Marketplace

A 2018 study by San Francisco-based engineer Michael Tauberg concluded that songs on the Billboard Hot 100 shed around 40 seconds since 2000, falling from 4:10-ish to roughly 3:30. The average length of the top 50 tracks on Billboard‘s year-end Hot 100 in 2021 was even less, a mere 3:07. “It’s a reaction to the culture of soundbites that we moved towards,” says Vincent “Tuff” Morgan, VP of A&R at peermusic. “I have producers in the studio this week just going through and making songs shorter.”

Source: Here’s Why Shorter Songs Are Surging (And Why Some Welcome It)

In a bid to differentiate itself, Symphonic Distribution has opened up what it says are detailed TikTok analytics to DIY artists as part of its new $19.99 per-year ‘Starter Plan’, which also includes unlimited releases. “There are many providers of DIY distribution, but when we looked closer, we found that the offerings at the intro pricing levels are very limited,” claims Jorge Brea, founder & CEO of Florida-headquartered Symphonic.

Source: How $40m-backed Symphonic Distribution plans to be a ‘true alternative’ to traditional labels

Combined subscription cancellations across 10 leading subscription-based video-on-demand (SVOD) services rose by 14% in Q3 2022 in comparison to both Q2 and Q1, according to Antenna. More than 32 million subscriptions were cancelled across the tracked services in Q3, compared to 28 million in each of the two previous quarters.

Source: Video Insider: Premium SVOD Subscription Churn Up By 14% In Q3

The world’s biggest record labels and streaming services are not making excessive profits at the expense of artists struggling to make a living from the digital music revolution, a long-running investigation by the UK competition watchdog has concluded. The Competition and Markets Authority said artists’ concerns about low returns were understandable, but intervening in the market would be unlikely to help.

Source: UK music streaming services not making excessive profits, says watchdog

Does Iger pull back on the promises to Wall Street both he and Chapek made of reaching break-even on streaming spending by 2024? Does he repeal Chapek’s projection of up to 260 million subscribers by then? Should the company sell more projects to other outlets, or make fewer shows for its streaming services? For that matter, is streaming still the future of the company?

Source: Now That Bob Iger Has Taken Over, Is This the End of Disney’s Streaming-First Strategy? (Bloom)

World of Women confronts the limits of selling cartoon avatars on the blockchain after the crypto bubble burst.  It was still summer, but “crypto winter” had descended—bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies had collapsed, wiping out some two trillion dollars in value since crypto’s market peak, in November, 2021. N.F.T. trading volume had fallen by more than ninety per cent since January. Selling cartoon women on the blockchain was no longer a sustainable business model.

Source: Yam Karkai’s Illustrations Made Her an N.F.T. Sensation. Now What?

Despite some of the realities for niche indie-released music, the founders of New York-based indie label Mom + Pop remain optimistic. Rather than harking back to an era gone by, Michael Goldstone and Thaddeus Rudd wholly accept the world they are currently operating within. “There are platforms out there, exposing music to so many people, across all genres and all ages, in a different form to what we might have ever expected,” says Goldstone.

Source: ‘Streaming has unshackled us to compete and unshackled artists to be heard.’

The faltering of Disney Animation’s $135M production Strange World with a paltry $28M global start, and the bright spot of Netflix’s experiment with Knives Out 2 over the holiday has prompted questions about what’s ripe for streaming and what’s right for theatrical. The answer is both are ripe for theatrical, and Netflix is leaving massive monies on the table.

Source: Netflix Record $15M First Week Of ‘Glass Onion’: What It Means For Box Office, Streaming & How It Came To Be

Spotify launched audiobooks in the US in September, stating that the expansion was proof that “audio and long-form content is a much bigger business than many would have thought.” While audiobooks represent just a 6 to 7% share of the broader book market, the company says that the category is growing by 20% year-on-year.

Source: Spotify Expands Audiobooks Into the UK – Catalog Tops 300K