Generation Z displays strikingly different entertainment preferences than older age groups, according to Deloitte’s 2021 Digital Media Trends survey. Among Gen Z consumers in the U.S. (those currently aged 14-24), video games are their No. 1 entertainment activity — and watching TV or movies at home comes in fifth.
Source: Gen Z Ranks Watching TV, Movies as Fifth Among Top 5 Entertainment Activities
Revealing grosses is only part of what people in the entertainment industry are interested in seeing. Distribution executives want their studio counterparts to divulge very granular levels of data behind the numbers, going beyond the splashy opening weekend figure that’s featured in headlines and across internal memos.
Source: As Moviegoing Returns, Will Hollywood Studios Continue to Hide Box Office Grosses?
YouTube is one of the only social-media platforms that managed to expand its market presence as a share of adult users in the United States between 2019 and 2021, according to a newly published survey from the Pew Research Center. 81 percent of participants said that they “ever use” YouTube as of 2021, against 73 percent in 2019.
Source: YouTube Is One of Two Major Platforms That Has Grown Since 2019
Synchtank claims the new, commercially available version of IRIS is designed specifically for use in the music publishing sector, with a unique ability to track data and identify royalties due across the broadest possible range of platforms and territories. It is a bespoke tool built by a team who know the challenges and needs of the 21st century music business, a scalable solution to the most pressing problem faced by companies and creators alike.
The Pact, a newly formed songwriting group, has called for artists to cease claiming credit on songs that they didn’t author. The debut message that The Pact directed towards the now-standard practice of giving songwriting credit to non-contributing artists (and, in some instances, others who are not involved with the writing process) consists of eight slides, the first of which features text asking: “How does an ARTIST make money?”
Source: Songwriting group tells artists to stop claiming credit on songs they didn’t write
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