Finance

The prospect that the streaming pioneer has now hit a ceiling didn’t sit well with investors who had been valuing media companies purely on the basis of subscriber growth. Netflix has shed more than 40% of its market value since, while Walt Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, the new owner of HBO Max, have seen their shares fall by an average of 17% over the same period.

Source: Netflix-Peak Fears Cast Shade on Paramount

The sale of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, fell to a daily average of about 19,000 this week, a 92% decline from a peak of about 225,000 in September, according to the data website NonFungible. The number of active wallets in the NFT market fell 88% to about 14,000 last week from a high of 119,000 in November. Rising interest rates have crushed risky bets across the financial markets—and NFTs are among the most speculative.

Source: NFT Sales Are Flatlining

In its 10-Q filing with the SEC, Amazon detailed the components of the MGM deal, which closed March 17. The assets “primarily consist of $3.4 billion of video content,” with the acquisition price including $4.9 billion of goodwill, which is defined as “the established reputation of a business regarded as a quantifiable asset.”

Source: Amazon Values MGM’s Content Library at $3.4 Billion

Apple’s services – including Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple Fitness+ – generated a record high of $19.82 billion on the quarter. The sum signifies a roughly 17.28 percent increase from the same three-month stretch in 2021 and an approximately 1.56 percent increase from Q1 FY 2022. While the iPhone designer doesn’t break down its subscribers by service, paid subscriptions jumped past 825 million, as highlighted – an improvement of 40 million against the prior quarter.

Source: Apple Music and Other Apple Services Now Have Over 825 Million Subs

Today (April 29), Our Happy Company has revealed that it’s raised $7.5 million in a seed round led by Infinity Ventures Crypto and Animoca Brands,  the parent of gaming platform The Sandbox (which recently partnered with Warner Music Group to create a music-themed world in the metaverse). Our Happy Company says that the new funding will be used to grow and develop its OurSong NFT platform.

Source: John Legend’s NFT platform just raised $7.5m, led by The Sandbox parent Animoca Brands

Twitch is considering upping its own cut to 50%, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. That would bring Partner streamers down to the 50/50 split Twitch currently has with Affiliate streamers. But that change isn’t set in stone. Twitch is also considering another option: a tier-based system, where some Partners would continue making 70% from channel subs while some would make the new, lower 50%.

Source: Twitch reportedly wants a bigger cut of streamers’ revenue. Also, it thinks they should try running more ads. – Tubefilter

A bevy of legacy acts, including Shakira, Neil Young, and Barry Manilow, all covered the same hot new investor song — “Music Is A Dependable Asset Class” — and traded catalogs for cash from funds, investors, and other financial outfits. Now, an intriguing question — and its potentially lucrative answer — has me and many others up late: Can smaller artists cash out, too? Can investors apply the same equation, and capture equally dependable returns, from the little guys?

Source: Could the Music Catalog Rights Boom Generate Windfalls for Non-Superstars?

Spotify added just 2 million premium subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 and wrapped up March with a total of 182 million paid users and 252 million ad-supported listeners. While that paid subscriber tally was a million under guidance, the company was quick to note that its wind-down in Russia, following its invasion of Ukraine, resulted in an “involuntary churn” of roughly 1.5 million subscribers there.

Source: Spotify Subscribers Crawl to 182M as Quarterly Revenue Grows 24%

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is expected to post its slowest revenue growth on record as the company navigates growing competition for users and privacy headwinds in its advertising business. Meta’s stock price was battered in February when it posted quarterly results that showed a sharper-than-expected decline in profit, a gloomy revenue outlook and a drop in its daily active users.

Source: Facebook Parent Meta Expected to Post Slowest Revenue Growth Since IPO

Google parent Alphabet Inc on Tuesday reported its first quarterly revenue miss of the pandemic after the war in Ukraine hurt YouTube ad sales, leaving investors rattled as the global economy sputters. Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said it was too early to predict when sales slowed by the war may pick up and warned that the strengthening U.S. dollar would hurt sales even more in the current quarter.

Source: Alphabet misses on revenue as YouTube ad business slowed by Ukraine war