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British artist Damien Hirst looks set to make $20 million with his latest art-drop, “The Currency,” which forces prospective buyers to choose between physical and digital art in the shape of non-fungible tokens. Applications for ownership of Hirst’s 10,000 spot paintings closed on Wednesday, with Heni, the marketplace hosting the drop, reporting that it was oversubscribed by more than six times.

Source: Damien Hirst’s $20 Million Twist on NFTs 6X Oversubscribed – Decrypt

The company has 67.5 million subscribers to HBO and HBO Max, with 47 million in the United States. AT&T, which has struck a deal to sell its media businesses, expects HBO and HBO Max will have between 70 million and 73 million customers by the end of the year, exceeding earlier predictions.

Source: ‘Change is coming’ to streaming, Jason Kilar, the WarnerMedia chief, says.

With music discovery being one of the platform’s most talked-about attributes, it won’t surprise most music marketers to learn that 75% of TikTok visitors discover artists there, while 63% say it’s a source for music they’ve not heard before and 72% indicating they associate certain songs with TikTok.

Source: Studies Show TikTok’s Music Clout: Two-Thirds of Users Go to Streaming Services to Play Songs They’ve Found

The music business’s main value flows from its ability to control creative intellectual property, and that’s an essentially centralized activity. We need to be clear eyed about what needs to happen to create a truly robust, multi-faceted decentralized ecosystem for music.

Source: What would it really take to decentralize the music industry?

After a choppy quarter, executives say Netflix is staying laser-focused on enhancing its core product rather than shopping for M&A deals. “We’re a one-product company with a bunch of supporting elements that help that product give incredible satisfaction for consumers and a monetizing engine for investors,” Hastings said.

Source: Netflix Leaders Happy as ‘One-Product Company’ Amid Industry M&A Fervor

Panorama and the Audio Publishers Association offer several key top-line findings that add numbers to our growing understanding of the energy in digital formats and particularly in audio— energy that has in many markets, the States included, persisted beyond what some would have expected into this year.

Source: ‘Immersive Media & Books’ Study: Audiobooks and Context

YouTube on Tuesday launched a new way for video creators to earn money from fans through a feature called Super Thanks, as the Alphabet Inc streaming service looks to attract more content makers. The feature, a fourth way for YouTubers to earn money from their viewers, comes as competing platforms like short-form video app TikTok and Facebook’s Instagram are investing heavily to court creators filming viral videos.

Source: YouTube adds money-making feature to attract creators

Source: With ‘Black Widow’ ticket buying suddenly drying up, growing questions for Disney’s Marvel about what did it in

Movie theater operators did not mince words in asserting that Disney left money on the table by putting Marvel’s “Black Widow” on Disney Plus on the same day as its theatrical debut. “Despite assertions that this pandemic-era improvised release strategy was a success for Disney and the simultaneous release model, it demonstrates that an exclusive theatrical release means more revenue for all stakeholders in every cycle of the movie’s life,” the statement said.

Source: Movie Theater Owners Blame Marvel’s ‘Black Widow’ Box Office ‘Collapse’ on Disney Plus Launch

The hottest topics at the tables this year, according to conversations with a half-dozen participants, were the future of the streaming bundle and of sports rights deals, local and national. Attendees said there was also greater acknowledgment that the entertainment industry is in the midst of a fundamental transition to on-demand digital-distribution platforms that has to be addressed.

Source: Streaming Service Bundling From Roku, Apple and Other Aggregators Worries Media Titans