American listeners racked up more than 1 trillion music streams for the first time last year, fueled in part by breakout artists such as Lil Nas X and Billie Eilish, new data show. Total US music streams spiked 29.3 percent to 1.15 trillion in 2019 as services such as YouTube and Spotify continued to dominate how listeners get their tunes, according to Nielsen Music’s annual report.
Source: US listeners surpass 1 trillion music streams in 2019
The movie division has signed a deal with Cinelytic to use the latter’s AI-driven project management system that was launched last year. Under the new deal, Warners will leverage the system’s comprehensive data and predictive analytics to guide decision-making at the greenlight stage.
Source: Warner Bros. Signs Deal for AI-Driven Film Management System (Exclusive)
About 50% of M&E executives said their company cannot rely on traditional business models to survive the shifting landscapes, according to a new survey by consulting and professional services firm EY. Indeed, 34% of those surveyed indicated that their company will no longer exist in five years unless their business undergoes reinvention.
The rise in popularity of services such as Netflix, Amazon and Spotify prompted record spending on streaming music, films and TV shows in the UK last year to more than £3bn, as the digital revolution hammered high street sales of DVDs and CDs. The total UK entertainment market, which also includes the video games sector, grew by 2.4% to hit a record £7.8bn in 2019.
Source: UK spent a record £3bn on streaming music, films and TV in 2019
U.S. regulators are being urged to look beyond Google and Facebook to review how Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others are leveraging consumer habits as a competitive weapon in the digital entertainment war. Government intervention could drop a bomb on the so-called streaming wars.
Source: Big Data Comes to Hollywood: The Brewing Antitrust Battle of the Streaming Era
The RIAA said that music streaming accounted for 80% of the music market in the United States, up from 7% in the beginning of the decade. In correspondence with the dramatic rise in music streaming, the number of paid streaming subscriptions has soared, too. In 2010, there were only 1.5 million such accounts, but by the middle of last year there were more than 600 million of them.
Source: Streaming Accounted for 80% of US-Based Recording Revenues in 2019
Analysts claim it’s not only possible to see who’s blowing up now, but more importantly, who’s going to be blowing up next. Chartmetric says it can shortlist which of the 1.7 million artists it tracks will have a big career break within the next week. Pandora-owned Next Big Sound reports its patented algorithm can predict which of the nearly 1 million artists it tracks are most likely to hit the Billboard 200 chart for the first time within the next year.
In a press release this week, the Association of American Publishers shared the concerns of more than 125 scholarly society and research organizations in opposition to a potential Trump administration executive order that could potentially achieve something with the stroke of a sharpie that open access advocates have been unsuccessfully pushing legislatively for years—free access to publicly funded research.
Source: Is Trump Preparing to Order Public Access to Taxpayer Funded Research?
Billboard parent company Valence Media is acquiring the Nielsen Music insights and product suite that fuel its charts data, it was announced Wednesday (Dec. 18). The purchase reunites Billboard with the leading music consumption analytics platform after a decade-long separation.
Source: Billboard Parent Company Valence Media Acquires Nielsen Music
In 2014, 80% of the US population’s listening hours were directed towards music, with 20% dedicated to spoken word; in 2019, with the mainstream presence of podcasts erupting all around (not least on Spotify), these stats have changed: music’s share is down to 76%, says the research, with spoken word growing to 24%.
Source: Are Podcasts Threatening the Growth of the Music Industry?