Data

A new survey by Morgan Stanley reveals that Spotify is the fastest-growing music service in the United States. It is also now the most popular platform for podcast listening. From 2019 to 2021, the streaming giant’s share of the average American’s listening hours increased from 7 per cent to 10 per cent, well behind AM/FM radio and YouTube, but strong among younger consumers who will make up the bulk of listeners over the next decade.

Source: Thanks to podcasts, Spotify is the fastest-growing music service in the US, according to Morgan Stanley survey

Building upon its pioneering efforts to improve music credits – and eliminate unmatched royalties – at the label level, VEVA Sound has inked partnership agreements with the PPL, the MLC, and more as part of a broader creator-focused expansion. VEVA Collect functions as a one-stop collaboration and project-management platform, prioritizing the upfront onboarding of metadata and crediting information to prevent royalty headaches down the line.

Source: VEVA Sound Partners With PPL, MLC, Jaxsta & More to Expand Song Credits Collection

The bill, the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, would allow independent researchers to submit proposals to the National Science Foundation. If the requests are approved, social media companies would be required to provide the necessary data subject to certain privacy protections.

Source: Senators unveil bipartisan bill requiring social media giants to open

Recording artists know a lot more about their fans than they did before the Covid-19 lockdowns, and they want to use that information to get closer to them. Newly armed with these granular fan insights, artists are beginning to tailor marketing messages, communicate with fans in more direct ways, and create new experiences for their die-hard followers.

Source: Armed With Data, Musicians Have Big Plans to Court Their Superfans

TV and movie viewing still command the largest share, and did see growth over the past two years–but gaming and other activities saw significantly higher growth, according to consumer surveys conducted by Interpret. The report is based on detailed online surveys about entertainment behaviors among 9,000 U.S. consumers between 2019 and 2021.

Source: Digital News Daily: TV, Movie Viewing Have Lost Share Of Overall Entertainment Time: Study

In the rollout of its new measurement metric on Tuesday, Netflix’s corporate communications on the subject seemed to emphasize that the company underwent this revamp primarily to satisfy its fan base. But one suspects that subscribers — i.e., ordinary folk — who have occasionally taken to social media to cast aspersions on Netflix’s audience claims are not the only constituency being served here.

Source: TVBlog: New Netflix Metric Is Aimed More At Fans Than Business Partners

The owner of popular media outlets like HBO, CNN and TNT intends to offer its own audience-measurement data next year, with hopes of doing some deals based on its efforts in the 2022 upfront, Andrea Zapata, who oversees data, research and insights for the company’s ad-sales unit, said in an interview. “We are doing this because we believe that there has got to be a better alternative in measurement solutions,” she said.

Source: WarnerMedia Plans to Launch Nielsen Measurement Alternative in 2022

Music has lost eight percent of its stateside listenership share to spoken word audio – including podcasts and audiobooks – since 2014, according to a new study. During the last month, the document states, a full 75 percent of the U.S. online population (age 18 and up) has listened to spoken word audio content, with 45 percent of the 330 million-resident nation’s age 13+ population having listened to spoken word entertainment daily.

Source: Music’s Share of Listening Dips 8% in U.S. Amid Spoken Word Audio Growth

Platforms like HBO Max, Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon’s Prime Video, Hulu and Paramount+ continue to keep a vise-like grip on their data, and, nearly a decade into the streaming era, the lack of transparency is making it nearly impossible for dealmakers, and even viewers, to define what is a hit and what is a bomb.

Source: Why Streamers Are Stalling on Sharing Data

A report from eMarkerter suggests that Spotify will hit 41.5 million free users  in the US this year. That’s an increase of 9.7% over 2020, and part of a trend that finds ad-supported listeners making up an increased share of Spotify’s platform. If that trend continues, Spotify is expected to have as many as 52 million US-based ad-supported listeners by 2025.

Source: Spotify Free Users Are Growing Faster Than Paid Subscribers – Why?