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
For all the improvements in metadata in recent years, information germane to licensing can be difficult to find. Not that music data is being overlooked, but the focus has been elsewhere. Rightsholder.io wants to make finding music copyright data easier for licensing professionals and others.
Source: Can This Music Rights Search Tool Solve a Big Industry Problem?
The HBO Max premiere of ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ racked up huge viewing numbers, according to Nielsen. For the week of Dec. 21-27, HBO Max users spent 2.25 billion minutes watching Wonder Woman 1984 (it was released Christmas Day). That’s equivalent to about 14.9 million complete plays of the 151-minute movie.
Source: ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Makes Huge Streaming Debut, Nielsen Says
Podchaser, a startup building what it calls “IMDB for podcasts,” recently announced that it has raised $4 million in a funding round led by Greycroft. In other words, it’s a site where — similar to the Amazon-owned Internet Movie Database — users can look up who’s appeared in which podcasts, rate and review those podcasts and add them to lists.
Source: Podchaser raises $4M to build a comprehensive podcast database
The time spent by the average global citizen rose 2.8% to 53 hours weekly, according to a new forecast. But given a corresponding erosion in ad spending, coupled with greater adoption of subscription streaming services and other media during 2020, the share of time spent with ad-supported media fell to 44.8% in the U.S. and to 65.8% worldwide.