Report: there were 400m music subscribers globally at end of Q1 2020
There were 341 million people using paid music subscriptions at the end of 2019, according to global music industry body the IFPI. Now we’ve got an update on that figure, albeit from a different source.
Consultancy firm Midia Research has published its music subscriber market share figures for Q1 2020, claiming that by the end of March there were 400 million music subscribers globally.
By Midia’s reckoning, that’s year-on-year growth of 30%, with 93 million net new music subscribers added since the end of March 2019. In his blog post, MD Mark Mulligan noted that this is an acceleration in growth, since the prior 12-month period had seen 77 million net new subs.
(Note: we’re nearly at the end of Q2 2020 now. If the rate of growth had continued – a big assumption, given the uncertainties around the Covid-19 pandemic – the global total should be past 420 million at the time of writing.)
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Source: Music ally
Microsoft shuts down its livestreaming video service Mixer
Mixer was tech giant Microsoft’s rival to Twitch and other livestreaming video platforms, focused squarely on gaming.
You may remember that in August 2019 it signed an exclusive deal with Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins (of ‘played Fortnite with Drake’ fame, although to many young people, it’s more Drake who’s of ‘played Fortnite with Ninja’ fame). More on that deal in a minute.
Mixer is now shutting down: “It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences that Microsoft and Xbox want to deliver for gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform,” announced Microsoft.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify steps up podcast monetisation with in-app offers
Spotify is trying something new around podcast advertising: ‘in-app offers’. It means that when someone’s listening to a podcast and hears an ad from a sponsor with a particular offer, they’ll also be able to tap on a link to redeem that offer from within the podcast’s episode page in Spotify’s mobile app.
“Most podcast listening happens in screenless moments like when you’re getting ready for work, exercising, running errands, cooking dinner, or washing the dishes. If you hear a compelling offer, you need to make a mental note of it for when you return back to your phone or computer,” is how Spotify described the problem it’s trying to solve here (as much for advertisers as for listeners).
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Source: Music ally
Twenty One Pilots launch a never-ending music video
Last week, we covered Twenty One Pilots’ scavenger hunt to promote their new single, ‘Level Of Concern’, which got fans to track down codes hidden online to unlock content. Which they did much faster than expected.
“We didn’t think you would tear through the codes so easily,” the band tweeted. “Should have taken a week but you did it in just over 12 hours. You got us this time. Now join in with your footage, your art, your dances, and be a part of the first ever never-ending music video.”
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Source: Music ally
BTS take over Uno! mobile game and donate to Crew Nation
Music Ally knows card game ‘Uno!’ best for being second only to Monopoly in the chart of ‘games most likely to cause almighty family rows at Christmas’. What we don’t know it for, until now, are digital marketing campaigns with world-famous K-Pop groups.
But yes: BTS are taking over the mobile game version of ‘Uno!’ for the immediate future. “Win BTS themed cards, badges, and more while competing on the global leaderboards to prove that you’re the loudest fan of all,” explains its App Store listing, which notes that the promotion is “for a limited time” only.
The partnership follows the launch of BTS’s own mobile game BTS World in June 2019, and their management company Big Hit Entertainment’s acquisition a few months later of a mobile games developer called Superb.
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Source: Music ally
Hamburg’s Music WorX accelerator seeks four music/tech startups
We’ve written regularly about music/tech accelerators and incubators like Techstars Music, Abbey Road Red and Marathon Artists Labs. Another one that’s well regarded is Music WorX in Hamburg, run by the publicly-funded Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft body.
It’s kicking off a new cohort for 2020, with a three-month program for “teams who have not yet or only recently founded their company”.
There’ll be up to four teams participating in the program, which will provide €5k to help them develop their business idea plus another €1.5k per team per month towards living costs. The publicly-funded nature of the accelerator means it does not take equity.
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Source: Music ally