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LONDON — Proposed changes to U.K. copyright law that would allow tech companies to freely use songs for AI training without permission threaten to place the country’s status as a “world music power” at risk, record labels trade body BPI has warned.
In 2024, hit records by Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, Coldplay and Taylor Swift helped lift the United Kingdom’s streaming market to a record high with just under 200 billion music tracks streamed across the 12 months, up 11% year-on-year, according to year-end figures released Tuesday (Dec. 31) by BPI.
Overall recorded music consumption across streaming and physical album sales rose by a tenth (9.7%) on 2023’s total to 201 million equivalent albums, marking a decade of uninterrupted growth, reports the organization, which represents over 500 independent record labels, as well as the U.K. arms of the three majors: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
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However, the success of the U.K. music business is being challenged on multiple fronts, including intensifying competition from other global markets and proposed regulations around the use of artificial intelligence (AI), says BPI.
The proposed AI guidelines were announced by the British government two weeks ago (Dec. 17) as part of a 10-week consultation on how copyright-protected content, such as music, can lawfully be used by tech companies to train generative AI models. Among them is a controversial new data mining exception that would allow developers to use copyrighted songs for AI training, including commercial purposes, but only in instances where rights holders have not reserved their rights.
BPI chief executive Jo Twist said the proposed opt out mechanism was the “wrong way to realise the exciting potential of AI” and places the U.K.’s music and creative industries at risk by allowing “international tech giants to train AI models on artists’ work without payment or permission.”
“The U.K. remains a world music power, but this status cannot be taken for granted,” said Twist in a statement accompanying Tuesday’s year-end figures. She said that in order to continue to thrive, the U.K. music business needs “a supportive policy environment that puts the focus on human artistry and enables continued investment in the next generation of British talent.”
Of the current generation, more than 20 British groups and solo acts topped the U.K. albums chart in 2024, although Charli XCX and Coldplay were the only homegrown artists in the year’s top 10 best-selling artist albums list, occupying the eighth and ninth positions with Brat and Moon Music, respectively. Veteran British American rock band Fleetwood Mac had the year’s seventh most popular album with their compilation 50 Years – Don’t Stop.
Topping the year-end albums list was Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, which has sold over 783,000 equivalent units since its release in April – the most for any artist release in a calendar year since 2017, reports BPI. The Tortured Poets Department was one of four albums by Swift to feature among the year’s 20 biggest titles alongside 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Lover and Folklore.
In total, female artists accounted for six of the top 10 and half of the 20 biggest selling artist albums in the U.K. last year with hit releases by Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo helping make it a landmark year for women.
Female artists also spent an unprecedented 34 weeks at No. 1 on the United Kingdom’s official singles chart, largely driven by Carpenter, who spent 21 weeks at the top with her three hit singles: “Espresso, “Please Please Please” and “Taste.” The best-selling single in the U.K. last year was Noah Kahan‘s “Stick Season,” which topped the U.K. charts for seven weeks, followed by Benson Boone‘s “Beautiful Things.”
Vinyl helps physical album sales return to growth
In terms of formats, streaming now makes up 88.8% of music sales in the United Kingdom, a marginal 1.1% rise on 2023’s figure and more than double streaming’s share of the U.K. market six years ago, reports BPI.
Meanwhile, physical sales experienced year-on-year growth for the first time since 1994 with vinyl and CD album purchases up 1.4% to 17.4 million units. Driving the resurgence in physical formats was a 17th consecutive annual rise in vinyl album sales which grew by just over 9% to 6.7 million units, marking a three-decade high.
The year’s most popular vinyl album was Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, which sold more than 111,000 vinyl copies, followed by a 30th anniversary reissue of Oasis‘ debut Definitely Maybe. Other top-selling vinyl titles included Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft, Fontaines D.C.‘ Romance, The Cure‘s Songs Of A Lost World and Charli XCX’s Brat.
CD sales fell 2.9% year-on-year to 10.5 million units, representing a significant slowdown on the 19% drop recorded in 2022 and the almost 7% slide in sales experienced in 2023. Digital album sales dropped almost 6% to 3.3 million units.
BPI’s preliminary year-end report doesn’t include financial sales data. Instead, it uses Official Charts Company data to measure U.K. music consumption in terms of volume. The London-based organization will publish its full year-end report, including recorded music revenues, later this year.
The U.K. is the world’s third-biggest recorded music market behind the U.S. and Japan with sales of $1.9 billion in 2023, according to IFPI. It is also the second-largest exporter of recorded music worldwide behind the U.S.
Tougher competition from other international markets, including Latin America and fast-growing countries like South Korea, has seen the U.K.’s share of the global recorded music market shrink over the past decade, however.
In 2015, artists from the United Kingdom cumulatively accounted for 17% of global music streams, according to BPI export figures. That figure now stands at 10% with U.K. artists accounting for just nine of the top 40 tracks streamed in the country last year – the highest being “Stargazing” by Myles Smith at number 12.
“From Coldplay, and Charli XCX, to The Last Dinner Party, and Myles Smith, there were plenty of examples of U.K. music success stories in 2024. But there are also rising challenges for domestic talent in a rapidly changing and hyper-competitive global music economy,” said BPI’s Jo Twist.
“By meeting the growing global challenge head-on, tackling challenges around AI, copyright and streaming fraud, and encouraging consumers towards viable models, like paid streaming subscriptions, we can help to ensure that the value of British music is protected and that our industry can continue to grow and flourish at home and around the world,” she said.
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Music Business Year In Review
The Canadian government’s so-called “streaming tax” is on pause.
The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) revealed in June 2024 that major global streaming companies would be mandated to pay 5% of their annual Canadian revenues into funds that fuel Canadian content. The decision was part of the Online Streaming Act, new legislation that modernizes Canada’s Broadcasting Act for the first time in a generation.
Since then, many of the biggest streaming companies — including Spotify, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Disney — have been fighting the decision in court. This week, the Federal Court of Appeal decided to put the companies’ required payments on hold until their appeal is heard.
The Canadian Press reports that the payments, estimated to be at least $1.25 million each annually, will not have to be made until the court process is finished. They’ve agreed to expedite the hearings to June 2025, with the bulk of the money due in August.
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While pursuing legal challenges, many of the biggest streaming companies have also launched an online campaign to lobby against the decision in the court of public opinion. A group called DiMA (the Digital Media Association) — whose members include Amazon, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, Apple and more — launched a website with a petition and letter-writing campaign under the name Stop the Streaming Tax. The campaign has at least one high-profile advocate in musician Bryan Adams, a longtime critic of CanCon regulations.
The 5% contributions “could lead to higher prices for Canadians and fewer content choices,” the website argues. “As a result, you may end up paying more for your favourite streaming services and have less control over what you can watch or listen to.”
Many Canadian music associations like CIMA (the Canadian Independent Music Association), meanwhile, have praised the CRTC’s decision. In June, CIMA president Andrew Cash called it “good news for the Canadian music sector” and said it “lays the groundwork for a dynamic partnership with digital platforms where Canadian talent can thrive both domestically and internationally.”
The mandated contributions would go to music funds like FACTOR and Musicaction as well as the Canadian Starmaker Fund, funds to support commercial and community radio, and to the Indigenous Music Office and other Indigenous music incubators.
More on this story as it develops.
This story was originally published by Billboard Canada.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Get ready to relive the magic of Wicked from the comfort of your home. The instant box-office hit, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, could be coming to streaming before you know it. Fresh off the heels of the new Lego Emerald City set, Amazon has unveiled a limited-edition Wicked box set that features a 4K UHD Blu-ray of both the theatrical version and a “sing-along” edition, exclusive merch, collectables, and gold-tone metal bookends.
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‘Wicked’ Exclusive Limited-Edition Giftset
While the film is still shattering records in theaters, the Amazon listing displays a March 31 shipping date for Blu-rays. Could this also be Wicked‘s digital and physical release date? Universal Pictures has yet to officially announced a physical release, but most films usually have a 90-day theatrical run and March would align with the musical’s window on the big screen before hitting digital and streaming services.
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While we wait for an official release date announcement, learn how you can pre-order and start prepping for Wicked’s inevitable streaming debut below.
How to Stream Wicked Online
With a possible streaming and digital release on March 31, here’s all the ways you may be able to stream Wicked online. Since the musical is a Universal Pictures release, Wicked will most likely be available online through NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock.
For just $7.99/month, Peacock offers live sports, original TV programming, movies and specials. Sign up now and start planning your Wicked sing-a-long party today.
VOD services like Amazon Prime and Apple have options to rent and purchase Wicked to watch at anytime on your smart TV, phone or tablet. Amazon already has the film available to preorder for $29.99 here.
Wicked: Part Two is set to premier in November 2025. To keep up the hype for biggest film of the year, here’s the original trailer for part one starring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, alongside Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, and Ethan Slater.
Hit songs come and go — artists last. What lasts even longer, though, are Christmas songs, which stream every year — and generate revenue accordingly.
The biggest example is Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which reemerges on the Billboard Hot 100 toward the end of every year — it has hit No. 1 annually since 2019 — heralded by a Carey video announcement that “It’s Tiiiiime.” How popular is it? It is the No. 16 biggest song of all time by U.S. consumption, a weighted measure of digital sales and streaming used by Luminate for about a decade. It is also the No. 42 song of all time in U.S. on-demand audio streaming.
The steadiness of the song’s popularity suggests that there’s a chance it could be the biggest hit of the 21st century, although it’s obviously impossible to know, or even figure out how such things might be measured in the future. There is a precedent, though. Bing Crosby’s 1942 recording of “White Christmas” is said to be the best-selling single of all time, with 50 million copies worldwide, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Is “All I Want for Christmas” emerging as a next-century successor of sorts?
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It’s possible. Most hits get big fast, stay big for a while, and remain big-ish for years, sometimes with a boost from an artist’s subsequent releases. Holiday hits get big every year and disappear like Frosty the Snowman, only to come back the following fall, as predictable as the holiday season itself. Carey released “All I Want for Christmas” as a radio single from her 1994 album Merry Christmas, but it didn’t hit the top 10 of the Hot 100 until December 2017. By then, the charts reflected rising streaming listenership, as well as radio play and decreasing sales. Streaming fueled the song’s rise to No. 1 in 2019 (for three weeks), then in 2020 (for two weeks), 2021 (three weeks), 2023 (two weeks) and now 2024 (three weeks as of the chart dated Dec. 28). It has now spent 17 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in total — the most of any song except Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” (featuring Billy Ray Cyrus), each of which occupied the top spot for 19 weeks. Unlike those songs, though, “All I Want for Christmas” may continue to hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 for years to come.
The list of songs with the most on-demand streams skews toward songs from a few years ago, since they have had a few more years to generate streams, and toward music that appeals to younger listeners, who were early adopters of Spotify and other services. Of the top 100, most of the songs came out after 2010, and almost all of them after 2000. The only older songs that have been streamed more than Carey’s are Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” (No. 27) and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” (No. 31), according to Luminate; the only other older songs in the top 100 are the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and, at 95, Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
Like most holiday hits, “All I Want for Christmas” does well worldwide — especially in English-speaking markets like the U.K. and Canada, where this year it hit No. 1 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100. It’s also popular beyond the Anglosphere: This year the song topped the German Top 100 Single Chart, as well as the Austrian chart and the Swiss chart, and its popularity is growing elsewhere. (At a time when Anglo-American recordings are losing market share to local-language music in most European markets, English Christmas songs still do well. For the chart week of Dec. 20-26, for example, nine of the top 10 singles on the Official German Charts were English-language Christmas songs.) “All I Want” is No. 48 on the songs with the most on-demand streams internationally, according to Luminate.
One reason for the song’s success is how much Carey leans into the song’s seasonal success. She is far more popular than any of the other acts with big Christmas songs: She has had 19 No. 1 Hot 100 hits, second only to The Beatles, with 20, and she has hit No. 1 in a record 20 different years. Some artists with that kind of career would blanch at the idea of being identified with holiday music, but Carey embraced it — to the point that she applied for a trademark on the title “Queen of Christmas,” albeit unsuccessfully. In addition to her annual video announcement of the season, now something of an event in itself, she does an annual Christmas tour, which this year included 18 arena shows. In 2023, “All I Want for Christmas” accounted for 23% of her streams, according to Luminate.
It’s impossible to predict whether the song will become the most popular of the century — or even how Billboard might measure such things by then. “All I Want for Christmas” certainly isn’t going anywhere: Its on-demand streams grew 15% and 8.3% in 2022 and 2023, respectively, according to Luminate, compared to overall on-demand streaming growth of 12.1% and 12.7%. But it’s also not gaining ground on the current on-demand streaming champion, Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower,” which had 333.12 million on-demand streams in the U.S in 2023, compared to 249 million for “All I Want for Christmas.”
Then again, holiday songs are nothing if not evergreen. For the past few years, the top four songs on Billboard’s Holiday 100 chart have been Carey’s, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Last Christmas.” Carey’s is by far the newest of the four. The second-biggest holiday hit, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” which hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 for three weeks last holiday season, was recorded in 1958 — 66 years ago. If “All I Want for Christmas” has the same kind of run, it could still be No. 1 in 2060 — whatever kind of listening that might include 35 years from now.
Last year, studio and production house OBB Media teamed up with iHeart to produce the annual Jingle Ball TV Special, the annual holiday event that airs on ABC each year as a two-hour broadcast. Featuring performances from some of the top artists in the business, the special is culled from the two live Jingle Ball holiday concerts held in New York and Los Angeles. Last year’s special, which aired Dec. 21, 2023, on ABC, landed as the No. 1 TV program among adults aged 18-49 and No. 2 overall on the night that it aired, with 9.5 million people tuning in — a 500% increase over the year prior. That marked the highest total viewers for the special since 2013.
This year, OBB and iHeart teamed up once again for Jingle Ball, which aired Wednesday (Dec. 18) on ABC and is now available to stream on Hulu. Featuring performances by the likes of Shaboozey, Benson Boone and Gracie Abrams, the special aimed to not only be a showcase for performances but an engaging presentation that went beyond just a filmed concert into “an experience and a show,” OBB Media founder/CEO Michael D. Ratner tells Billboard.
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Jingle Ball isn’t OBB’s only foray into the music world. This year alone, the OBB’s live division (the company also houses TV, film, music video, studio and branded content wings) produced a concert film for The Kid LAROI, the Hulu live special on the iHeart Music Festival, and, most recently, Sabrina Carpenter’s A Nonsense Christmas Netflix special, which highlighted the breakout star’s holiday fruitcake EP (which subsequently landed in the top 10 of the Billboard 200) as well as performances by Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Tyla, Shania Twain and more. And all that helps make Ratner Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Ratner discusses OBB’s work on Jingle Ball, the Carpenter special and what film and TV content can do for an artist’s career. “There’s a lot of clutter in the market,” Ratner says, “and content can be an incredibly powerful differentiator in helping artists pop, especially as the creation of content has become completely democratized.”
This week, OBB and iHeart worked to produce the annual Jingle Ball TV special, which aired Dec. 18 and is now streaming. What key decision did you make to help make that happen?
Audiences don’t just want a concert, they want an experience and a show. OBB partnered with iHeartRadio to make sure that the two-hour special is dynamic, funny, tells a story, brings you closer to the artist and, most importantly, delivers great music.
What stood out to you the most about working on this year’s event?
I really think this year’s show represented the next wave of incredible talent stepping into the spotlight — from Gracie Abrams to Tate McRae, Shaboozey, The Kid LAROI and Benson Boone, it was a really exciting group. Also, filming live in arenas is always invigorating, and it was exciting to film the L.A. show in the brand-new Intuit Dome.
You guys also worked on Jingle Ball last year, which was the No. 1 rated TV program among adults (18-49) and No. 2 overall on the night when it aired. What did you learn from working on it last year that you were able to apply to this year, and how did you do things differently?
Last year we saw social media engagement for the show spike about 10 times more than the prior year, so we leaned into that even further this year, focusing on cutting more social clips to engage individual fanbases and help build a community-watching experience. Also with the Thanksgiving break falling a week later this year, our turnaround time to deliver the special after the L.A. and New York shows was shrunk to four days — and it’s already a quick turnaround — so we were even more efficient and streamlined on the backend to navigate editorial, artist approvals and delivery.
You guys also produced Sabrina Carpenter’s A Nonsense Christmas special on Netflix. How did that come together, and what was that like behind the scenes?
We’re constantly trying to push the boundaries and think about innovative ways to collaborate with exceptional talent. We — and specifically Simone Spira, who is a production and development executive here — had the idea internally at OBB to do a holiday variety music special with Sabrina, as we all loved the fruitcake EP and knew she could carry her own, given her authentic love of the holidays and that she could dance, sing, act and do it all. This all proved to be true as the show is everywhere — it’s dominating the internet, Sabrina surprised fans at the NYC premiere which was awesome, she was on Colbert, and it even made the SNL Weekend Update, which was a personal favorite moment for me, as I grew up watching SNL all the time.
How important can a TV special be for an artist’s career?
Incredibly important. But it’s not just the TV special — content that brings you closer to your fans and your community is an essential companion piece to the music. Whether it’s a TV special, thoughtful social content, or anything in between, content is going to continue to be a larger piece of an artist’s strategy. There’s a lot of clutter in the market and content can be an incredibly powerful differentiator in helping artists pop, especially as the creation of content has become completely democratized.
How important is music to what OBB Media does?
OBB is a storytelling company and we love making projects that are culturally relevant. Musicians have always been and continue to be key tastemakers and culture creators, so music is a key fixture in everything we do.
What’s next for you guys?
We have a VR special coming out on Meta Quest on Dec. 27 starring Charli XCX and Troye Sivan, which we filmed at the Forum during the SWEAT Tour. We love working on music projects in all of these different formats and mediums, and I think it’s a testament to how music is the throughline no matter how technology, viewing patterns and audience behaviors evolve. We’re also filming more of our Billions Club series with Spotify, and we’re excited for some major episodes with incredible artists that are coming soon. Looking ahead to 2025, we have some really big stuff coming that we can’t talk about quite yet, but stay tuned.
A year ago, SiriusXM launched a new streaming app filled with original and licensed content from its satellite radio service and set the price at $9.99 — far below the roughly $16 average monthly revenue it takes in per satellite subscriber. The hope was that a relatively affordable price and an improved app would help SiriusXM reach younger consumers and expand beyond its core in-car satellite radio listeners.
The new app was “just the beginning,” CEO Jennifer Witz said at the time, adding that SiriusXM would “continue to iterate and develop our product offerings throughout the next year and beyond as we strive to deliver our subscribers the best listening experience on the go, in the car, and wherever they choose to tune in.” The company’s satellite radio business was built on vehicles. If you buy a new or used car, you’ll likely get a free SiriusXM trial that’s extremely effective at convincing people to subscribe once their trial is over. The new streaming app was intended to attract people who would listen outside of the car.
But selling the radio experience in a smartphone app didn’t go well. As it turns out, the streaming app hasn’t produced a good return on marketing spending, Witz said on Tuesday (Dec. 10). Appearing at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, the executive cited “slow progress” in turning free trials into long-term retention. As a result, SiriusXM has already cut back its marketing spend on the app and expects to have fewer streaming trials — and thus fewer subscribers — in the future. That was a worse assessment than what Witz delivered on SiriusXM’s Aug. 2 earnings call. At that time, when asked about conversion rates for the app, Witz said they had been “challenged” but maintained positivity, adding that there had been some “positive results” with first-time trial adopters and that the company was “confident” it could attract “a different audience” that will be “incremental” to the existing car-based business.
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Now, after its underwhelming experiment with the app, SiriusXM will, in Witz’s words, be “leaning into our strengths.” In other words, the company is putting its focus back on satellite radio and the in-automobile listening experience. In alignment with that strategy, the company also announced the departure of Joseph Inzerillo, the chief product and technology officer who played an instrumental role in the app’s launch.
For all the strengths of the app — curated stations, celebrity musician stations, a smorgasbord of audio programming — the company gave up its competitive advantage when it tried to compete outside of satellite radio and the automobile. After all, the company is the lone satellite radio operator and, given the cost and complexity of launching satellites into orbit, has the market to itself. But when leaving the safety of satellite, it’s hard to beat Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Amazon Music at their own game. These are streaming-native platforms built for consumers’ desire for interactivity, while SiriusXM’s app attempts to fit a one-way satellite radio experience into a two-way, interactive medium. In the end, paid radio turned out to be a tough sell to a generation that has grown up on on-demand streaming.
So, SiriusXM is going to focus on what it does best, and in-car listening gives the company a huge audience to work with. It currently has 33 million subscribers and, according to MusicWatch’s Russ Crupnick, reaches 65 million total listeners. In an email to Billboard, radio consultant Andy Meadows said he believes “SiriusXM is better suited to compete for those coveted in-car listeners so [Tuesday’s announcement] makes sense from that standpoint.” Crupnick also sees in-car listening as a point of strength for SiriusXM, pointing to the uniqueness of the SiriusXM product as a distinct advantage. “The ease of use, breadth of content, and curation position them as far superior to terrestrial radio, and in a different place than music streaming or podcasts,” he says.
Building on in-car satellite listening, the SiriusXM streaming app will become more of a complementary product. “There is real opportunity with 360L,” said Witz on Tuesday, referring to the company’s in-car platform that serves as a dual satellite radio/streaming product. Because 360L includes streaming, it allows SiriusXM to serve personalized — a.k.a. more lucrative — ads and provide more targeted — a.k.a. more expensive — ads for advertisers. Of the app, she said it can provide data that helps SiriusXM determine spends on programming that resonates with listeners, given that satellite receivers are a one-way technology that doesn’t provide granular insights into listening behaviors. Similar to 360L, the app can also provide targeted advertisements.
For customers, bundling satellite and streaming costs as low as $25 per month. That’s about double the cost of an individual Spotify subscription, but SiriusXM subscribers can withstand the price. According to Witz, platinum satellite subscriptions, which cost upward of $29 per month, account for “about a third” of the current subscriber base. And providing the best of satellite and streaming will help SiriusXM compete with a “newer breed of streaming products” on Americans’ car dashes, says Meadows. “Anything SiriusXM, and traditional radio for that matter, can do to look, sound and function better across all devices is in their best interest long term.”
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips’ sequel to the 2019 blockbuster Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix, is how available to stream on Max. Phoenix reprises his Oscar-winning role as Arthur Fleck/Joker alongside Lady Gaga‘s Harley Quinn for a music-heavy second installment of the Joker adaptation.
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Learn how to stream Joker 2: Folie à Deux below.
Here’s How to Stream Joker: Folie à Deux
Ready to dive back into the world of Todd Phillips’ Joker? Subscribe to Max to watch Joker: Folie à Deux available to stream on Friday (Dec. 13). Starting at $9.99/month with ads or $16.99/month without ads, subscribers gain access to a vast library of binge-worthy originals, must-watch movies and family-friendly programs from Warner Bros. Discovery. Sign up on Max.com or through Amazon Prime Video here.
For visual connoisseurs, the streaming service also offers an ultimate ad-free tier with programming in crispy 4K Ultra HD for $20.99 per month.
Subscribe now to stream hit shows like Penguin, House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, Euphoria, The Last of Us and other movies and original content on Max. You’ll also find music documentaries and biopics such as Elvis, Amy, Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss, and the TV series Rap Sh!t.
Want even more content? Max also offers streaming bundles with Hulu and Disney+ starting at $16.99/month. Sign up here to watch Joker 2 online in addition to all of Hulu’s on-demand content.
Set two years after the original film, Joker: Folie à Deux finds Fleck incarcerated in Arkham Asylum, awaiting trial for murder. As he struggles with dual identity and newfound fame as the villainous DC character, Fleck meets the love of his life Harley Quinn (Gaga). The two plot an escape from Arkham as they descend into madness in this moody crime drama filled with eye-catching musical numbers.
The cast also stars Oscar nominees Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener, alongside Zazie Beetz, reprising her role from the first movie.
Watch the trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux below.
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Elton John: Never Too Late celebrates the extraordinary 50-year career of one of the biggest names in pop and rock music. Streaming exclusively on Disney+, the documentary gives fans a peek at the legendary singer’s life behind his rhinestone-encrusted glasses, as he prepares for his farewell live concert at Dodger Stadium, the same venue of his iconic 1975 performance.
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Directed by R.J. Cutler and John’s husband/manager David Furnish, the film is jam-packed with unseen footage, rare interviews and an array of Elton’s greatest hits as he explores the inspiring full-circle journey of his career. In his own words, he recounts the many struggles he’s faced early on in life, to his rise to fame and career-defining sold-out shows. So get your sequined Dodgers uniform on and enjoy this look into one of music’s biggest acts.
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Check out how to stream the documentary below.
How to Watch the Elton John: Never Too Late Documentary
Elton John: Never Too Late is exclusively streaming on Disney+ starting Dec. 13. If you’re already a member, just log in to your account and simply press play.
Not subscribed? The streaming platform offers a variety of subscription options starting at just $9.99/month, which grants you access to the entire Disney+ library, including the Elton John: Never Too Late documentary, original and exclusive content from Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and more.
Some notable programs to instantly add to your watchlist include Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour concert film, Dancing With the Stars, She-Hulk, Lightyear, Turning Red, Andor and more.
Ditch the ads with Disney+’s premium plan for $15.99/month, or consume even more content with a mix of bundle options that include Hulu and ESPN+ starting at $10.99/month. If you’re interested in live TV, you can even bundle with Hulu + Live TV. Sign up for the bundle plan here or below.
To get hyped for the documentary, check out the trailer for Elton John: Never Too Late below.
Since the Kendrick Lamar–Drake beef broke into the mainstream earlier this year, the six tracks at the heart of the rap battle have generated nearly $15.4 million in streaming, digital sales and publishing revenue in the United States through the week ending Nov. 21, according to Billboard estimates based on data from Luminate. Kendrick’s “Not […]
While Afrobeats has been hailed as Africa’s biggest cultural export, its growth on the continent is also cause for celebration.
The 2023 and 2024 IFPI Global Reports revealed Sub-Saharan Africa was the fastest-growing region in the world, with this year’s report documenting a 25% rise in music sales largely driven by increased adoption of paid subscription services (up by just under a quarter). And no other streaming service has been as innovative and effective at expanding their reach on the continent as Audiomack.
The company has been applauded for bolstering artists with user-friendly promotional and analytics tools while providing fans with a solid discovery experience, and its unparalleled work in Africa has been critical in the rise of Afrobeats and other genres on the continent. Audiomack opened its first African office in Lagos, Nigeria in 2020 and made three key hires, including Charlotte Bwana, who officially joined the company as head of media and brand partnerships and has since risen to vp of marketing, EU, Africa & MENA.
Bwana had been living in Nigeria at the time and working in Audiomack’s ambassador program, where she met with and onboarded artists onto the platform and continued expanding its Afrobeats division through social media marketing, idea generation, playlist curation and outreach to major labels, artist managers, booking agents and more. Once travel was allowed after the pandemic, Bwana “literally backpacked across Africa – Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa – doing Audiomack masterclasses, meeting artists and teaching them Audiomack one-on-one but also about the entertainment business,” she tells Billboard. “Somebody said to me, ‘A lot of companies are companies in the cloud, but you are a company that exists, we can actually meet you and shake your hand and call you on the phone. The difference between you and many other streaming companies is your availability.’”
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Bwana emphasizes that that “human touch” element has significantly helped scale Audiomack, which is the No. 1 music streaming app on Apple’s App Store in 22 African countries — including Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe — and the No. 1 music streaming app on the Google Play Store in Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. According to the company, in Nigeria alone Audiomack boasts 15.3 million monthly active users and 4.9 million daily active users and has racked up 58 billion total Afrobeats streams since 2020.
While the streamer hasn’t added more offices on the continent outside of its Lagos headquarters – which now has 12 people across its social media, graphic design, curatorial, business development and content operations departments – it has deployed ambassadors in additional countries like Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Those ambassadors help Audiomack better navigate the African market with “ideas of which artist is popping, which sound is buzzing in this territory, what the scene is like [and] what artists should we be focusing on,” Bwana explains.
Audiomack has also had to focus on tackling two key issues that hinder the platform’s mission to democratize streaming on the continent – the first being accessibility. “In Africa, before we talk about affordability of music, we have to talk about accessibility. A lot of people couldn’t access music in the first place, and Audiomack opened that door… and reshaped the landscape of the African music industry,” Bwana says.
In 2021, the streaming service partnered with MTN Nigeria, the fastest 5G network in West and Central Africa, to introduce the Audiomack+MTN Data Bundle program. Through the program, the company offered the more than 76 million MTN subscribers tailored data bundles, allowing them to stream unlimited music and access Audiomack content without the hassle of data charges. This year, the partnership expanded with the Audiomack+ subscription program, which offers MTN subscribers seamless access to premium Audiomack content – including uninterrupted streaming and offline downloads – through three flexible subscription plans. “We have a monthly subscription, a weekly subscription and a daily subscription, because we figured that people sometimes just buy premium for the day,” says Bwana, adding that 41% of Audiomack users use MTN. “They don’t need it for a month, or they can’t afford to pay that for the month. But if a big artist drops an album today, and they just want to listen to the album, they just pay for premium for the day.”
Still, Africa’s low internet penetration rate poses a problem for users without MTN coverage. According to the International Telecommunication Union’s Facts and Figures 2024 report, just 38% of the continent is able to use the internet, while only 11% have access to a 5G network. Bwana notes that offline downloads are “everybody’s favorite feature” on the app, with Audiomack reporting 1.9 billion offline downloads since 2020. “You’re able to listen to the music on the go whenever you’re not connected,” she says. “This is a premium feature for many DSPs, and for us, it’s a feature that you still can access on the ad-based tier.”
Charlotte Bwana
Courtesy of Charlotte Bwana
This gets to the second major hurdle Audiomack has been tackling: payment. While the company is making sure its different subscription models are suitable for African users’ limited internet access, it’s also ensuring the payment methods are just as convenient. “In Africa, [there are] 54 different countries, and you’re working with many currencies. As you’re scaling a business, you have to figure out how to accommodate the entire continent,” says Bwana. “Seventy percent of the population [in South Africa] is banked, so they have access to credit and credit cards, and they can pay for stuff online. Then you go to Kenya, where everybody uses mobile money. With every country that I’ve been to, not only am I talking to the artists to market them and create content, but I’m also talking to telcos and fintechs and trying to figure out payment systems so we can make it seamless for people to pay for music.”
Last year, Audiomack partnered with Flutterwave, Africa’s largest payment network, to leverage its expertise in secure and reliable payment processing so artists can “monetize their art effectively,” Audiomack CEO/co-founder David Macli said in a press statement. Audiomack can reach even more users in Africa via seamless payment options, including bank transfers, local cards and mobile money. This year, the company also partnered with Carry1st, Africa’s leading mobile games and digital content publisher, to tap into its proprietary payment solution, Pay1st, so consumers can purchase their subscriptions using local payment methods including mobile money, popular digital wallets and bank transfers. “A lot of people on Audiomack are Gen-Z, they’re in that age where they’re discovering music but they’re also gaming,” says Bwana. “We were thinking of how do we bridge the gap between music and gaming, and also, how do we make sure that the artists are earning more royalties and being discovered even by the gamers.”
Outside of accessibility and affordability, artist discovery is another one of Audiomack’s priorities. The platform has been identifying the continent’s rising stars before they gain global recognition through Keep the Beat Going, an annual campaign that focuses on amplifying artists’ profiles and introducing them to new global markets through billboards in major cities, playlists, digital ads, creator workshops and more. Since its launch in 2022, Keep the Beat Going has highlighted 72 artists from Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, including Ayra Starr, Burna Boy, Rema and Uncle Waffles.
Aside from artists, Audiomack is also keeping its fingers on the pulse of new trends coming out of the continent. Bwana believes Nigerian street pop is the “next big thing,” as evidenced by Asake and Seyi Vibez’s success on the platform. The latter is the most streamed artist in Nigeria, accumulating 1.4 billion plays on Audiomack since 2020, while the former is a close second with 1.2 billion plays. To date, Asake’s 2023 album Work of Art is the most streamed Afrobeats album on the platform with 476 million plays, while his hit “Lonely at the Top” from the album is the most streamed Afrobeats song on Audiomack with 87 million plays.
“We have a lot of people achieving their first hundred thousand or million streams on Audiomack,” says Bwana. “[We’ve] accommodated both listeners and artists, and this is what really sets us apart from a lot of the other streaming platforms.”