The paper, published today, finds that major labels have an unfair advantage when it comes to playlist access – and that they take the lion’s share of subscription revenue as a result. As a possible remedy, the research team suggests changing the payment system, so that royalties generated by individual listener subscriptions go direct to the labels, bands and artists they are listening to.
Source: UK study questions majors/indies split on streaming playlists
Today, music metadata impacts everything in an artist’s career, including distribution, discovery prospects, litigation prevention, and royalties. Consequently, many hardworking creators – particularly independent professionals – are missing out on compensation and career opportunities because of metadata oversights. Good metadata means getting discovered, building audiences, and getting paid; bad metadata could very well doom an artist to obscurity.
Source: Why Music Metadata Is Becoming More Critical for Musicians
Transactional movie revenues across pay TV and online, including PVOD, in the U.S. were up 14 percent last year to more than $6 billion, Omdia says in a new report. The Consumers and Movie Windows report notes that while transactional movie revenues did reach a new high in 2020, they weren’t enough to compensate for the declines in theatrical revenues amid Covid-19.
Source: U.S. Transactional Movie Revenues Topped $6 Billion in 2020 – TVUSA
Last week, Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry debuted on Apple TV Plus. The documentary became the “biggest hit title for young adult audiences that Apple has had so far across its slate of films and TV series,” Apple said, drawing a “record-breaking 33 percent new viewers to the service.” Sounds impressive, right? It would if Apple provided any kind of context for declarations like “biggest hit” and “record-breaking” subscriber adds.
Source: The days of knowing how big a movie is are seemingly over in a streaming-first era
Nearly 10% of annual global market share by volume on Spotify has passed from the major labels and Merlin to independent artists and labels outside of these structures within just the past three years. The annual pace of this decline is getting faster: in 2018, the majors and Merlin lost 2% versus the prior year; in 2019, they lost 3%; and in 2020, they lost 4%.
Source: Slowly but surely, the major labels’ dominance of Spotify is declining
Nearly half of local news outlets’ digital subscribers are “zombie” readers who visit the website less than once a month, according to a data analysis in 45 markets by Northwestern University’s Medill Spiegel Research Center. Concern is growing about this problem because even though the living dead may still pay for local news, they seem like a weak foundation to build a future on.
Source: Nearly Half of Digital Subscribers Are ‘Zombies,’ Medill Analysis Finds
Audience declines of 20 percent or more have followed Facebook taking its traffic ball and going home. Even people outside Australia can no longer share stories from Australian publishers big and small, from the Sydney Morning Herald all the way to the Goondiwindi Argus.
Source: In Australia, Facebook’s ban on sharing news stories has sent publishers’ traffic tumbling
Drawing on data from more than 4,300 “pre-qualified” respondents, surveyed from September through November of 2020, the report offers one of the most comprehensive looks at consumer media consumption and behavior in the e-book age, with demographic data broken down into three age groups, five U.S. regions, and seven racial/ethnic groups.
Source: New Report Explores ‘Engagement’ with Books in Context with Other Media
Tencent Music uses the phrase ‘long-form audio’ as a reflection of a focus that is already wider than Spotify’s. Podcasts and audiobooks, yes, but also comedy, drama and talk shows. The company says that in the third quarter of 2020 – the most recent period that it has reported financials for – 11.7% of its monthly active users (MAUs) listened to long-form audio. That’s up from 4.7% a year before.
Source: 11.7% of Tencent Music’s users are listening to long-form audio – Music Ally
If you can remember a few words of the song, you can search for it on Deezer. The streaming company says the feature is now available for all tracks that include sing-along lyrics. You’ll need to know at least four words of the lyric you’re searching on Deezer. For now, search by lyrics is only available on the web version of Deezer.
Source: Deezer Introduces New Search by Lyrics Feature For Users