]
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Source: Music ally
Despite 2019 growth, Spanish industry braces for slump in 2020
There’s good news from Spain about the growth of its recorded music market in 2019, but very bad news expected for the rest of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Industry body Promusicae announced both yesterday. Recorded music revenues grew by 22.5% to €296.4m (around $324.5m) in 2019 in a market that is now three quarters […]
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Source: Music ally
Spotify and WMG seal their deal – including ‘additional markets’
The coronavirus pandemic appeared to have put the long-running soap opera of Spotify’s licensing renewals with major labels on hiatus. Now it’s returning: with concrete progress. “Warner Music Group and Spotify are pleased to announce a renewed global licensing partnership. This expanded deal covers countries where Spotify is available today, as well as additional markets,” […]
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Source: Music ally
SuperAwesome report: ‘Everyone is a kids and family brand now’
Just as many parents are teachers now, so when it comes to the world of technology and digital services “everyone is a kids and family brand now”. That’s the tagline for a report by kid-tech firm SuperAwesome, which explores what the coronavirus pandemic (and the stay-at-home measures being deployed to battle it) mean for businesses. […]
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Source: Music ally
‘Listen In’ with new artist-curated playlists on Pandora
Pandora has created a series of new playlists, all curated by different artists and exclusive to the platform, under the umbrella brand of Listen In. “Each artist-curated playlist will feature songs that are soundtracking their lives during this unusual time, with commentary about their connection to the music, what’s inspiring them, keeping them busy, or […]
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Source: Music ally
Huawei Music claims 160m monthly users, as it launches in Europe
Back in November 2018, we wrote about Chinese technology firm Huawei’s claim that its Huawei Music streaming service had 100 million monthly active users – a surprise to many people in the west who hadn’t been following its growth. Since then, Huawei has become one of the more controversial tech companies in the world thanks to scrutiny in […]
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Source: Music ally
Spotify Kids expands again, as country playlist Indigo launches
With parents across the world still getting to grips with home-schooling as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and associated social-distancing measures, digital services aimed at children are having a big moment in the spotlight. Spotify had already launched its Spotify Kids app in a range of countries, but yesterday it expanded to the world’s biggest music […]
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Source: Music ally
Tencent finally seals the deal for 10% stake in Universal Music
On the very last day of 2019, Tencent Holdings (heading up a consortium of investors) signed an agreement to acquire 10% of Universal Music Group. Now, in a neat bit of quarterly timing, that deal went through on the very last day of the first quarter of 2020. As previously announced, the deal valued Universal Music Group […]
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Source: Music ally
Management firm ie:music launches ie:ventures to invest in startups
Yesterday, we reported on the launch of music-making app Endlesss. One of the British startup’s investors is music management company ie:music, through a new arm called ie:ventures. Director Stephen O’Reilly told us more about the new division, and why the company – whose artists include Robbie Williams, Passenger and Ladyhawke – is getting into startup funding.
The new division was established in stealth mode over the last year. “Our core philosophy has always been that the artist and the fan are the two most important parts of the music industry; everybody else and their egos are just the gloop in the middle,” said O’Reilly. “We want to partner with entrepreneurs and technologies that have a shared vision in that. People that create the good gloop.”
ie:ventures isn’t just about investing money in startups: it’s also about partnerships for the company’s own new projects. “We have ‘ventures’ in music tech and other investments in the startup space. We also will be unveiling initiatives we are working on such as artist services, IP creation, education and other areas,” said O’Reilly.
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Source: Music ally