Business
Page: 444
There are twin $10 billion milestones served up in the RIAA’s 2022 year-end report on U.S. recorded music revenues: paid subscription streaming revenue reached $10.2 billion over the course of the year; and industry revenues at wholesale reached $10.3 billion, the first time either of those markers have been crossed, the trade body reports.
Those are two headline numbers of the annual report, wherein U.S. recorded music revenues grew 6.1% at retail, from $15.0 billion in 2021 to $15.9 billion in 2022. That marks the seventh straight year of growth for the business, though the percentage of that bump is the lowest since 2015 (+0.9%), the first year that retail revenues began to rise from the industry’s 2014 nadir. (The growth that year was so small, around $65 million, that it was essentially flat for all intents and purposes.) In fact, 2022 is the only year during that time period when growth has not exceeded double digits other than 2020, when a first COVID-impacted year of uncertainty still saw a 9.2% rise in revenue.
Streaming, unsurprisingly, made up the bulk of the industry’s revenues — 84%, up a tick from 83% in 2021, adding up to $13.3 billion in 2022, up 7% from $12.4 billion the year before. Within that, the aforementioned paid streaming chunk was the largest, accounting for 77% of that total for 8% year-over-year growth, and in and of itself making up just shy of 2/3s of the industry’s overall revenues; of the overall paid streaming number, so-called “limited-tier” subscription streaming — including the likes of Amazon Prime, Pandora Plus, Peloton and other fitness or restricted streaming options — grew 18% to surpass $1 billion, coming in at $1.1 billion overall. And ad-supported streaming — like YouTube, Spotify’s free tier or revenues from TikTok — moved up 6% to $1.8 billion, making up 11% of all revenues for the year.
The average number of paid subscriptions in the U.S., meanwhile, reached 92 million, up 9.6% from the 84 million that existed in 2021. (The RIAA notes that this does not include limited-tier subscriptions, and counts “multi-user plans” as one subscription. The overall paid streaming figure of $10.2 billion includes limited-tier.) That growth, while significant given that it is higher than overall revenue growth, is down in both actual numbers and percentage growth for 2021, as was the revenue growth gleaned from paid subs, suggesting that while there’s still room to go higher and records continue to get broken, there may be a slowdown in subscriptions in the future.
Outside of those streaming figures, digital and customized radio revenue — paid out by services such as SiriusXM — inched up 2% YoY, even as SoundExchange payouts declined 3% to $959 million; those other ad-supported platforms such as SiriusXM and other internet radio services grew 28% in revenue during the year, contributing $261 million to the overall pie. That ends a few straight years of growth from SoundExchange distributions, though the overall figure of $1.2 billion from digital and customized radio in general has remained relatively flat for the past several years.
Also within the digital realm, downloads continued their stumble down the proverbial cliff, dropping 20% across the board — both for tracks and for digital albums — to total $495 million in revenue ($242 million for tracks, $214 million for albums). The RIAA notes that in 2012, digital downloads made up 43% of the overall industry’s revenue; in 2022, that number was just 3%. Factoring other formats, total digital revenue was $13.8 billion, up 6.0% from 2021, or 87% of the total business.
For the first time since 1987, vinyl LP units outsold the number of CDs, 41.3 million to 33.4 million (vinyl overtook CDs in revenue in 2020), as its year-over-year growth streak stretches to 16 years — old enough to drive. Total physical revenue was up 4% in 2022 to $1.7 billion, of which $1.2 billion came from vinyl — up 17% YoY, making up 71% of physical revenues. CD revenue, meanwhile, continued to decline despite the one-time pandemic boost of a few years ago, down 18% to $483 million in 2022. Synch revenue also grew, up 24.8% to $382.5 million.
“2022 was an impressive year of sustained ‘growth-over-growth’ more than a decade after streaming’s explosion onto the music scene,” RIAA chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier said in a statement accompanying the report. “Continuing that long run, subscription streaming revenues now make up two-thirds of the market with a robust record high $13.3 billion. This long and ongoing arc of success has only been possible thanks to the determined and creative work of record companies fighting to build a healthy streaming economy where artists and rightsholders get paid wherever and whenever their work is used.”
The license of a Rochester, New York, concert venue was revoked Wednesday (March 8) while authorities investigate the circumstances of a stampede after a rap concert that left two women dead and injured several other concertgoers.
“It is one step we can immediately take to ensure that the events of Sunday night are not repeated,” Police Chief David M. Smith said at a news conference. He said he denied the Main Street Armory’s application to renew its one-year entertainment license after the venue’s owner did not attend a scheduled meeting with police and other city officials.
Rhondesia Belton, 33, of Buffalo and Brandy Miller, 35, of Rochester were fatally injured when audience members surged dangerously toward the exits following a Sunday evening performance by Memphis, Tennessee, rap stars GloRilla and Finesse2tymes. Police on Monday said the stampede may have been triggered by unfounded fears of gunfire. But police found no immediate evidence of gunshots.
One woman remained hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday.
Smith said the city planned to meet with the venue’s owner Wednesday to ask him to choose between voluntarily halting events or having the pending renewal of the entertainment license denied. When the owner did not attend, the chief signed an order prohibiting the armory from hosting “any public entertainment, which includes concerts, amplified music, and athletic events or games, including volleyball or cheerleading.”
There was no response to an email requesting comment sent to the Main Street Armory.
“Your contracted event security guards were unable to control the crowd as they were running, which in turn caused a human stampede,” according to the city’s letter to Scott Donaldson, which said he had violated a licensing requirement to maintain order at the site.
The city’s deputy corporation counsel, Patrick Beath, said criminal and regulatory investigations are under way.
“In addition to the police investigation, the Rochester Fire Department and code enforcement teams are inspecting the building and reviewing photographic and video evidence of the concert to determine if there were any fire code or building code violations at the property,” Beath said at the news conference.
The fortress-like armory was built from 1905 to 1907 and was initially used by the U.S. Army. It hosted sporting events throughout the 20th century before being shut down for several years starting in the late 1990s, partly because it lacked a fire-suppression system at the time. It began hosting concerts and other events in 2005 after undergoing extensive renovations.
Smith said its main arena is meant to have a capacity of about 5,000 people.
“The bottom line is, lives were lost, and we need to take steps to make sure that no lives are lost in the future if this was indeed something that was preventable,” he said.
Fatal crowd surges at large events have turned deadly before, including one at a 2021 concert by rapper Travis Scott in which 10 people died.
If the price of an individual streaming subscription plan were adjusted for inflation in 2023, it would cost $13.25 instead of roughly $10 a month, Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl said on Wednesday (March 8) — a statistic that doubled as a plea for streaming companies that have yet to raise fees to get in line.
While several of the big music streaming companies — including Apple, Amazon and Deezer — have raised their baseline prices recently, the biggest one of all, Spotify, has so far held off on raising the $9.99 pricetag on its U.S. premium subscription plan. Though Kyncl didn’t specifically address Spotify on Wednesday, when he spoke at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, he said companies that haven’t raised their prices are playing a role in the undervaluing of music.
“We are the lowest (cost) form of entertainment,” he said. “We have the highest …engagement, highest form of affinity and lowest per hour price. That doesn’t seem right. It should change in an orderly fashion.”
While Kyncl is far from an unbiased commenter on price hikes — music labels stand to gain significant revenues from DSPs raising their subscription prices — Kyncl says the 12 years he spent at YouTube has shown him companies can raise prices if they have a product consumers cherish.
“YouTube TV has grown its subscription from $35 to $70 while growing … because they have a superior product,” Kyncl said.
During the wide-ranging presentation, Kyncl also expressed empathy for executives at TikTok who are at “a company that’s kind of embattled today with lots of different institutions around the world.”
“As someone who’s kind of gone through that, it is much better to have friends and not fight a war on every flank,” he added, recalling the contentious relationship YouTube once had with the music industry.
TikTok is engaged in ongoing negotiations over remuneration to rights holders, a group that includes Warner Music Group (WMG). On Wednesday, Kyncl noted WMG is open to a friendlier dynamic with the popular music discovery tool so long as it works for “both sides.”
“That’s all I look for, fair setup on both sides and to grow a business together,” Kyncl added.
Abu Dhabi-based music streaming company Anghami says its revenues grew by more than 35% to $48 million in 2022, driven by strong growth in paid subscribers, according to a statement the company released sharing its preliminary unaudited results for last year.
The company says its total number of paying subscribers grew 21% year-over-year to 1.52 million, while the overall number of music streams rose by 20% amid growing demand for Anghami’s music content, roughly 60% of which was Arabic-language in 2022.
“Our ability to provide an exceptional user experience and to deliver the best music and entertainment content in the (Middle East and North Africa) region and beyond is reflected in our strong financial performance in 2022,” Anghami CEO Eddy Maroun said in a statement.
As the most popular streaming platform in one of the fastest-growing streaming markets in the world, Anghami says it will achieve profitability later this year. But the company has faced its first public growing pains in recent months in the form of a lawsuit and regulatory reprimand.
In December, U.S.-based publishing company Reservoir Media and its Middle East partner PopArabia sued Anghami for alleged copyright infringement related to a dozen Western and Arabic songs by artists including Lil Jon and 50 Cent. Anghami has defended its payments to rights holders and called the lawsuit baseless and defamatory.
In January, the Nasdaq market exchange, where Anghami is publicly traded, notified the company that it was in violation of a filing rule requiring Anghami to submit a balance sheet and income statement to support its interim results for the second quarter ending June 30, 2022. The company had only submitted a press release with financial results for the period.
The regulatory flag did not affect Anghami’s listing or ability to trade on the exchange, and Anghami apparently remedied the issue this month by filing unaudited condensed financial statements for the first half of 2022 and 2021.
However, in a Feb. 27 filing, Anghami noted that its independent auditor, Ernst & Young Middle East, resigned this year and has been replaced by Grant Thornton. Ernst & Young audited Anghami’s financials for 2021 and 2022 without issue, but did include paragraphs in each of the year’s reports “regarding substantial doubt about Anghami’s ability to continue as a going concern,” Anghami said in the filing.
Grant Thornton is expected to release an audited version of the company’s full-year 2022 results by mid-April.
Spotify unveiled a slew of new features and touted its commitment to music discovery in a sprawling, 90-minute Stream On presentation Wednesday (March 8). CEO Daniel Ek called it “the biggest” transformation the platform has gone through in a decade.
“We hear the same things again and again from the creator community,” Ek told the Stream On audience. “Get me closer to the fans, give me more ways to engage, and help me better monetize.” These three imperatives were the thread that connected the many, many initiatives Spotify extolled on Wednesday.
Vertical Feed, Previews and Pre-Saves
The most noticeable change designed to make Spotify “feel alive,” as Ek put it, was the introduction of the swipe-able vertical feed, which replaces the old static carousels of playlists and recommendations. The new feed is video-based, and it will play previews of music and other audio content, like podcasts and audiobooks, in what Spotify co-president Gustav Soderstrom called “a powerful new way to get that first listen.”
“When I open my homescreen, I won’t have to choose what I might be interested in just based on a cover art that I’ve never seen before, or an episode name I’ve never heard of,” he added. “Instead, I can instantly hear the most interesting part of a song or an episode.”
If the new feed is meant to pique the interest of curious fans, the new pre-save feature allows artists to capitalize on fan interest months before a potential release. Artists have been using third-party technology to run pre-save campaigns for years, but Sulinna Ong, Spotify’s global head of editorial, suggested that Spotify’s pre-save function would resonate in a different way because it’s a dedicated listening service.
“There’s a disconnect between where music is being teased and where music is actually being streamed,” she noted, in what could be interpreted as a subtle shot at TikTok. “The most powerful time to reach fans is when they’ve chosen to engage with music, like when they open up Spotify.”
Fans who pre-save a release will be notified when the song or album comes out. Spotify’s data indicates that 80% of pre-savers return to the platform to stream the song or album during their debut week.
Statistics like these were sprinkled throughout Stream On by the platform’s executives. Sometimes they were testaments to Spotify’s enormous reach, with Ek noting at one point that the platform served more than 10 million creators and enjoyed more than half a billion listeners spread across 184 markets.
In other instances, the numbers served to illustrate the power of Spotify’s tools. “These days, Spotify recommendations drive close to half of all user streams,” Soderstrom said. “Each time your music gets played on a playlist like Release Radar, you receive, on average, three times more streams from that listener over the next six months. And when a listener decides to follow you, they listen to, on average, five times more of your music.”
This, he continued, sets Spotify apart from platforms that deliver “just a fleeting moment of viral fame,” in what sounded like another jab at TikTok.
Discovery Mode and Smart Shuffle
Interested in learning about the effectiveness of Discovery Mode, which allows artists to take a lower royalty rate in order to gain more algorithmic exposure on the platform? Spotify had some numbers to share.
“On average, we’ve seen users save Discovery Mode songs 50% more often, add them to playlists 44% more, and follow the artists 37% more,” said Joe Hadley, the streamer’s global head of artist partnerships and audience. “And that’s just what they see in the song’s first month of Discovery Mode use.” He hinted that the program was especially powerful for new artists by stating that “algorithmic recommendations” are responsible for one-third of all new artist discoveries on Spotify.
Those algorithmic recommendations also factor into Smart Shuffle, a new feature that augments user-created playlists with Spotify’s picks — all of which are informed by the listener’s history. Users often heavily stream these new playlists “for the first several months after creation,” Spotify wrote on its blog. “But over time they stream these playlists less frequently in favor of new music or mixes.” Smart Shuffle aims to “breathe new life” into those old collections of songs by “shuffling tracks and adding new, perfectly tailored suggestions.”
Marquee and Clips
Spotify also cited stats to demonstrate the impact of Marquee, which offers full-screen sponsored recommendations for new releases. “On average, Marquee is 10 times more cost effective at getting listeners to stream your music on Spotify than ads on the most popular social media platforms,” Ong said.
Another feature that Spotify rolled out to a wider user base through Spotify for Artists is called Clips, which lets artists add 30-second videos to their profiles. “We built Clips to give artists a platform that inspires fandom and long-term success, not quick hits of content that just tap into the latest meme,” Spotify explained in a video about the feature. “Clips… help drive metrics that really matter to your career, like saves, follows, and streams.”
Concert Listings and Fans First
Last summer, Spotify announced that it had joined forces with Ticketmaster, AXS and more on a new Live Events Feed that captures “most of the world’s concerts” in major markets. Executives reaffirmed the platform’s commitment to this initiative at Stream On. Ong said that Spotify listed over 840,000 shows last year and promised that, going forward, “personalized concert listings [will be] featured more prominently across the app.”
Hadley picked up the thread, noting the platform will also now surface an artist’s upcoming gigs in the app’s “Now Playing” view. “It’s one of the most powerful places to market your shows and will grab your listeners’ attention right when your music resonates most,” he said, adding that fans can now tap a button marked “Interested” for concert listings, which adds those shows to a personal gig calendar in the app’s Live Events feed.
On top of all this, Spotify announced that it would expand its Fans First program in the U.S., which will ensure that an artist’s top listeners “are first in line for merch exclusives and ticket pre-sales by sending them emails and notifications to let them know when they have special access,” said Ong.
Brazilian pop star Anitta is lashing out at Warner Music, saying she regrets signing with the label and would have “auctioned off her organs” to be let out of her contract.
The artist — who had a breakout 2022 with the success of her tri-lingual album Versions of Me, a No. 1 track on the Billboard Global Ex. U.S. chart with “Envolver” and performances at Coachella and the Latin Grammy Awards — went on a Twitter tirade last week when fans prodded her to explain her tortured history with Warner.
When one fan said he wished she could be free of her contract, she responded that “if there was a fine to pay, I would have already auctioned off my organs, no matter how expensive it was to get out. But unfortunately, there isn’t. When you’re young and still don’t know a lot, you need to pay close attention to the things you sign… if you don’t, you could spend a lifetime paying for the mistake.”
A spokesperson for Warner Music declined to comment. Leila Oliveira, Warner Music Brazil’s new president, did not respond to a message from Billboard. Brandon Silverstein, Anitta’s U.S.-based manager, also did not respond to a request for comment.
Meu amor se tivesse uma multa pra pagar eu já tinha leiloado meus órgãos por mais caro q fosse pra sair fora. Mas infelizmente não tem. Qndo a gente é novo e ainda ñ sabe muito tem q prestar muita atenção nas coisas q assina…se não pode passar uma vida inteira pagando pelo erro— Anitta (@Anitta) March 2, 2023
Anitta signed with Warner Music in the U.S. in January 2020 after previously signing with Warner Music Brazil in 2013. Under the U.S. contract, she produced Versions of Me, which was executive produced by Ryan Tedder. Anitta has said she’s required to deliver two more albums for the label to satisfy the contract. (In January 2022, she signed a publishing deal with Sony Music Publishing.)
This isn’t the first time Anitta has complained about Warner. She previously swiped at the label for having to pay for music videos out of her own pocket, including for “Gata,” which she said Warner refused to produce a video for when they saw that the song’s performance on streaming platforms was falling below expectations.
“They only invest after it pays off on the internet,” Anitta said in an Instagram livestream in May. “Unfortunately, there are things I can’t get, that’s why I don’t buy millionaire cars, because when I want to do something, I pay for it.” (She says she ultimately got a sponsor to help pay for the video.)
During the same livestream, Anitta also said that Warner only invests in her work after a song goes viral on TikTok. “The label is very tied to TikTok, to what goes viral, and if they don’t get a hit right away, they say ‘later,’” she said.
Anitta’s fans have also criticized Warner for the label’s perceived treatment of the Brazilian singer, with many complaining on Twitter that Warner didn’t give her 2021 single “Girl From Rio” the marketing push it deserved by including it in playlists on streaming services. (The song, which combined bossa nova and trap with English lyrics, dropped rapidly on the charts.)
Anitta has also said that Warner initially resisted the release of “Envolver,” the single that blew up after Anitta’s butt-grinding dance in the song’s video, which she directed, became a global TikTok sensation. “[Warner] said the song wasn’t going anywhere and that I wouldn’t have the sway to release it alone [without a feature on the track],” she said during an Instagram livestream in December.
Late last year, Anitta’s fans began urging her to release a funk remix of “Practice,” which she originally recorded with A$AP Ferg and HARV, but the singer said last week that Warner wouldn’t allow her to. “When I saw that you liked [the remix version] I asked to release it, and it has been a long time,” she wrote to her fans on Twitter. “But things can only be released with their authorization.”
Since Anitta’s tirade last week, fans have organized a #FreeAnitta movement on Twitter. One fan posted a photo depicting the singer sobbing in a jail cell with the Warner Music logo on the wall behind her. Another fan asked her if her harsh comments could damage her relationship with the label.
“Is there a way it could get worse? Hahaha,” she responded.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has been envisioning this day — the launch of several new features and key changes, presented at the company’s Stream On event in Los Angeles on Wednesday (March 8) — for quite some time. The first iterations of Stream On 2023 existed “about two years ago,” Ek tells Billboard. “We ramped it up seriously, like, 18 months ago, and then 12 months ago, it was like, ‘Wow, okay, we need to bundle this thing, that thing — put it all together now.’”
The result was a series of innovations rolled out simultaneously: a new vertical-swiped homepage with an interactive feed for Spotify’s mobile app; the expansion of video-based tools like Canvas, Spotify Clips and Previews, that rely on looped visuals and exclusive content from artists; greater access to its Discovery Mode program, which trades algorithmic exposure for lower royalty rates; and “countdown pages,” a long-awaited pre-save feature for upcoming albums. Some of these features have been long in the works, and have already drawn comparisons to visual-based platforms like TikTok and Instagram, but the 90-minute upfront (which also included presentations by Spotify co-president/chief product officer/chief technology officer Gustav Söderström, global head of editorial Sulinna Ong and global head of artist partnerships Joe Hadley, among others) was aimed at optimizing the listener experience and amplifying artistic voices on the platform. As Ek directly told creators watching the global livestream: “Spotify is open for business.”
Shortly after the Stream On event, Ek sat down for a rare Q&A about the ambitious rollout, heightened tech competition, acknowledging Geo Z listener habits and not being caught up in the “time on app” craze. (Ed. Note: this interview was been edited for clarity.)
During your Stream On presentation, you spoke about how this is the most dramatic period of innovation for Spotify in a decade. Why now? Why this moment?
I mean, there are so many aspects of this that probably won’t get the spotlight. As an example, and Gustav mentioned this on stage, we’ve kind of rebuilt. We’re known for our Discovery platform, and for how good we are at machine-learning and AI and recommending new stuff. But we’ve actually, underneath the surface, redone that entire system, and meantime, our designers have obviously been tinkering around with the best way of promoting content the best way for discovering content.
And, in the meantime, our artist teams have been expanding our Canvas programs — I think we’re up to 70% of covers on Spotify now having some sort of Canvas. More and more artists were taking advantage of the platform, with lyrics and Canvas and all these things already, and we saw that the more rich storytelling we could do on the platform the better it would be. And then, couple that with this algorithm- and machine-learning you need underneath all of that to be able to do this and have a magical experience, all three of them started coming together. And that was when I said, probably 18 months ago, “Okay, we need to pull all of this together as one — because this will be a massive thing, and we can’t do this as separate parts.”
I think that there are two types of companies when when you’re developing products: One tries to get it all together, and [make] it beautiful. Generally at Spotify, we are more kind of agile — we release things quite early, we test a lot of things, a lot of things don’t work, some things work and we double down on them. But we felt this was such an important step that we needed to kind of like bring it all together and release it as one thing, because otherwise, people wouldn’t understand it, and it wouldn’t get the right reception from consumers, but also — frankly — from creators as well.
You spoke about how “individuality and creativity” are being prioritized by this new interface. How much of that is being driven by the way Gen Z listeners want to engage with music over passive listening — is that a big part of what you’re rolling out?
Absolutely. You’re 100%, right, it’s about looking towards younger consumers for inspiration. And I’m a firm believer in the [William Gibson] quote, “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”
I’ve got two young kids, and quite often, you can just look at your own kids and see what they’re doing, see a glimpse of the future. So that’s definitely been part of it, but I do think that oftentimes, when you look at these types of things, there’s a universal truth in what’s happening here. So yes, younger [listeners] are more interested in visual discovery, and all those things that they’re used to because of all the other apps and platforms and other stuff. But the reality is, if you think about it, in the music industry, when we went from having a radio to MTV, it was a hell of a lot better, and it allowed totally different artists to get a new way of communicating. And that probably meant some artists actually weren’t going to be as successful as MTV took off, but there were other artists that were excellent storytellers visually, too. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” how the storytelling came alive — the sort of backstory that came in this music video — that was one way, right?
The truth is, as someone who grew up with MTV — funny side note, I actually learned how to speak English through MTV — I kind of feel like we’ve been relegated to, just press play and listen to the background. But as more and more music became playlists, there are all these artists that I don’t know anything about. I don’t know what they look like, and [have] no idea who they are, how they express their individuality and creativity. And so what we’re announcing today is really a chance for them to tell part of the story of what they want the world to see, as part of who they are, and get a chance to build connection. And when we’ve tested this concept with artists, the response is exactly that. That’s not just among younger [people], but even slightly older people too. When you discover someone, having this sort of richness, being able to see the person, to be able to see their vision come to life, builds that connection.
When you look at how much of this presentation today emphasized video expansion — from Previews to Spotify Clips to extending video with podcasts — how much are these innovations driven by feeling in your gut where things are headed, and how much is driven by competition on other platforms and social media?
A bit of both. I think everyone who says that they’re not inspired by anything that’s going on around them, it’s complete bullshit, to be honest. So I mean, I’ve played around with everything — I play around with the Voice apps, where you can Auto-tune yourself to sound really good. We take inspiration from all of that, of course. But we try to also look at more than just copying features for features’ sake — we try to look for, “What are the needs?”
If you want to find out what Spotify is going to do, it’s actually very simple. All you’ve got to do is look for a big consumer need and a big creator need, and when there’s a win-win between the two of them, that’s when we will do something. It’s really as simple as that. And so that’s the bar for me: is this something that consumers want, first and foremost, because if you don’t want it? It doesn’t matter that the creator wants it — it’s not going to be a great thing. And vice versa: if the consumer wants something, but the creator hates doing it, it’s not going to be sustainable long-term. So you’ve got to try to find out what that middle [ground] is. And a lot of times, I wish I could say that there’s this kind of defining moment, where you sit together in a room and figure it out. It’s not how innovation works, in my opinion. It’s organic.
You mentioned podcasting — we started uploading lots of videos there. Canvas has worked out really well. So it was this natural evolution where we started seeing that visual expression together. One of my fears honestly was like, does that mean we’ll be more like the other platforms? But both because of the types of creators that we have, and also the fact that we don’t expect you to sit two hours in front of that endless screen and watch stuff — we expect you to find something you really like, press play, put it in your pocket, and use that visual way of going from point A to point B faster. We’ve done the algorithms, we’ve done the UX, to do exactly that, opposed to some of these other social platforms that want you to stick around and watch the entire time.
I wanted to ask about something that Gustav said during the presentation that I found really interesting: “Our goal is not to steal time — it’s to help users save time.” There’s so much emphasis across every platform right now of “time spent on app” — getting users from a few seconds with an app open to a few minutes — whereas Spotify wants users to find something they like and then keep it moving.
Yeah, it’s exactly right. I call the concept “nutritious versus delicious.” I feel like everyone’s trying to go towards shorter, shorter, shorter-form content, more bite-sized. And then we have this counter-movement with podcasts, where someone’s willing to listen to two hours of someone going super deep on a very slim topic as well. We obviously want to allow creators to create whatever way they want to do, but out of the two extremes, we’re definitely more in the latter camp. We want creators to really form a connection with their audience rather than just trying to get a viral clip going, and next morning, it could be 50 other people who are successful [instead].
In terms of Discovery Mode, and giving artists a better chance of finding that first play and gaining a new listener — is there any concern of that tool like that losing some efficiency once you open it up to a much wider population of artists, where at some point it becomes to discern what’s worthwhile and what’s noise? Does that tension exist for you?
I mean, there’s absolutely that kind of tension. However, I think this is the beautiful thing — with these algorithms and personalization, we’re not all the same. So the kind of artists you like and the kind of artists I like might be very different. And some of these artists will get exposed to people more like me, and then other artists similar to you will get that exposure. There’s room for all of these things to play together, whereas in the past, you had a commercial radio station that had like 50 or 60 songs on rotation. We can actually cover a lot more than ever before in terms of giving artists exposure, and I think that’s also visible in our numbers.
I talked about onstage the notion that even the 50,000th most-streamed artist, which is kind of far down the list, is still making probably $50,000 across not just Spotify, but across all the other recorded music sources. And if you add touring, if you add all the other stuff, that’s probably a full time musician. It’s a very different music industry today. So I see the tension — and obviously, you’re right, on the long tail of things, it means some people won’t get that attention. But I think on the quality side, we will be good, and we will constantly improve, just like we’ve always had to, to give you better and better recommendations.
You are building Spotify for the long haul, and today was about continuing that building process. I was curious about how you strike the balance between growth and over-extension — finding the right opportunities that make sense for Spotify, without becoming too unwieldy?
I mean, look, it’s not easy, and I wish there was like a silver-lining way to answer it, but I think it comes back to what I talked about. We have three main constituents at Spotify, and two of them are dominant, and the third one, I have to pay attention to. The three main constituents are creators and consumers — they’re the ones that are front and center in everything that we do — and then the third is Spotify itself, my employees, shareholders, all that other stuff. So as I’m working on something, or we’re considering something, it really honestly is as simple as I mentioned: Do I believe that there’s a win-win-win, that gets us there all the faster?
I will probably do stuff that’s great for consumers and great for creators, and not great for Spotify. We’ve done a lot of those things, but I can’t do that endlessly — we’ve got to run a business as well. So it’s about trying to have those three things, the list that every decision goes through. It’s a very simple thing. Is this a win-win for creators and consumers, and will this work out for Spotify? If the answer is yes, then we will do it.
In 2022, about 57,000 artists earned more than $10,000 in royalties from Spotify, the company disclosed Wednesday (March 8) in the latest report published to Loud & Clear, a microsite that provides transparency into the amounts Spotify pays to creators on its platform.
That works out to just 0.6% of artists on Spotify making at least $10,000 in royalties. But using Spotify’s narrow definition of “professional or professionally aspiring” artists, more than a quarter of that group earned more than $10,000 on the platform in 2022.
How did Spotify get to that figure? Of the 9 million artists who have uploaded music to Spotify, 3.4 million have published 10 or more songs. From that group, only 213,000 artists average at least 10,000 monthly listeners, an amount Spotify calls “the beginning of an audience.” For context, newcomer Peyton Parrish, the No. 99 artist on Billboard’s Artist 100 chart, has 1.26 million monthly listeners on Spotify. There were 57,000 artists with at least 120,000 monthly listeners in 2022, according to Loud & Clear.
A similar data point came from Spotify’s integration with Songkick, Ticketmaster and other ticketing platforms: In 2022, 189,000 artists had at least one ticketed concert or event. Spotify says that “demonstrat[es] professional activity outside streaming.”
The number of artists making at least $10,000 on Spotify increased 144%, up from 23,400 in 2017. The upper echelon of Spotify payouts grew at about the same rate: 1,060 artists made more than $1 million in royalties in 2022, a 130% increase from 460 in 2017.
But the growth in the number of artists hitting these mile markers hasn’t kept pace with the overall growth of the platform. From 2017 to 2022, Spotify’s subscriber base grew 189% to 205 million, the number of ad-supported monthly active users rose 217% to 295 million and total revenues (which now includes some podcast advertising) increased 187% to 11.72 billion euros ($12.4 billion).
Famed funk act Earth, Wind & Fire is suing a rival group that’s been performing under the name “Earth Wind & Fire Legacy Reunion,” calling them imposters who are infringing the band’s trademarks to “mislead the ticket-buying public.”
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday (March 7) in Florida federal court, the company that owns the band’s intellectual property argued that Legacy Reunion’s only claim to the name is a few “side musicians” who briefly played with Earth, Wind & Fire many years ago.
Despite that allegedly spurious link, the lawsuit says the rival group’s organizers “hatched a scheme to falsely imply in advertising that this new group was the real Earth, Wind & Fire.”
“Defendants did this to benefit from the commercial magnetism and immense goodwill the public has for plaintiff’s ‘Earth, Wind & Fire’ marks and logos, thereby misleading consumers and selling more tickets at higher prices,” the group’s lawyers wrote.
According to the lawsuit, the allegedly phony group is directly competing with the “real” Earth Wind & Fire, which has continued to tour since founder Maurice White died in 2016. Led by longtime members Philip Bailey, White’s brother Verdine and Ralph Johnson, the band operates under a license from Earth Wind & Fire IP LLC, a holding company owned by White’s sons.
In its lawsuit on Tuesday, attorneys for that company claimed that the organizers of Legacy Reunion (Substantial Music Group LLC and Stellar Communications, Inc.) have misled not only ticket buyers but resale websites like StubHub.
“The [Stubhub] ticket listing combines concerts by the real Earth, Wind & Fire with the band defendants’ promote, and the tickets offered for concerts by the band Defendants promote have nothing to do with the real Earth, Wind & Fire.”
Tribute acts – groups that exclusively cover the music of a particular band — are legally allowed to operate, and they often adopt names that allude to the original. But they can get into legal hot water if they make it appear that they are affiliated with the original. In 2021, ABBA filed a similar trademark lawsuit against a band that had been touring under the name ABBA Mania, calling it “parasitic.”
In the current case, Substantial Music Group allegedly used “Legacy Reunion” in listings (seemingly a reference to the former EWF members) but often in a separate font or in a different part of a logo. The group later allegedly changed the name to “Legacy Reunion of Earth Wind & Fire Alumni,” but the lawsuit claims the changes weren’t enough to avoid confusion.
Among other things, the lawsuit cited alleged examples of angry consumers who mistakenly bought tickets for the wrong band, including one that read, “This was not Earth Wind and Fire. NO Philip Bailey or Verdine White. It was just a band playing Earth Wind and Fire music. I purchased 3 tickets and I was very disappointed. It was truly false advertisement. I want my money back!!!!!”
In a statement to Billboard on Wednesday in response to the lawsuit, Substantial Music Group founder Richard Smith called the trademark complaint “disappointing.”
“It is sad that a greedy corporation has chosen to use trademark law to attempt to pass judgment on which historic members of Earth, Wind & Fire are worthy of being called alumni of the band,” Smith said. “I was personally a member of the band for five years and performed on two tours and one album. I’m proud to be an alumnus of the musical group and the corporation’s dismissiveness of my and others’ contributions Earth, Wind & Fire is hurtful. We will not be erased.”
Read the entire lawsuit here:
As the world marks International Women’s Day 2023, a new study is illuminating the pervasive and ongoing barriers to gender equality in the music industry — and how to combat them.
Out Wednesday (March 8), 2023’s BE THE CHANGE: Gender Equality in the Music Industry study was conducted by Luminate, Tunecore and Believe. This study (available in full here) synthesizes the responses of more than 1,650 creators, industry professionals and executives from 109 countries and includes male, female and gender-expansive perspectives.
The globally distributed online survey considered respondents’ ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status, parental status, location and age, among other factors.
Primary findings include that in the past year, 34% of women in the music industry had experienced sexual harassment or abuse, 60% of women and 62% of nonbinary individuals felt that discrimination based on age was a significant problem and 53% of respondents felt that cisgender men are paid more than others in the music industry.
The report also highlights a perception gap around these issues, stating that “the music industry has a clear disconnect in how we assume industry professionals and artists experience the industry and the reality.” The survey indicates that 60% of respondents believe gender discrimination is a major issue in the music industry. Women and nonbinary individuals are likelier to see gender discrimination as an issue as compared to men.
The report also found “alarming” rates of sexual harassment and abuse in the music industry, often against women and gender-expansive individuals. Many respondents reported that they did not find adequate resources for survivors or consequences for offenders. Thirty-four percent of women, 42% of trans individuals and 43% of nonbinary individuals who participated in the survey report being sexually harassed or abused at work.
The study also found that gender discrimination in the music industry is compounded by the discrimination of other marginalized groups, with inadequate representation and tokenism complicating women and gender expansive individuals’ experience in the industry. “Minority women, for example, are 114% more likely than average to feel that their hiring decision was, in part, based on their racial, ethnic, tribal background, or country of origin,” the report states.
The industry wage gap also remains a significant problem. Fifty-three percent of respondents agreed that cisgender men are paid more than others, while half of the surveyed women report “having their or another’s professional or career experience discredited, which impacts earning potential in the industry.”
These issues are also compounded by an ongoing lack of equal leadership, with 30% of women, 30% of underrepresented ethnic groups and 74% of transgender individuals reported being passed on for a promotion. Furthermore, 42% of women and 98% of trans people are said that they don’t have access to professional training/development opportunities.
Given these issues, it’s perhaps unsurprising that 76% of women, 82% of trans individuals and 89% of nonbinary individuals reported struggling with their mental health since entering the music industry.
The report also offers statistics on equality in streaming by determining the percentage of female and nonbinary artists represented in the top 50 artists by combined streams in multiple countries last year. South Korea ranked highest in equality, with 48% of the top 50 artist spaces occupied by female and nonbinary artists, while Colombia ranked lowest with just 10%. In the United States and Canada, 21% of the top 50 positions are occupied by women and nonbinary artists.
Beyond outlining the challenges, the report also suggests straightforward solutions. These include creating more transparent dialogues around pay within organizations, the creation of employee resource groups that help advance gender equality, the creation of diverse hiring committees, the creation and implementation of policies that protect survivors of sexual harassment and the removal of NDAs that often prohibit those that have experienced sexual harassment from speaking out.
Respondents reported that they believe executives, companies, major labels and artists are in the best position to create such changes.
“The good news is that BE THE CHANGE is now in its third year and we’ve seen the study’s impact,” TuneCore CEO Andreea Gleeson said in a statement. “It’s been quoted by the United Nations and widely discussed in creator and executive circles across the industry. But here’s the bad news – we need more change. We, as individuals and as an industry must heed the calls to action and do just that – take action. Small changes add up and if we each do something different each day, week, month, year, we will see a sea change in the industry. So let’s go!”