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Holiday savings are coming earlier this year as Black Friday deals continue to kick off. Hulu is even treating subscribers new and current to a major discount that gets you Starz on Hulu for only $0.99/month for an entire year. It’s only going on for six days though so you’ll have to act fast.
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In addition to the entire Hulu library, you’ll also be able to stream every new and exclusive program on Starz, including new episodes of season seven, part two of Outlander, Sweetpea, BMF, Gaslit, Mary & George, P-Valley, Minx, Party Down and Power Book IV: Force.
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The deal kicked off on Wednesday (Nov. 27) and will go until Monday (Dec. 2), giving you almost a week to take advantage of the sale. Normally, the Starz add-on is priced at $9.99, but with this Black Friday deal, you’ll get Starz on Hulu for 90% off, giving you a total of $108 in savings.
Keep reading to learn how to score the discount.
How to Get Starz on Hulu for Just $1/Month
The Starz add-on deal is available to new and current subscribers of Hulu who don’t already have the Starz add-on, or current Hulu subscribers who have had Starz inactive for at least one month.
If you already have a Hulu membership, you can redeem the Hulu Black Friday deal by logging into your account, going into you account settings and selecting manage add-ons. You’ll want to scroll through the list of available premium channels and select Starz. Once you confirm your purchase, you’ll get immediate access to all of the Starz content — no promo code required.
Don’t have a Hulu subscription? New users get a 30-day free trial when you sign up for Hulu’s ad-supported plan ($9.99/month) or ad-free plan ($18.99/month). Once the free trial is over, you’ll be charged the regular subscription price based on the plan you choose at checkout. To get the Starz on Hulu deal, you’ll want to choose Starz as an add-on to your plan.
The Starz on Hulu Black Friday discount is available through all of Hulu’s plans — including its bundle with Disney+, ESPN+ and Max that’ll expand your content offerings further starting at only $16.99/month. For live TV offerings, you can sign up for Hulu + Live TV for $82.99/month and automatically have Disney+ and ESPN+ bundled for no extra cost in addition to more than 95 live channels to watch.
Besides new and original shows and movies from Starz, you can also look forward to streaming the entire Hulu library including popular content such as Only Murders in the Building, Tell Me Lies, Shogun, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Under the Bridge, The Veil, The Bear, Castle Rock, The Great, Black Cake, We Were the Lucky Ones and The Kardashians.
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From friends to foes, relationships will be tested when Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta returns to MTV early next year, and Billboard has an exclusive look at the new season.
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The cast of Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta features Amy Luciani, Ashley Conley, Bambi, Erica Banks, Erica Dixon, Jasmine Bleu, Jessica White, Karlie Redd, Kendra Robinson, Khaotic, Kirk Frost, Lil Zane, Mendeecees, Momma Dee, Rasheeda, Renni Rucci, Saucy Santana, Scrappy, Shekinah Jo, Sierra Gates, Spice, Yandy, Yung Joc and ZellSwag.
Newcomers this season include Latin recording artist International Nova and his wife, Cristina Nova.
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In the second half of Season 12, Spice invites the crew to perform in London but drama erupts as simmering feuds boil over. Elsewhere in the season, Kirk and Rasheeda work to restore peace within the Frost family, Scrappy faces rumors about his personal life, and his ex-wife, Bambi, navigates a “delicate truce” with her former adversaries and ex-husband.
Saucy Santana sets his sights on new musical territories while Karlie Redd bets it all on her relationship with millionaire fiancé TLO, amid resurfacing exes.
Young Joc and Kendra’s marriage hits a rough patch once the roles reverse and jealously takes center stage, and Yandy and Mendeecees question their friendships and priorities after last season’s explosive allegations.
You can catch up on previous seasons of Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta on Paramount+ and Pluto TV’s Love & Hip-Hop channel.
Searching for a streaming deal? Enjoy two months of Paramount+ for only $2.95 per month with Prime Video’s Black Friday sale.
For those without cable, Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta and other MTV shows, including the new season of Love & Hip-Hop Miami, are available to stream on Philo, DirecTV and Hulu + Live TV.
Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta is produced by Antoinette Media and executive produced by Mona Scott-Young for Monami Productions and Lashan Browning for Antoinette Media, with Donna Edge-Rachell, Paris Bauldwin, Daniel Wiener, Alissa Horowitz, Mimi Adams, Gavin Lee Jones and John Crenny. Sitarah Pendelton-Eaglin and Daniel Blau Rogge serve as executive producers for MTV Entertainment Studios.
Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta premieres on Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.
Watch the teaser below.
In the last four months, two of the three major labels have seen their stock price punished for missing expectations of subscription growth — effectively sending the message that in 2024, delivering substantial revenue gains isn’t enough. In its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday (Nov. 21), Warner Music Group (WMG) revealed streaming growth of 8.2%, which was below some analysts’ estimates — helping explain why the company’s share price fell 7.4% on Thursday and erased approximately $1.29 billion of market value. The same thing happened to Universal Music Group in July — albeit to a far greater extent — when its lower-than-expected second-quarter subscription growth led to a 24% drop in its share price despite total revenue climbing 8.7%.
To say analysts and investors place a great deal of attention on streaming growth is an understatement. During WMG’s earnings call on Thursday, six of the 10 questions from analysts concerned subscription revenue, including topics such as drivers of expected growth, the setting of wholesale rates and how streaming royalties are calculated and distributed. That’s because analysts — and the investors they speak to — know that platforms such as Spotify and YouTube are critical to record labels and publishers’ fortunes.
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Judging from their introductory remarks, WMG and UMG would rather talk about their companies’ global expansions. On Thursday, WMG CEO Robert Kyncl highlighted the company’s focus on India, a country of 1.4 billion that he called “more like a continent than a country.” Currently dominated by ad-supported streaming, India has the fifth-largest gross domestic product but ranks just 14th amongst recorded music markets. But Kyncl said he believes the country “will become an increasingly influential global force in the music business,” adding that WMG is “well positioned to keep taking market share” through acquisitions and partnerships. Meanwhile, during UMG’s latest earnings call on Oct. 31, CEO Lucian Grainge talked about acquisitions, partnerships and expansions in emerging markets such as China, Thailand and Nigeria.
Constantly pulled back to the topic of music subscriptions, Kyncl and WMG CFO Bryan Castellani attempted to quell any concerns that streaming growth is petering out, explaining how WMG intends to obtain high, single-digit subscription revenue growth even as that growth has been slowing. Relatively few Americans have a music streaming subscription, at least when compared to streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) options such as Netflix; during the call, Kyncl noted that subscription penetration in the U.S. is 30% while SVOD services are at 50%. “There’s a lot more to grow in United States for music,” he said.
Lately, though, the success of music streaming platforms has looked one-sided. The licensees, not the licensors, appear to be keeping most of the spoils of price increases and subscriber acquisitions. As one WMG analyst put it, the major labels’ content is a must-have for digital service providers (DSPs) such as Spotify, but “a lot of value has instead accrued to the DSPs” rather than content owners. At least by one measure, Spotify has reaped the benefits of price increases far more than major labels. Since Spotify announced its first U.S. price increase on July 23, 2023, its share price has risen 177%, compared to 3% for UMG and 4% for WMG.
To level the playing field and reap more of the benefits of subscription music’s popularity, WMG intends to tweak pricing — which it believes the labels will benefit from — to help drive continued subscription growth. For starters, the company expects improvements to come from the launch of a high-priced subscription tier for superfans that Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in July could cost $17 or $18 per month. Kyncl and Castellani also pointed to changes in wholesale prices that would establish per-subscriber minimums to reduce the discounts given to family plans and other multi-user accounts. “With both subscriber growth and opportunities for wholesale price increases, the formula for streaming growth is strong and there’s plenty of room for acceleration,” said Kyncl.
The U.S. and other mature streaming markets will deliver subscription growth more immediately than emerging markets still dominated by ad-supported streaming. But over the long term, said WMG, high-growth, emerging markets like India have substantial potential. As Kyncl explained, WMG is betting on countries like India that have rising gross domestic product (GDP) because advertising spending will increase as GDP increases —and rising GDP will eventually translate to more subscribers. Again, Kyncl talked about closing the gap between music and TV; in India, he put the number of music subscribers at 15 million and the number of households with TVs at 100 million.
Streaming has shaped today’s music business. WMG and UMG would not have gone public had it not transformed a once-moribund industry. Investors wouldn’t have poured money into Hipgnosis Songs Fund and other investment funds were it not generating massive royalties for aging catalogs. And prominent institutional investors such as Blackstone and Pimco would not be so enthusiastic about music assets if streaming couldn’t open new markets around the world.
That strong enthusiasm has created high expectations, though, and labels’ mandate to deliver high, single-digit subscription growth is going to transform streaming in the years to come. Prices will be higher. Streaming services will launch high-priced superfan tiers. And if the labels have their way, ad-supported on-demand streaming would no longer be free. However things shake out, the majors seem confident they can deliver.
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The 2024 MAMA Awards is going international with ceremonies in Los Angeles and Japan for its 25th anniversary. The three-day event will air exclusively on Samsung TV Plus.
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This year’s MAMA Awards will be held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Thursday (Nov. 21) and the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan from November 22-23.
Performers include TOMORROW x Together, Anderson .Paak, Bruno Mars, BOYNEXTDOOR, ILLIT, J.Y. Park, Young Posses and ENHYPEN.
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Keep reading to learn more about Samsung TV Plus and how to stream the MAMA Awards from anywhere.
What Is Samsung TV Plus?
Not familiar with Samsung TV Plus? It’s free, ad-supported streaming service available on Samsung Smart TVs, Samsung Galaxy devices, smart monitors, Family Hub refrigerators and online at Samsungtvplus.com.
Samsung TV Plus features over 400 live channels, thousands of movies and K-POP by CJ ENM. Launched on Nov. 6 in celebration of it’s 10th anniversary, Samsung TV Plus’ K-pop channel offers exclusive access to artist interviews, performances, music videos and behind-the-scenes footage.
Samsung TV Plus features over 4,000 hours of Korean programming including movies and TV series.
You can stream Samsung TV Plus by navigating to the app on a Samsung TV, Smart Monitor or Family Hub refrigerator. If you have a Samsung Galaxy Device, download the app from the Galaxy Store or Google Play app store.
2024 MAMA Awards: Start Time, How to Stream Live from Anywhere
The 2024 MAMA Awards kicks off on Thursday at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT (12 p.m. KST on Friday). The show will be available on FAST channel #1535.
Coverage of day two will air on Friday at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT (11 a.m. KST on Saturday). Day three airs on Saturday at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT. (8:00 a.m. KST on Sunday).
Fans streaming internationally can use ExpressVPN on Samsung Smart TVs. To access, install Express VPN to a compatible Wifi router and being streaming. VPNs let you access certain channels, streaming platforms, websites and more from outside of the U.S.
ExpressVPN’s Black Friday deals gets you two years of service, plus six months free for $4.99/month (reg. $12.95/month).
See below for a list of performers at the 2024 MAMA Awards.
2024 MAMA Awards Performance Lineup
Nov. 21 (U.S.)
Anderson .PaakILLITJ.Y. ParkKATSEYERIIZETWSYoung Posse
Nov. 22 (Japan)
BOYNEXTDOORENHYPHENIVEIznaLee Young JiME:IPLAVETREASURETOMORROW X TOGETHER
Nov. 23 (Japan)
AespaBIBIBYEON WOO SEOK(G)I-DLEG-DRAGONINIMEOVVSEVENTEENZEROBASEONE
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French Montana’s new documentary is dedicated to his mom, Khadija, and other immigrant moms who have “sacrificed for their kids in this country,” the rapper shared in a TMZ Live interview on Wednesday (Nov. 20).
Montana, whose birth name is Karim Kharbouch, immigrated to America from Morocco when he was 13 years old. His mom worked three jobs to support the family after his father moved back to the North African country.
“We overstayed [our] visas,” Montana recalled. “My father was trying to create an opportunity for us to live the American dream, but he didn’t succeed at that. He got tired of it. He wanted to go back to Africa and live like a king. He told my mom ‘We can take all the kids and leave French here.’ My mother said ‘I’m not going to leave my son here,’ so he said ‘You can stay with him.’ He felt like she betrayed him.”
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“He left me, my mother, my two little brothers. None of us spoke English. I couldn’t get a job, couldn’t go to school. I didn’t have paperwork. The only thing to do was to hustle and hit the streets. It was something that happened by mistake and turned into a miracle.”
The French Montana Story: For Khadija, premiered at the Tribeca Film festival last year. The documentary has been eight years in the making, partially because the process of getting his mother a green card and reuniting her with family in Morocco for the first time in 25 years.
“She’s the real French Montana,” he said. “She’s the one that sacrificed.”
“It shining a light on a mother’s love,” he added of the film. “A light on all mothers, especially immigrant mothers that sacrificed for their kids in this country.”
Later in the interview, Montana talks U.S. immigration laws and collaborating with Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of president-elect Donald Trump. “I’m not too involved in politics, Laura Trump was somebody I knew on a personal level but honestly, I don’ t like the immigration laws. Hopefully we can do something about that,” he added. “That’s all a conversation, something I would have to speak to [Laura about] to try and talk some sense into him [Trump].”
How to Watch French Montana’s Documentary on Paramount+
The French Montana Story premiered on Paramount+ on Tuesday (Nov. 21).
If you’re not subscribed, you can join for free for the first week to stream The French Montana Story and other Paramount+ exclusive such as Ink Master, Landman, Lioness, Frasier, Seal Team and Mayor of Kingstown.
The Paramount+ Essentials plan renews at $7.99/month after the free trial and Paramount+ with Showtime is $12.99/month but the first week is free. Subscribe to an annual plan to save up to 23% off.
Amazon Prime members can enjoy two months of Paramount+ for just $2.99/month. The Black Friday deal saves you 77% off Prime Video channels and including Paramount+, AMC+, STARZ, Crunchyroll, MGM+ and Hallmark+. Amazon’s Black Friday 2024 runs from Nov. 21-29.
Want a free subscription? Walmart+ members get free Paramount+ and other membership benefits. Click here to subscribe.
Watch French Montana’s TMZ Live interview below.
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Are you ready it? A new Lifetime holiday movie inspired by the love story between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce is coming Saturday (Nov. 23).
Christmas in the Spotlight stars Jessica Lord as Bowyn, a famous musician who sings about love and relationship, but with her career taking up so much of her time, dating is nearly impossible. Laith Wallschleger plays Drew, a pro football player who goes to one of Bowyn’s concerts with his niece. Later, he openly admits he has a crush on her and decides to give things a shot, even though their busy schedules might make it challenging.
In addition to Lord and Wallschleger, the cast also includes Emmy-winning host and producer Jeannie Mai and TikTok creator Haley Kalil, who’s making her first appearance on television.
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Keep reading for ways to stream Christmas in the Spotlight for free without cable.
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How to Watch Christmas in the Spotlight for Free Without Cable
The easiest way to watch Christmas in the Spotlight for free is through the Lifetime channel. Cord cutters don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a cable package in order to watch Lifetime at home, there are several ways to stream Christmas in the Spotlight live and on-demand. The movie will premiere on Lifetime at 8 p.m. ET. To watch for free, live TV streaming platforms like DirecTV Stream and Philo offer free trials and promos that’ll let you watch the Swift and Kelce-inspired movie for free.
Philo is free for the first week and $28/month after the trial period. The streamer offers 75+ channels including Lifetime, WEtv, MTV, VH1, A&E, HGTV, Food Network and Hallmark.
DirecTV Stream includes local networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox in addition to over 90 cable channels (Lifetime, OWN, WEtv TLC, TNT, MTV, ESPN, HGTV, Food Network, E!, Bravo and more). Streaming plans start at $49.99 per month after a five day free trial.
Lifetime’s Christmas in the Spotlight is part of the network’s 2024 It’s A Wonderful Lifetime movie slate, which also include ADD OTHER UPCOMING HOLIDAY MOVIES HERE.
Watch the trailer for Christmas in the Spotlight below.
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New games are played and reputations are tested in a new adaptation of the 1999 movie Cruel Intentions. Amazon MGM Studios has lengthened the storyline into an original series of the same title and with a modern twist, but that doesn’t mean fans of the original movie won’t see callouts to the beloved ’90s version.
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You can watch Cruel Intentions (2024) online starting Thursday (Nov. 21), when the series premiere is released on Prime Video. The TV show pays homage to the original movie with details both eagle-eyed fans and those familiar with the ’90s version will be able to catch — including a new take on the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” a song that was the main theme of the OG, as well as the iconic cross necklace worn by Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character Kathryn Merteuil, and the 1956 Jaguar driven by Ryan Phillippe’s seductive Sebastian Valmont.
Keep reading to learn where to stream Cruel Intentions online for free.
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How to Watch Cruel Intentions (2024) Online for Free
Cruel Intentions is an Amazon MGM Studios original, which means you’ll only be able to watch the series on Prime Video. Prime members can watch Cruel Intentions online for free when they sign into their account.
Don’t have a Prime membership? Amazon is offering a 30-day free trial when you sign up that’ll let you watch the 2024 version in addition to the entire Prime Video library at no additional cost. Once the free trial is over, you’ll be charged the regular subscription fee of $14.99/month or $139/year.
Adults ages 18-24 or students at an accredited college can score a six-month free trial and 50% off subscription fee with a student membership. Qualifying government programs can get you a 30-day free trial and half-off membership cost with the EBT/Medicaid membership.
Just like the original, the Cruel Intentions series follows the cold-hearted stepsiblings Caroline Merteuil (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Lucien Belmont (Zac Burgess), who will do anything they can to remain at the top of Manchester College’s social hierarchy. When Greek life is threatened after a hazing incident goes wrong, the two go to great lengths to preserve their power and influence — including striking a dangerous deal to seduce the Vice President of the United States’ daughter, Annie Grover (Savannah Lee Smith).
Season one will feature a total of eight episodes that will drop every Thursday until the season finale.
How to Watch Cruel Intentions (1999) At Home
Before you watch the new Cruel Intentions online, Prime Video also has the original 1999 movie to stream at home. You can get an ad-free experience when you rent of buy Cruel Intentions on video-on-demand. Rentals are available for $2 or you can buy Cruel Intentions on VOD for $5. A Prime membership isn’t required to watch the movie — just make your purchase and the movie will automatically be downloaded to your video library to watch at your leisure. Rentals are available for 30-days after purchasing, and 48 hours once you start streaming Cruel Intentions.
Watch the trailer for the new Cruel Intentions series below:
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Streaming has become the go-to method for watching new shows and movies, but signing up for multiple streaming services can leave you spending more rather than saving. Xfinity wants to help you cut costs without sacrificing your content options through their new add-on NOW StreamSaver.
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New and current subscribers can stack NOW StreamSaver to your Internet plan for just $30 a month and enjoy NOW TV’s live TV channels in addition to Apple TV+, Netflix (with ads) and Peacock Premium (with ads). All that’s needed is for you to sign up for Xfinity or NOW Internet and you’ll be eligible to score the streaming deal.
If you’re already a NOW TV subscriber, you can still score the expanded lineup of streaming options for only $10 extra when you add on NOW StreamSaver.
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No equipment is required to set up NOW StreamSaver either, you just need to download the required streaming apps to your TV and smart devices, then you’ll be able to watch movies and TV shows on the go.
Our Internet recommendation? NOW Internet plan is just $30 a month and comes with no contracts or hidden fees. The price you see includes taxes and added fees, resulting in total transparency and a wallet-friendly Internet plan that’ll get you surfing the web and streaming your favorite shows for less than $100 a month.
There are two speeds you can choose from depending on your needs: 100 mbps for $30 a month or 200 mbps for $45 a month. Once you sign up, you’ll receive all the WiFi equipment needed and unlimited data. Xfinity’s plans are also flexible, meaning you can pause and resume service whenever you want.
Some of the live channels you can look forward to watching through NOW TV include AMC, Sony Movies, Sundance Channel, Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, Food Network, HGTV, Afro and ID. You’ll even be able to watch some of the most talked about streamer originals including Netflix’s Nobody Wants This and Bridgerton, Peacock’s The Traitors and Based On a True Story and Apple TV+’s Shrinking and Palm Royale.
Looking for Spanish content? You can also add NOW TV Latino for just an extra $10 a month and enjoy more than 25 live Spanish-language channels including live sports, news and novelas. You have to be an Xfinity or NOW Internet subscriber in order to be eligible for the add-on, but you can stack it onto your Internet package by itself or with NOW StreamSaver for even more program offerings. In addition to being able to watch live Spanish-language channels, you’ll also get free Peacock Premium and 20 hours of DVR storage.
Amazon Music is updating its “Unlimited” subscription tier to give subscribers in the U.S., UK and Canada access to audiobooks from Audible’s library of one million-plus titles, the company announced on Tuesday (Nov. 19).
With the new perk, Amazon Music Unlimited follows in the footsteps of Spotify, which revamped its subscription offerings earlier this year to include a bundle of songs and audiobooks together. Though Spotify angered songwriters and publishers by arguing it didn’t need to pay the full mechanical royalty rate since it offered multiple royalty-earning services in one, it appears that Amazon Music will work with publishers to determine new rates privately. According to a statement by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the trade organization is “optimistic” about Amazon’s new offering and is “engaged” with the company in a “respectful and productive way” to find a compensation model for publishers that “will not decrease revenue for songwriters.”
Subscribers to AMU’s individual plan and primary holders of family plans are entitled to one audiobook of any length per month, a perk that continues even after each billing cycle. For those whose appetite for audiobooks exceeds the one-per-month offer, additional titles can be acquired through Audible via monthly subscriptions or a la carte purchases.
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The additional perk comes without an increase in price — for the time being. Steve Boom, vp of audio, Twitch and games, said Amazon’s strategy is be “to add new things to the product” that add value and later “figure out what the right pricing strategy is in the long term.” In the U.S., AMU costs $9.99 for Prime members and $10.99 for non-Prime subscribers, both less than Spotify’s $11.99 monthly fee and, for non-Prime subscribers, equal to to Apple Music’s $10.99 price.
Spoken-word content has already proven a valuable complement to music. After AMU added podcasts in 2020, subscribers embraced having both music and spoken-word content in the same app, noted Boom. “The convenience of having both music and spoken word in the same app has proven really effective. It makes logical sense to bring audio books into it as well.”
Audiobooks will not be made available to Amazon Music Prime, the tier included with a basic Prime subscription, or Amazon Music Free, a free option with playlists, radio stations and podcasts.
The concept of “bundling” multiple services together has become a hot-button issue for songwriters and publishers. At the start of March, Spotify Premium subscriptions, including family and duo tiers, were quietly reclassified as bundled offerings, with both music and audiobooks included in the plans.
According to the stipulations of Phonorecords IV — the government-regulated guidelines that dictate the mechanical royalty rates for streaming from 2023-2027 — bundled services can qualify to pay out a lower royalty rate for publishing given that subscription dollars must be split between multiple services (in this case, books and songs). As a consequence, Billboard calculated that publishers and songwriters will earn an estimated $150 million less in U.S. mechanical royalties than previously expected in the 12 months following the change.
At the time, NMPA’s CEO/president David Israelite said he would “declare war” on Spotify — and he subsequently launched a multi-pronged effort to stop the streamer. This included sending Spotify a cease and desist for unlicensed lyrics, video and podcast content; filing a legislative proposal with both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate Judiciary Committees; and filing a Federal Trade Commission complaint. Around the same time, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (the MLC) sued Spotify for “improperly” classifying these tiers as bundles.
“We are optimistic about the new Amazon bundle,” Israelite told Billboard in a statement. “Amazon has engaged with the music publishing and songwriting industry in a respectful and productive way, unlike Spotify. We expect this new Amazon bundle will not decrease revenue for songwriters. Unlike Spotify, Amazon is looking at music creators as business partners and seeking to have a deal in place before the first round of royalty payments. This is in stark contrast to Spotify who is trying to pervert the compulsory license and slash what they pay songwriters.”
The NMPA and Amazon Music have not yet reached a final agreement.
Gabb Music is a music streaming service specifically developed for kids and families who have a Gabb Wireless phone — and the company is listening to its young audience as the platform continues to grow.
“Having the ability to build something from the ground up for kids was to me so appealing,” Kerri Fox-Metoyer, head of entertainment at Gabb Wireless, tells Billboard Family. “If you look at the marketplace, most of the other music services have been built for adults and then kind of re-engineered for kids, but we were building everything from the ground up for kids.”
On Nov. 14, Billboard presented the first Top Gabb Music Songs chart, a monthly chart provided by Gabb Wireless that tracks on-demand streams via the phone company’s Gabb Music platform, which features an extensive catalog of songs selected by the Gabb team that include only kid- and teen-appropriate content. Gabb Music streams are not currently factored into any other Billboard charts.
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Based on data from the month of October 2024, Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” tops the first Top Gabb Music Songs chart as the most-played song on Gabb Wireless phones. The chart lists the 25 most-played songs of the month on Gabb phones.
Fox-Metoyer spoke with Billboard Family from Gabb Music’s Nashville base ahead of the launch of the Top Gabb Music Songs chart, in a conversation about how the streaming service came to be, and how it provides a song catalog tailored to young listeners and their families, with music appropriate for all ages and settings.
Gabb Wireless has been around since 2018, and its first products — mobile phones marketed as safe for kids to use, without internet access and with only kid-centered features — were available nationwide by September 2019. Music streaming was the feature requested most by parents of kids with Gabb phones, says Fox-Metoyer, who joined the company in 2020 and who’s held previous roles at companies involving digital music (Liquid Audio) and the family music space (Disney, Sony).
After researching options for streaming partners and realizing nothing quite fit the mission the company had in mind, the Gabb team decided to build its own platform.
Gabb Music
Courtesy of Gabb Music
“The streaming industry in general is about quantity, and we were looking for quality in our service for the kids,” Fox-Metoyer says.
And so came Gabb Music, which first launched in 2022 in the format of a DMCA-compliant radio service, with the intention to add the now-available, on-demand service Gabb Music+. Licensed with the three major labels — Universal, Sony and Warner — Gabb Music’s ad-free streaming platform offers songs from all genres and eras of music, not just songs found in the children’s category (a common misconception). But its song catalog is carefully filtered to meet the company’s vision.
Songs are generally filtered based on explicit language tags when it comes to streaming, but Gabb took a deeper look in determining if songs were really a fit for the specific service they’d developed for kids.
“When you take out the songs that have explicit lyrics, you’re left with a vast catalog of music that is — some of it still isn’t appropriate for our age group. We have kids as young as 6, and our kids go up to as old as 16, 17. It’s a real wide range,” Fox-Metoyer shares, adding that “the heart” of Gabb Music’s listeners are in the 8- to 12-year-old age range.
“So we had to look at that and say, just because this song doesn’t have the F-word, or other [explicit] words, is it appropriate for the age? That’s when we started to come up with our standards and guidelines. We said as a company, this is what we are going to allow and not allow,” she says.
Gabb Music
Courtesy of Gabb Music
So, what does Gabb Music allow and not allow on its platform?
“We’re looking at quality over quantity,” she explains. “We look at every piece of the music. When we do filtration, we don’t just filter lyrics. We also look at the name of the artist, we look at the name of the song, the name of the album, and we look at the album art.”
“As a parent, you can understand this,” she tells Billboard Family of Gabb’s concept of omitting songs that reference topics like violence, drug use, self harm and bullying, or “the things that may not have explicit lyrics, but they are just not age-appropriate for your kids. I think that is really our differentiator. The innuendos and adult subject matter that, through a proprietary filtration, we’re removing those songs from the service. We don’t edit — it just doesn’t appear on our service. I think that’s what parents love about it.”
She explains that parents can take a Gabb phone out of the box, activate it and give it to their kid without navigating various (and sometimes complicated) parental control settings, or “worrying about what they’re listening to or watching or seeing.” The phone itself has built-in filtration for its text and video messaging, and no internet browser or social media access — only its own app store, with Gabb-vetted options that parents can browse and choose to add for their child, if they’d like. Plus, it’s easy for parents to send messages via the phone, or flag content in the Gabb Music app, with feedback.
Beyond the phone itself being built as a kid-safe device, part of what makes its streaming platform different from other services is the Gabb product’s built-in audience of young listeners: “They’re helping us build it,” she says.
The team at Gabb is able to glean insights from Gabb Music’s list of top-played songs, plus the direct feedback the company receives from families with young music lovers, to continue to optimize the platform to best serve its audience’s needs.
“We’ve got a three-pillar programming mission: education, entertainment and discovery,” says Fox-Metoyer. “All of the programming that we do, we look at it through that lens. We want kids to learn things about music, we want them to obviously be entertained, and we want to help them discover what their musical taste is.”
The Gabb phone, and its music streaming service, is an alternate option for families who want to “take tech in steps,” she says. “These kids, sometimes this is their first experience being in the driver’s seat of their own music streaming account, so we have to educate them on how to build a playlist, what does skip mean, what does repeat mean, what does shuffle mean?”
She also brings up the trend of kids who don’t want to be attached to a device, but want to enjoy music throughout day-to-day activities like getting ready in the morning, hanging out with friends, playing outside, cooking with their parents, studying and chilling out: “There’s this whole new movement about kids kind of being vocal, almost taking the opposite of excessive screen time, and [saying], ‘No, I’m not gonna be on social media. I’m not gonna be tied to my phone. It’s really great to see kids taking back their youth, almost.”
Within Gabb Music’s varied catalog are playlists catered to a kid’s day, as well as their mood. Sleep and study playlists are popular, as is sad music: “One of them that is popular that is interesting — this was a request from a family — they wanted more sad music, just more mellow music.”
Gabb Music is also developing app offerings for its kid listeners that tie together music streaming and music education, like playlists highlighting an instrument or demonstrating what BPM is.
Of course, while kids and teens who stream through Gabb can come across music that’s new to them, they do also still “gravitate toward the hits,” she says. “They love Benson Boone, they love Taylor Swift, they love Imagine Dragons.”
What if someone searches for a popular song that does not meet Gabb Music’s guidelines, and therefore can’t be found on the app? They’re given alternate suggestions and the chance to discover more music they might like, instead of hitting a roadblock.
“We try to present songs that we do have [from the artist]. We try to respond in a positive way. Here’s 10 other songs that we have,” she says, later adding in our conversation, “We’re adding new music every day.”
Looking ahead, Gabb Music hopes to be a go-to music platform not only for families at home, but also a helpful option for kid-centered community events: “We have had inquiries from not only teachers, and schools, but also youth group leaders, a Scouts group … Not only for the education of music, but also, ‘I play music for my kids during our events and I have a hard time putting together a playlist that’s appropriate for these events,’” she says. “We’re are looking at how to solve those problems in 2025.”
Coming up soon for Gabb is its fun CEO for the Day program, which was just announced for Dec. 3, when a 9-year-old will get to take over the role at the Gabb Wireless headquarters in Lehi, Utah. The opportunity will allow her to attend meetings and brainstorming sessions with executives, pitch her own marketing ideas and more. Gabb Music listeners can celebrate the special day with a playlist titled “Boss Beats,” full of uplifting and empowering songs.