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Functional content — think rain noises, whale sounds, recordings of wind rustling the leaves and the like — will be significantly devalued under Spotify‘s new royalty system: Plays of this audio will generate one fifth of the royalties generated by a play of a musical track, according to a source with knowledge of the streaming service’s new policy.
In response to a request for comment, a Spotify spokesperson pointed Billboard to the streaming service’s blog post from Tuesday (Nov. 21). The blog notes that, “over the coming months,” Spotify will “work with licensors to value noise streams at a fraction of the value of music streams.” The blog does not say what the fractional amount will be.
Spotify’s decision to count functional content at 20% of the rate for music tracks is the culmination of nearly a year’s worth of bad press for rain sounds and the like. While this type of audio is often used for the seemingly innocuous purpose of relaxing after a long and stressful day, Spotify wrote on its blog that the space is “sometimes exploited by bad actors who cut their tracks artificially short — with no artistic merit — in order to maximize royalty-bearing streams.”
This initiative, says Spotify’s blog post, is intended to free up “extra money to go back into the royalty pool for honest, hard working artists.”
As a result, some of the most powerful executives in music have launched a sustained assault on rain and its various non-musical cousins over the course of 2023. “It can’t be that an Ed Sheeran stream is worth exactly the same as a stream of rain falling on the roof,” Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl told analysts in May.
Two months later, Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge told analysts that streaming services must ensure that “real artists don’t have their royalties diluted by noise and other content that has no meaningful engagement from music fans.” He later amped up the rhetoric by describing companies that upload this content as “merchants of garbage” that were “flooding the platform with content that has absolutely no engagement with fans, doesn’t help churn, doesn’t merchandise great music and professional artists.”
When UMG rolled out a new royalty system with Deezer in September, the streaming service said it would replace “non-artist noise content” with its own functional music, while also excluding this audio from the royalty pool. “The sound of rain or a washing machine is not as valuable as a song from your favorite artist streamed in HiFi,” Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira said. Deezer said plays of rain, washing machines and other non-music noise content counts for roughly 2% of all streams.
Spotify did not provide a comparable number in its blog post. It is taking one other step to limit the impact of functional content on the royalty pool: To generate royalties, a functional audio track must be longer than two minutes.
“These policies will right-size the revenue opportunity for noise uploaders,” Spotify wrote. “Currently, the opportunity is so large that uploaders flood streaming services with undifferentiated noise recordings, hoping to attract enough search traffic to generate royalties.”
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Britain’s popular reality competition show I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here is back for its 23rd series. If you’re new to the show, it combines Survivor-inspired challenges with stars to see who is the ultimate champion of the jungle. The first episode aired on Sunday (Nov. 19) at 9 p.m. GMT, and just like with most competition series, you can expect suspense, thrills, humor and drama, of course.
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Each season comes with a new slew of star-studded guests who must compete in challenges that’ll win them additional food, resources and advantages over other players. They’ll want to avoid getting voted out by their fellow competitors until the finale when the group will vote on who they believe to be the jungle champion.
This season features a mix of singers, TV personalities, politicians and more, including Jamie Lynn Spears as well as radio DJ Sam Thompson, morning host Josie Gibson, TV presenter Fred Sirieix, YouTuber Nella Rose, ex-politician Nigel Farage, food critic Grace Dent, singer Marvin Humes, EastEnders‘ Danielle Harold and Hollyoaks‘ Nick Pickard. BAFTA-award-winning stars Ant & Dec are back to host the series as well.
New episodes will drop every Sunday at 9 p.m. GMT until the finale, which will air sometime in December. While it’s available to view exclusively in the U.K., there are still a few ways to watch the show online from the U.S. and other parts of the world.
Keep reading to learn the available streaming options.
How to Watch I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! is a British-made reality competition show that airs exclusively on the broadcasting network ITV. Since most streaming platforms check your IP address, the easiest way to stream online from the U.S. and other parts of the world is through a VPN.
We recommend Express VPN as it offers a range of affordable plans and discounts such as its current Black Friday deal that gets you 48% off for 12 months and three months free, which means you can watch the series for no cost. Click here or the button below to launch the free trial now.
Another wallet-friendly option is NordVPN, which is offering plans for 69% off as well as three extra months for free. Plans start as low $2.99/month and come with malware protection, fast load times, data breach scanners, cloud storage and more. Each plan also comes with a 30-day risk-free trial.
Once you download your chosen VPN, you’ll need to connect it to one of its U.K. servers in order to get access to ITV. Then, you’ll have to make a free ITV Hub account and enter a valid U.K. postal code (ITV doesn’t verify them, so any Britain postal code should work). Once you’ve set up your account, you should be able to watch live TV and programs from ITV at your leisure.
Check below to watch the trailer for I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
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Dubai-based entertainment streaming platform OSN+ has purchased a majority stake in Nasdaq-listed music streaming service Anghami, forming a powerful media partnership in the growing MENA media landscape. OSN, a subsidiary of Kuwait holding company Kuwait Projects Company, known as KIPCO, said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that it will “inject up to USD $50 million” into the Abu Dhabi-based Anghami.
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According to a joint announcement, the merging of the two homegrown platforms will “leverage Anghami’s strong tech stack” and catalog of 100 million songs with OSN+’s Netflix-like library of premium video content to forge a “unique digital streaming experience with AI-driven hyper personalization that prioritizes recommendations based on user preference.”
KIPCO’s OSN Group puts Anghami’s valuation at $3.65 per share and said the music streaming will maintain its listing on Nasdaq, where in morning trading has skyrocketed up around 43% to $2.26. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Once all the i’s are dotted, OSN Group will own a majority stake in Anghami, which was founded in 2012.
In March, Anghami said its revenue grew by more than 35% to $48 million in 2022, driven by a 21% year-over-year uptick in paid subscribers to 1.52 million. Anghami claims to have 120 million registered users overall, up significantly from the 75 million it boasted in 2021.
Combined at closing, the companies say they’ll start with this venture with “more than 2.5 million paying subscribers with over $100 million in revenue.”
Anghami co-founder Elie Habib will be CEO of the fused streaming companies, though OSN’s linear TV business will be run independently by that group’s CEO, Joe Kawkabani.
“Joining forces with OSN+ is a leap in Anghami’s journey to reinvent entertainment in the Arab World,” said Habib. “We’re bringing together technology, music and video to build a comprehensive media ecosystem. It’s a chance to deepen our connection with our users and to create something they will truly love.”
The pair-up comes just a few months after Anghami received a $5 million investment from the venture capital arm of the Saudi Arabia media company SRMG. And in October, Anghami fought off a warning from Nasdaq after its stock price dipping below $1.00 for an extended period. At the time of the warning from Nasdaq, Anghami shares were at $0.82 apiece.
OSN+ offers movies and TV series, including both original and third-party content, and is available in 22 countries, including Algeria, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. As of April filing with the SEC, Anghami said it had 47 telco partnerships across the Middle East and Northern Africa and licensing deals with major Arabic and international music labels including Rotana Music, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Merlin, among others.
“This is a major milestone in OSN’s journey as we continue to scale up our streaming business. Combining OSN+ content with Anghami’s technology enables us to deliver the best of entertainment all in one place for our customers, ensuring we are continuously evolving our offering to meet their needs. As two home-grown entities with an unmatched understanding of the local market, we are confident that this new offering will change the face of the regional streaming landscape.”
TikTok released the findings of a new study on Tuesday (Nov. 21) touting its ability to drive music discovery and streaming activity.
The study, commissioned by TikTok and conducted by Luminate, is full of statistics demonstrating TikTok’s power. First and foremost: “Higher TikTok engagement — whether that’s likes, views, or shares — corresponds with elevated streaming volumes.” (This is why labels have been pestering their acts to post, post more, and post again, sometimes to their artists’ chagrin.) On top of that, U.S. TikTokers “are nearly twice as likely to discover music on short-form video platforms than the average user of social or social-form video platforms,” according to the study’s analysis.
All of this would have had more impact coming out in 2019. Back then, many acts were still nervous to be perceived as a “TikTok artist.”
At the end of 2023, however, TikTok’s dominance in the music industry has been repeatedly and widely established — to the point where the platform is sometimes resented. TikTok has fundamentally changed the way that labels scout for new talent and market their roster of signed acts.
Artists and labels all know that TikTok can galvanize an audience to share and stream and buy; what they don’t know is how to trigger that activity. (Spend on ads? Pay influencers? Pray?) And maddeningly, even when songs do go viral on the app, some of them don’t turn into streaming hits at all — see BMW Kenny’s “#WIPEITDOWN” in 2020, or Luclover’s “L$d” last year.
The new TikTok study doesn’t unlock any secrets on that front. But it continuously reaffirms the commercial potential of the platform’s users. 38% of U.S. TikTokers went to a show in the last 12 months, and 45% bought some merch, indicating that this group is more engaged in the music ecosystem than the average listener — 15% more likely to have picked up an LP over the last year, for example.
In addition, the study finds that TikTok functions to expand its users’ musical horizons. 46% of U.S. TikTokers “listen to music that is not in English” — that’s “27% more likely than music listeners overall” — and this population is “33% more likely to consider having access to global music extremely important.”
TikTok also noted that its users are both “more likely to be music streamers” and more likely to subscribe to a music streaming service. Survey findings indicate that “in the U.S., 62% of TikTok users are paid streamers, compared to 43% of average music listeners.”
Still, there has been concern in the music industry that TikTok users are so addicted to the app that they may not jump over to a streaming service to save a new track they find or add it to a playlist. On Nov. 14, TikTok launched a new feature that allows users to quickly save music they find on the platform to Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Music.
This “Add to Music App,” which is available to users in the U.S. and the U.K., creates “a direct link between discovery on TikTok and consumption on a music streaming service, making it easier than ever for music fans to enjoy the full length song on the music streaming service of their choice,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, said in a statement.
The result? TikTok is “generating even greater value for artists and rights holders,” Obermann declared.
In the new year, Spotify plans to roll out a new royalties model that will drive more money to more popular artists, record labels and distributors, while clamping down on streaming fraud.
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The scheme is three-pronged, based on Billboard’s reporting, creating a new streaming threshold that tracks must reach in order to qualify for royalties, penalizing fraudulent activity and setting a minimum play-time length for non-music noise tracks to earn revenue on the platform. The details on each of these elements have trickled out in the press without a formal announcement, but Billboard can now report specifics on each, according to sources in streaming and distribution.
Here’s a full rundown of Spotify’s new royalties model:
Tracks that receive less than 1,000 streams within a 12-month period will not qualify for royalties. Those royalties, instead, will be redistributed into the greater royalty pool.
Labels and distributors will be charged 10 euros for any track that is found to have 90% or more of its streams deemed fraudulent.
Non-music noise tracks must now be at least two minutes long in order to qualify for royalties. As well, according to a source, there are conversations about implementing a rate reduction on these tracks that would value their streams below those for music.
As previously reported, Spotify’s new royalty model will affect more than two-thirds of its song catalog but that’s due to the magnitude of music that’s uploaded to the platform, where the vast majority of songs don’t get listened to with any frequency. While tens of millions of songs will fall below the 1,000 streams threshold, a source tells Billboard that policy will only shift about 0.5% of Spotify’s royalty pool to more popular tracks. That was equal to about $46 million in royalties in 2022, out of $9.27 billion paid out in total.
The changes have been largely applauded by the music industry, although some in the independent distribution sector are concerned that the anti-fraud measures could disproportionately affect DIY distributors, even though major label acts sometimes engage in this activity too. These companies that have built hands-off, high-volume distribution businesses with small margins, charging a small fee per upload have huge batches of new music uploading daily, which means it’s hard to know who is doing the uploading.
DistroKid founder Philip Kaplan voiced his objection to the penalty system on a recent call with the Music Fraud Alliance, according to two sources who were also on the line.
One of those executives described the gist of Kaplan’s comments: “We can’t determine if a new client is going to hire a marketing service that’s going to bot streams until they’ve done it. It’s like you can’t determine if your neighbor is going to commit a crime.”
Spotify is planning to roll out its new royalties model in early 2024, although no firm date has yet been announced. The changes will not affect songwriters for the time being.
Chinese music streaming company Cloud Music’s revenue fell 16.3% to 1.95 billion RMB ($270.4 million) in the third quarter, the company’s controlling shareholder, tech giant NetEase, announced on Thursday (Nov. 16).
Gross profit margin of 27.2% was almost double the 14.2% seen in the prior-year quarter and about even with the 27% gross margin in the second quarter. Cloud Music attributed the higher gross margin to the gain in subscriptions and cost control measures.
Through the nine-month period ended Sept. 30, Cloud Music had revenue of 6.6 billion RMB ($806.1 million), down 11.1% year over year. Gross profit almost doubled, to 1.5 billion RMB ($205.8 million), while gross profit margin (as a percent of revenue) also nearly doubled from 13.2% to 25.5%.
Cloud Music, which spun off from NetEase in 2021 and trades on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, said it “considerably strengthened its music-centric membership monetization and further improved profitability.” The company also pointed to its premium offerings that include “expansive content and innovative features.”
Investors appeared to focus on the drop in revenue rather than the other metrics and developments. The news sent Cloud Music’s share price down 12.6% to 82.25 HKD ($10.55) on Monday (Nov. 20).
Because Cloud Music’s unaudited results were released as part of NetEase’s third-quarter earnings report, the company released few metrics and did not say exactly how many subscribers it acquired in the quarter. Three months ago, Cloud Music announced it had 41.8 million subscribers on June 30, up 11% from 37.6 million a year earlier.
While music subscriptions have been on the rise, the social entertainment side of the business is faltering. In the first half of 2023, Cloud Music’s social entertainment business declined 23.8% year over year due to a crackdown by Chinese authorities over livestreaming features that can be used for illegal gambling. Social entertainment accounted for about half of Cloud Music’s total revenue in the first half of 2023.
Tencent Music Entertainment has also suffered a sharp drop in social entertainment revenue while growing its music subscription business. While its music subscribers grew 20.8% to 103 million and subscription revenue jumped 42% in the third quarter, its social entertainment revenue fell 49%, causing total revenue to fall 10.8% to 6.57 billion RMB ($900 million).
Cloud Music third-quarter financial metrics:
Revenue of 1.95 billion RMB ($270.4 million), down 16.3% year over year.
Cost of revenue of 1.42 billion RMB ($196.9 million), down 29% year over year.
Gross profit of 525.7 million RMB ($73.5 million), up 61% year over year.
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Ex-NFL player Barry Sanders shocked the sports world when he suddenly retired at the height of his career and disappeared to London, England, during the late ’90s. Now, you have a chance to revisit the mystery with Sanders himself in a new documentary titled Bye Bye Barry. The film is based on the autobiography by the same title (which you can grab here) and will be available to watch starting Monday (Nov. 20) on Prime Video at 7 p.m. ET.
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Sports fans across the country were surprised when the former Detroit Lions running back entered an early retirement at the height of his career. Sanders was slated to break Walter Payton’s record for most career rushing yards, but instead decided to walk away from the sport, leaving behind the mystery as to why he left. NFL Films joins the football legend and his four sons as they go back to explore his upbringing, career and finally reveal why he left the NFL.
Even rap star Eminem popped into Thursday Night Football on Nov. 16 to hype up the new documentary saying, “We had the greatest running back that ever played the game,” in the official trailer for the film.
After catching Monday Night Football, check below for the available streaming options to watch the documentary.
How to Watch Bye Bye Barry
Bye Bye Barry will be released exclusively on Prime Video on Monday (Nov. 20) at 7 p.m. ET. If you have Prime membership, you can stream the documentary for no additional cost just by logging into your account. Click the button below to watch the documentary or you can find it in the Prime Video library under new releases.
Don’t have a Prime membership? Amazon is offering a 30-day free trial for new users when you sign up, which means you can watch the documentary and more for free. Once the free trial is over, you’ll be charged the regular subscription price of $14.99/month or $139/year.
If you’re a student, you can take advantage of the student membership, which is half off and comes with a six month free trial. And, for anyone under a qualify government program, you can get 50% off and a 30-day free trial through the EBT/Medicaid membership. Click here or the button below to launch your free trial.
With Prime you won’t just be able to watch Bye Bye Barry but the entire Prime Video library including exclusive and original TV series, movies and more. Content you can look forward to watching includes Citadel, Daisy Jones & The Six, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Cassandro, Swarm, The Power, Harlem, Invincible, The Boys, Gen V, I Want You Back, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Red, White & Royal Blue, Fleabag, The Summer I Turned Pretty, The Wheel of Time, Air and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
The Prime Video library also has premium channels you can add onto your subscription to expand you library of offerings such as Paramount+, Max, Starz, Showtime and more through the Prime channel store.
Prime members also get access to deep discounts during and after Prime Day, free one-day shipping on millions of items, grocery deliveries, Prime Premiere, Prime Try Before You Buy and other member-only benefits.
Check out the trailer for Bye Bye Barry below.
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After Uruguay’s parliament passed a bill that changes the country’s copyright laws, Spotify issued a statement on Monday (Nov. 20) saying that it “will unfortunately begin to phase out its service in Uruguay effective January 1, 2024, and fully cease service by February.” Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts […]
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Ludacris is helping you get into the holiday spirit — and no, it isn’t with a new Christmas single. The “Stand Up” rapper is trading the recording studio for a film set as he’s starring in the new Disney holiday movie Dashing Through the Snow. You can officially stream the new movie exclusively on Disney+ starting Friday (Nov. 17).
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Ludacris stars as Eddie Garrick, a divorced social worker for the Atlanta Police Department who has lost his joy and spirit for the yuletide season due to a traumatic experience as a child. At the request of his ex-wife Allison (Teyonah Parris), he takes his 8-year-old daughter, Charlotte (Madison Skye Validum), for Christmas Eve. It’s when they meet a mysterious man in a red suit named Nick (Lil Rel Howery) that the two are swept up in a magical adventure that may just help Garrick rediscover his holiday spirit.
Other castmembers you can expect to see include Oscar Nuñez, Zulay Henao, Kevin Connolly and Janora McDuffie.
Check below for the streaming options available.
How to Watch & Stream Dashing Through the Snow
Dashing Through the Snow is a Disney+ original, which means you’ll need a subscription to the platform in order to watch it online. Already have a membership? All you need to do is log into your account and find it under new releases, then you’ll be able to stream the movie for free.
If you aren’t subscribed to Disney+ the streaming platform offers a variety of plans starting at $7.99/month that you can customize to your needs. Click here or the button below to start your subscription.
The cheapest option is the Basic Plan for $7.99/month and provides you with the service’s ad-supported plan. You’ll have access to the entire Disney+ library including programs from Marvel, National Geographic and more and the ability to stream on multiple devices. If you’d prefer no ads, then you can get the Premium Plan for $13.99/month, which includes everything in the Basic Plan as well as the ability to download and watch content offline.
Looking for additional savings? You can save over 40% when you bundle Disney+ with Hulu and ESPN+ for $14.99/month, which will triple your content library. For live TV offerings, you can also bundle Disney+ with Hulu+ Live TV to expand your program offerings further.
Another money-saver option is to join Disney+ through Verizon. With Verizon’s MyPlan, you can get the Disney+ Bundle for $10/month, which can help save up to $4.99/month. The best part? You can toggle off perks each month and only pay for what you use.
Besides Dashing Through the Snow, you’ll have access to all of Disney+’s library of exclusive and original programs such as Peter Pan & Wendy, Muppets Mayhem, Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All, J-Hope in the Box, SUGA Road to D-Day, The Prouder Family: Louder & Prouder, WandaVision, The Mandalorian, Loki, The Book of Boba Fett, The Beatles Get Back, The Simpsons, Welcome to Earth and Called to the Wild.
Check below to watch the trailer for Dashing Through the Snow.
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ACC men’s basketball is in full swing, with matches taking place from now until the 71st annual ACC tournament in early March (and of course the March Madness NCAA men’s basketball tournament, for the teams lucky enough to make the cut).
Whether you’re currently in school or are an alum looking to continue supporting your college’s team, there are plenty of opportunities to watch the games live — especially if you aren’t able to travel to watch games in-person.
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Clear your schedule this weekend, as Friday (Nov. 17) will see a slew of ACC teams in the mix, Duke going up against Bucknell at 6 p.m. ET, NC State playing Charleston Southern at 7 p.m. ET, Wake Forest facing Towson at 7 p.m. ET, Pitt playing Jacksonville at 7 p.m. ET, Florida State facing in-state rival Florida at 7 p.m. ET, and North Carolina up against U.C. Riverside at 8 p.m. ET.
If that isn’t enough college basketball for you, then you can also catch the Massachusetts match-up of Boston College vs. Harvard on Saturday (Nov. 18) at 5 p.m. ET, while Sunday (Nov. 19) sees Clemson playing Boise State at 1 p.m. ET, Louisville facing Texas at 3:30 p.m. ET, and Virginia Tech versus Wottford at 5 p.m. ET.
Keep reading to learn how to take advantage of Sling TV’s affordable streaming options to watch ACC men’s college basketball.
How to Watch ACC Men’s Basketball on Sling TV
ACC men’s basketball can be viewed on the ACC Network or through ESPN channels. If you have cable, then you can view the games for no additional cost — just check with your cable provider’s channel guide to find the exact channel.
Don’t have cable? Sling TV is offering a 50% off discount for the first month, which drops the price to only $20 (regularly $40). Click here or the button below to redeem the half-off offer.
The Orange plan includes ESPN as well as 31 additional channels, so you can watch the ACC men’s basketball games and more. Plus, you’ll have access to DVR storage to watch or rewatch matches later on. The Blue plan includes 40 channels (not including ESPN) and if you want the most content offerings, then you can combine the two plans for just $27.50 (regularly $55) for the first month and get all the channels, DVR storage and the ability to stream on more than one device.
Sling TV is also flexible, meaning there’s no annual contract and you can cancel at any time as well as personalize your plan to fit your needs.