Streaming
Page: 63
Classical music has been in the news this month, with the launch of Apple Music’s new classical-specific streaming app and Universal Music Group’s purchase of classical label Hyperion Records. But under the hood, another notable classical music story was brewing: for the first time in its history, Decca Records has nine of the top 10 songs on the classical U.S. on-demand audio streaming songs chart, according to Luminate.
The achievement is the fruit of several different strategies to help boost those artists, including Ludovico Einaudi, Max Richter, Cody Fry, Chad Lawson and Lang Lang, across streaming services, from reworks, playlisting and, of course, TikTok. And it helps earn Decca Records U.S. senior vp of marketing and artist strategy Joseph Oerke the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Oerke tells Billboard about several of those strategies, which go beyond boosting individual artists and songs but also includes growing the genre’s footprint at streaming — which will be helped by Apple Music Classical, but also Deutsche Grammophon’s own streaming service, Stage+, that it launched last November to showcase DG and Decca’s roster of artists. And the growth of classical streaming is becoming apparent in the numbers: on-demand audio streaming of classical music has grown by double-digit percentages in each of the past three years, and outpaced the growth of the on-demand audio streaming business at large in 2022, according to Luminate.
“There is a massive population of people who listen to instrumental and classical music during activities like meditation, yoga, cooking dinner, studying and so much more,” Oerke says. “We’ve intensely focused on these spaces and created opportunities to highlight the genre.”
This week, Decca has nine of the top 10 on-demand streaming audio songs in the U.S., according to Luminate, the first time in the label’s history it has achieved that feat. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
It is quite an exciting week for us. There is an amazing team here at Decca Records US and across the larger Verve Label Group, led by President/CEO Dickon Stainer. This is a tribute to each department. While we always study the charts, our focus remains on artist development and bringing classical music to the widest audience possible. Each track had its own journey to the chart including TikTok virality, the undeniable talent of the artist, the perfect alignment of music and function and so much more. There is no one plan that works for every track, so we constantly analyze audience and streaming data to inform how we tailor each approach. For example, prolific pianist-composer Chad Lawson embraces the healing power of music and writes works that are not only beautiful to listen to but also can inspire mindful moments. We’ve worked with Chad to not only position his music as classical but also as music that can serve a purpose.
Additionally, we’ve released alternate versions of key tracks including sleep re-works that have helped expand the audience. Working with such a collaborative and flexible artist as Chad has increased the opportunities we have for success. We’ve also fully embraced a global outlook and these nine tracks represent artists from the U.S., Iceland, U.K., Italy and China which gives us even more music to work with and broaden our overall appeal. We have the honor to represent classical labels including Decca Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, ECM New Series and Mercury KX as well as working with artists locally signed around the world. This industry-leading wealth of artists and music is a key to our success.
With streaming’s dominance, many people have lamented the struggles that genres like classical and jazz have had in breaking through such a crowded and pop-heavy marketplace structure. How have you guys positioned yourselves to succeed at streaming in particular?
Rather than lament I’ve always chosen to fully embrace how listening habits have evolved over the years and find every possible outlet and platform for classical music. With instrumental music we work with both artist-forward listening as well as more passive forms of consumption. It’s this combination of listening styles that has helped us to grow our market share consistently over the last few years. One approach is to create moments or events that draw attention to our artists and music, with one example being World Sleep Day. We partnered with the World Sleep Society and curated a selection of new music from a range of artists around the world. We then worked with our commercial partners to drive overall awareness for the genre, which many people consume as part of their daily lives, which then drives increased consumption. There is a massive population of people who listen to instrumental and classical music during activities like meditation, yoga, cooking dinner, studying and so much more. We’ve intensely focused on these spaces and created opportunities to highlight the genre.
Deutsche Grammophon also launched its new streaming service, Stage+, in November. How has that service fared so far and what has it allowed you to do with the catalog?
Stage+ is a beautiful platform where you can enjoy some of the greatest musical performances from around the world. I’ve always been a fan of classical music and I attend operas and concerts in New York weekly, but I almost never get to see the Vienna Philharmonic at home, and I’ve only been to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam once in my life. There is so much amazing work being done in concert halls around the world and now classical audience members everywhere can enjoy performances that we might only ever hear about. We are working hand in hand with Deutsche Grammophon to continue growing the audience for Stage+ and look forward to bringing these performances to many more fans in the years to come.
There seems to be more and more interest in classical-specific streaming lately, not only with Stage+ but with the official launch this week of Apple Music Classical. How do you leverage these types of platforms, and how does that help you break through with your fan base?
There has been, wrongly, a stigma that most streaming platforms only carry pop music but not classical or not all of classical music. That’s incorrect, but the perception remains. These classical-specific platforms highlight just how vast the available catalog is and can present recording information in a clean and easily understandable format. Personally, it makes me as a listener feel seen and heard which is not something classical music fans who grew up digging around CD bins in the back of a music store have enjoyed. I think part of our job now is to educate listeners that you can have the entire music store with one tap and find both popular and obscure recordings quickly and easily.
Several streaming services also have added additional data, such as performer, composer and conductor data. What else would you like to see added to better reflect the classical space?
One thing that was missing but now is less of a problem is improved sound quality. The dynamic range of classical music is so vast that higher quality audio was an issue in the past, but now most services offer it which is a huge benefit. While metadata display is an on-going conversation, I’d like to see more contextual information offered to listeners, such as a booklet or liner notes. Classical music has traditionally been about numerous artists recording the same piece — just imagine how many recordings of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony there are — and so each artist’s individual interpretation is the key and listeners are keen to know the back story and the artist’s thoughts on the repertoire. With opera, which is really a challenge at streaming, there is a need for a libretto to understand what is being sung. This extra material helps with a richer listening experience deepening a listener’s connection to the genre.
You guys have also had success leveraging TikTok, particularly with Ludovico Einaudi’s 2013 track “Experience,” which went viral on the platform last year and is still the No. 1 on-demand streaming audio track in the U.S. this week. What was the story there and how have you been able to utilize platforms like that to benefit your artists?
In November 2020 our vp of digital analytics and advertising spotted the increasing uses of “Experience” on TikTok and that it was driving more streaming. We quickly identified the video where the trend started, which was of a student listening to “Experience” which dramatically helped increase his focus while writing a paper. It clearly resonated with a large audience and we could see the potential. From there we quickly delivered the official audio to Einaudi’s TikTok profile, ran influencer campaigns to boost engagement, drove awareness for Einaudi’s own channels, and then encouraged him to deliver an alternate solo piano version of the song. We had already been planning a YouTube livestream for December and decided that a performance of “Experience” needed to be added ASAP. I think most importantly, we looked at how people were engaging with his music and the cultural conversation around it to tailor our approach at broadening and consistently growing the audience.
In general, we are constantly monitoring trends and daily activity on social platforms like TikTok, Reels and Shorts and with our deep understanding of fan behavior we can double down on our consumer-led marketing. Elevating UGC with initiatives like influencer campaigns and plugging our artists and music into relevant cultural trends are just a few ways we work to position our artists at the forefront of online culture to give their music a chance to stand out amongst the thousands of tracks released every day.
How do you keep growing the genre moving forward?
We need to make sure artists and their music are present where fans are and that means a lot of content both premium and casual. The decline of classical music has and always will be lamented but despite that it is still here, both in the concert hall and coming through our speakers. I attended the opera earlier this week and soprano Lise Davidsen gave one of the most thrilling performances I’ve heard and now my job is to make sure others know about her and excite their curiosity to seek her out. She’s but one example of the countless performing and recording artists today who are giving phenomenal performances night after night, and they are the catalyst for moving the genre forward while we are here to amplify their art.
Previous Executive of the Week: Mike G of UTA
The first life of Justine Skye‘s “Collide” was that of a minor radio hit: It peaked at No. 38 on Billboard‘s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. The single was rediscovered last fall, when hordes of TikTok users started to upload videos incorporating an altered version of the track — a sped-up remix that transformed the chilly, brooding single into something giddy and urgent.
TikTok trends were once believed to ensure streaming success; as the platform has expanded rapidly and splintered into niche communities, that is no longer the case. “More often than not, these records on TikTok tend to be insulated,” says Drew De Leon, president and partner at MPR Global, a marketing and distribution company. “One of the goals is always to take it off platform.” Part of De Leon’s mission was to push “Collide” on YouTube Shorts, the video streamer’s own short-form destination.
Skye’s other social media platforms were “more curated — her Instagram is more about her personality,” De Leon explains. “So our strategy approaching Shorts was to highlight all the fan content.” Starting in December, De Leon’s team uploaded seven clips a day to shorts, repurposing fan dance videos and iced beverage how-to’s. The deluge paid off: Skye had accumulated 263,000 YouTube subscribers between starting her channel in 2010 and December of 2022. In the next four months, her subscriber count nearly doubled, rising to 515,000. All the interest on various short-form video platforms helped drive streams to “Collide,” which earned a Gold certification in March, close to nine years after its release.
YouTube launched Shorts globally in the summer of 2021; music marketers have been trying to determine its value for pushing music ever since. As TikTok has become increasingly saturated with all kinds of promotion — not just from music labels but from deep-pocketed brands and Hollywood studios — it has become harder for artists and their songs to get attention, making it more important for marketers to identify viable alternatives.
On top of that, it usually pays to be an early adopter because there is less competition and YouTube is heavily invested in marketing the platform. “There’s this level of organic reach that you’re going to have for a limited amount of time,” says Brendan Kennedy, a digital marketer for Cinematic Music Group. The thinking is, “Let’s really ramp up, pump out content with a good strategy, and take advantage of this opportunity.”
YouTube unveiled a blizzard of statistics on Thursday (March 30) pointing to Shorts’ effectiveness as a marketing tool. Shorts are racking up more than 50 billion views a day (as of December); clips made by fans increased the average artist’s unique viewer total by more than 80% (in January); and artists who post Shorts weekly or more saw those posts drive more than 50% of their new subscriptions (also in January).
“We’re really seeing Shorts vastly increase the reach of an artist on the platform,” says Vivien Lewit, YouTube’s global head of artist partnerships. “We’re seeing it as an integral driver of audience growth.” YouTube also announced that it updated its “Analytics for Artists” tools to incorporate Shorts uploaded by fans in addition to clips uploaded by artists themselves.
Marketers are testing an assortment of strategies on the platform. While De Leon focused on highlighting user content — “fans wanted to see themselves participating,” in a trend, he says, and have that participation acknowledged by the artist whose music soundtracks that trend — Cinematic has also experimented with “repurposing the artist’s long form videos.”
“If an artist is putting out a music video, we’ll chop down the best parts of that, use them as Shorts, and stagger those uploads after the actual music video comes out,” explains Michael Epstein, another member of Cinematic’s digital marketing team. “We do the same with interviews. Just keep bringing people back. We’ve definitely seen that Shorts are one of the biggest drivers of actual artist channel growth,” spurring listeners to subscribe. (“A subscriber becomes a stickier fan,” Lewit notes.)
Cinematic is also “trying to build relationships with the emerging YouTube channels that are focusing on Shorts content,” Epstein continues. YouTube channels’ role in bringing new ears to music has never gotten the same level of attention as Spotify editorial playlisting or TikTok mega-influencers. But Epstein says “we’ve seen direct correlations with streaming consumption and growth just based on those uploads.”
Shorts doesn’t yet have the slam-dunk breakout artist story. But now that TikTok faces an uncertain future, with a bipartisan government coalition pushing for a ban or a sale, understanding the nuances of Shorts has taken on a new urgency. “Needless to say, we’re pushing all of our artists to start playing with it now just in case,” says one label executive. “If the TikTok ban happens, you’re really only going to have YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and potentially Snapchat as the places that have that high level of short-form content to discover,” Kennedy adds.
In a blog post on Thursday, global head of music Lyor Cohen highlighted the platform’s role in helping two massive hits — Rema and Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down” and Oliver Tree and Robin Schulz’s “Miss You” — spread around the globe. In addition to Skye’s Shorts-boosted subscriber growth, Cinematic has seen Shorts drive listeners to rapper That Mexican OT.
“It has the potential to become a powerful feature,” Epstein says.
It’s an uneasy time in the music industry. During a Jan. 31 call with analysts, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek emphasized the positive side of the streaming revolution — “there [are] a lot more artists that are mattering now than ever before” — while still acknowledging the anxiety that’s percolating through the business. “The big counter to that would be: Does it mean that you can sustain yourself, or does it mean we have more one-hit wonders?” Ek asked. “You’re seeing a little bit of both happening in the music industry at the present moment.”
Especially in an era when TikTok appears to run the music industry — trends on the app can send songs bounding up the charts, impacting signing decisions and marketing campaigns — it’s common to hear executives fretting about one-hit wonder overload and the lack of “artist development.” On any given day, a handful of songs flare on the app, soundtracking heaps of videos and leading to jumps in streaming. As a result, “more people are investing in songs that might not have the artist proposition attached to them,” one manager recently lamented to Billboard. “By default, if more of the people responsible for breaking acts are focused on songs, that’s how you have a landscape where there are a trillion one-hit wonders.”
Spotify returned to this theme during its recent Stream On event. Gustav Soderstrom, the platform’s co-president, took the stage to tout the power of features like Release Radar for driving streams and long-term engagement. “That’s why discoveries on Spotify, unlike many other platforms, give creators so much more than just a fleeting moment of viral fame,” he said. He didn’t name TikTok, but it was pretty clear who he was aiming at.
In a statement to Billboard, Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music, hit back against the idea that the popular app prioritizes brief eruptions over long and healthy careers. “In the few years that our music teams at TikTok have been working closely with the musical creator and label community, our commitment to backing artists across the board has helped propel emerging talent and legacy acts to new points of success,” Obermann said. “Artists who broke out from TikTok such as Ice Spice, Lil Nas X, and Coi Leray have sustained multiple Billboard hits. We also see artists such as Tai Verdes, jxdn and Sara Kays who have grown substantial fan bases on TikTok and are building their music careers broadly rather than based on an individual hit song.”
Many in the music industry believe one-hit wonders are newly abundant. But do they show up on the Billboard charts?
Defining a one-hit wonder as an artist that cracks the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and never makes it back to that position, the annual percentage of acts fitting this criterion remained relatively constant from 2002 to 2019, according to Billboard‘s analysis. On average, 54% of the acts who made it into the top 40 during this period failed to return with at least a second entry. Though the fraction got as high as 61% and sank as low as 39% during this time period, there was no pronounced increasing trend visible over time.
In 2020 — the most recent full year it seems fair to judge — the portion of artists who made it into the top 40 but didn’t land a second entry was higher: 70%. Of course, this number may fall in the coming years, because these artists haven’t had much time to score a second hit. Changing the definition of a one-hit wonder to match the available data for 2020 — redefining it as an artist that cracks the top 40 and doesn’t make it back in the next two years — causes the portion of one-hit wonders to jump by more than 7% each year, on average. This means it’s likely that 2020’s one-hit wonder count will end up more in line with previous years.
The opposite of a one-hit wonder is an act who enjoys a steady stream of popular singles. Say a “career artist” appears at least 10 times in the top 40 as a lead or featured collaborator: Around 10% of all acts who reached the top 40 once between 2002 and 2020 went on to achieve this goal. The frequency of career artists hasn’t changed much over the years either — roughly the same number emerged from the first half of the time period examined as from the second half.
There is one other noticeable trend in top 40 data: The number of new artists appearing on the upper reaches of the chart is gently declining over time. The fall is gradual, approximately one less new artist every two years. This mirrors a decline in new artists getting top 10 hits, but the trend is less pronounced in the top 40. That’s presumably because it’s easier to reach the top 40 than the top 10, and because there are fewer top 10s annually.
Taken together, this indicates that it is somewhat harder to get a top 40 hit than it was two decades ago, but once artists get that breakout hit, they have roughly the same odds of eventually building a catalog of big tracks. The first development is cause for concern. But the second should be reassuring — the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Vice President Kamala Harris has partnered with Spotify for an official playlist of African music as a means of crystallizing her current trip across the continent, Billboard can exclusively reveal.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The playlist, titled “My Travels: Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia,” is live on the streaming platform, and is designed to “amplify the artists and sounds from my travels” across those countries, per its description. The vice president arrived in Ghana on Sunday (March 26) for her first trip to Africa while in office, and will visit Tanzania on Wednesday and Zambia on Friday before returning to the U.S. on Sunday.
According to Spotify, VP Harris worked closely with the streamer to curate the playlist, which features Ghanaian and Ghanaian-American artists like Amaarae, Moses Sumney and Black Sherif; Tanzanian and Tanzanian-American artists like Harmonize, Zuchu and Alikiba; and Zambian and Zambian-American artists including Chile One Mr. Zambia, Yo Maps and Chef 187.
On Monday, Harris will visit Vibrate Space, a Ghanaian music work station that local collective Surf Ghana opened last October with audio recording, mixing, mastering and editing equipment, along with consultations and Masterclass sessions. Spotify supported the launch of Vibrate Space last year, and the vice president plans to meet with local artists — including some featured on her playlist — at the studio.
Click here to listen to the playlist, and check out the full track list below:
1. All My Cousins, “Act a Fool”2. Moses Sumney, “Me in 20 Years”3. T’neeya, “Pretty Mind”4. Amaarae, “Reckless & Sweet”5. Herman Suede, “Kumbaya”6. Moliy, “Ghana Bop”7. Ria Boss, “Call Up”8. Harmonize, “Single Again”9. Chile One Mr Zambia, “I Love You”10. Black Sherif, “Kwaku the Traveller”11. Jux, Marioo, Papi Cooper & Tony Duardo, “Nice (Kiss)12. Zuchu, “Utaniua”13. Yo Maps, “Aweah”14. Alikiba, “Mahaba”15. Jay Melody, “Sawa”16. Mbosso feat. Costa Titch & Alfa Kat, “Shetani”17. Sarkodie feat. Black Sherif, “Country Side”18. Platform Tz & Marioo, “Fall”19. Darassa feat. Bien, “No Body”20. Chef 187 & Blake, “Nobody”21. Kuami Eugene & Rotimi, “Cryptocurrency”22. Coolguy Pro, “Cherry”23. Marioo & Abbah, “Lonely”24. M3NSA, “Fanti Love Song”25. Baaba J, “Lumumba”
She needed to lose you to gain streams — one billion, to be exact. Selena Gomez has surpassed a billion Spotify listens for her blockbuster 2019 track “Lose You to Love Me,” a milestone she celebrated on Instagram Wednesday (March 22).
The streaming service announced the news on social media, tweeting, “All the love for@selenagomez ❤️ Congratulations for 1 Billion streams on Lose You to Love Me #BillionsClub.”
Spotify also posted about the landmark on Instagram, which the “Calm Down” singer re-shared on her Story. “Grateful,” she wrote, adding a heart emoji.
“Lose You to Love Me” isn’t the first song Gomez has landed in Spotify’s billion streams club, but it is her first solo effort to reach the mark. Previous entries include collaborations on “It Ain’t Me” with Kygo, “Wolves” with Marshmello and “Taki Taki” with DJ Snake, Ozuna and Cardi B.
Released as the lead single off the Only Murders in the Building star’s third studio album, Rare, “Lose You to Love Me” marked Gomez’s first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was a streaming powerhouse from the very beginning, becoming the singer’s first song to top the Streaming Songs chart shortly after its release.
“When I wrote the song ‘Lose You to Love Me,’ I was kind of a mess,” she told Billboard in early 2020. “It was really difficult for me. And by the time we shot the music video at the end of the year, it had a completely different meaning, and it was so freeing. It was actually fun for me – I think, because I let it go, it actually meant that I let it go within myself as well. And I couldn’t have asked for a better way to close a chapter in my life.”
Join a billion other listeners in streaming Selena Gomez’s “Lose You to Love Me” below:
French streaming service Deezer and Universal Music Group announced this month that they are partnering to develop and test new potential payment models that would more fairly reward artists, similar to a partnership UMG launched in January with Tidal.
While the streaming services and labels are still a long way off from implementing new streaming royalty payment models, Deezer’s chief executive Jeronimo Folgueira spoke with Billboard about some of the ideas being explored and the economic imperatives that are driving his company to push for a new way to pay rights holders.
Deezer has long advocated for changing payment systems. How have the company’s views evolved?
We were, I believe, the first to really embrace the concept of user-centric, which means that the artist gets a share of the payments that the user that listens to them pays, instead of a global pool. We could never do it unilaterally [because] we have not been able to get the majority of labels to agree to an initiative so far. To do it right, you really need a consensus from the industry and obviously, there are so many players involved that it’s difficult to get that. I do believe [an artist-centric] system is much better than the current system we have, but no system is absolutely perfect. There were some flaws, and that’s why there was so far resistance from some labels. I believe that there are a lot of elements in the artist-centric initiative that Universal is pursuing that make sense and could make something like [user-centric payment systems] even better.
You often mention the importance of “growing the pie.” What do you mean?
When the discussion is about sharing the same pie there are always winners and losers and it’s very difficult to get consensus. That’s why if you focus on growing the pie then you can have a discussion also about the distribution of that pie because some will win and some will win double. One of the things that I’m really excited about in this discussion is … also figuring out ways of monetizing fandom better. If we can find ways to increase the [average revenue per user] on the way, that would be a win for the artist, for the labels and for the platforms like us.
How does that fit into Deezer’s overall growth strategy?
Basically, today 100% of our revenues come from selling access to the catalog. So you pay $10.99 and you get access to the full catalog. But we don’t let users pay for anything else on the platform. We know that we have a lot of fans of artists on Deezer but we cannot monetize them in any other way. And the artist is struggling to monetize them in other ways because they don’t have direct access to the fans. We believe that working together with the label and the artists to figure out ways of helping the artist directly access their fanbase and monetize that fandom would benefit us and them as well.
What’s in it for you?
If we only change the compensation model there is nothing in it for Deezer except that we will be a platform where artists are remunerated better. It will give us a bit of differentiation but economically it will not really change anything.
If we find ways of monetizing better, let’s say, if we would allow fans to subscribe directly to artists, we would have an additional revenue source that we would share with labels and the artists, which will improve our growth and profitability profile. It is important to be more fair in terms of payout but to have a financial impact, we also care a lot about growing the pie. I fully share [Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl‘s] view. Music is extremely undervalued. We are very keen on working with Universal, but we are also keen on working with all the other labels like Warner, Sony, Believe and all the indies to make the industry better by monetizing better and then sharing that pie in more fair ways.
Do you have to “grow the pie” in order to pay artists more?
There’s not enough money right now for us all. First of all, music is undervalued. We’re giving too much for too little. Second, with the current monetization model, there is really not enough money for everyone. The platforms like Deezer or Spotify, we’re not making enough profits. And many artists are struggling to make a living. So for the system to be viable we need to grow the pie. That has to be the number one focus.
At the risk of asking a naïve question, what if the share of the pie that has historically gone to the labels shrank? Is that just impossible?
So basically the artists get more, and the DSPs get more and the labels get less? The thing is that it is a fragile ecosystem with a lot of negotiation power in the hands of the labels. You [the DSPs] do need a full catalog. The labels are not going to hand their money to us or to the artists. Instead of having that fight — which is what we’ve been doing basically for the last 10 years — it is a far healthier discussion to be had working together to grow the pie especially because music now is extremely undervalued. The piracy days are long gone. This is the right time to have the discussion. One of the things that doesn’t help is that a lot of the distribution is in the hands of companies that don’t have music as a core business.
Who are you referring to?
I’m talking to the tech giants. Three key players here are tech giants, and their core business is not really music. Then you have two independents, one that is very big — Spotify — and then Deezer. We are truly music; it is our duty and necessity to work together with the labels to make the whole ecosystem better and bring the value of the music to where it should be.
Where does the initiative with UMG currently stand?
There is nothing that we are testing yet, and we don’t have a deadline. But we are starting to work on different models of compensation that we could eventually test that would solve a lot of the issues we see today.
During a recent earnings call, Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said he wanted a new model where “artists are rewarded for the fans they bring in [to subscribe to streaming services] and the engagement they drive [on those platforms].” How can you determine which artists drive subscriptions?
That is very difficult to know and quantify. This is one of the areas where we are working with Universal to figure out if there is a way to measure, quantify it and use it for payment or not. That’s part of the exercise. That is one of the most tricky ones. There are other areas [such as] if a user goes and searches for an artist and song, that has more value than if they just go and listen to that stream in a lean-back experience. A stream that is heard as part of a playlist is not as valuable as when you go proactively to a platform, look for a song and play that song. You as a fan care about that song more. We agree with that as a concept but the question is how do you apply that in a model that is easy to implement and explain? There needs to be transparency [so] everyone understands how things get calculated and how people get remunerated. It’s easier said than done. This is why we need to work with Universal but also with other labels to do that exercise. First, we have to agree with the principles. And then you have to find a pragmatic way of actually doing it.
Could you walk me through the different models you are exploring?
I cannot go into that level of detail right now because we are in a very exploratory phrase. We are looking at what is feasible, what impact does it have and, based on that, we will have a proposal to test. But it’s too early to explain these models.
Have you seen any examples of streaming services that have done a good job of encouraging active fan experience?
Video and music are very different so you cannot really draw comparisons between the two. I don’t think anybody has cracked it, and that’s why Universal is working with us. We would love to be the first ones to figure out the new model that makes sense. SoundCloud made an announcement with Warner Music around user-centric, but they haven’t disclosed anything. Since they are a private company, we do not know how that has worked or played out.
Where are the majority of Deezer’s users based? Could the results of the Deezer and UMG experiment be applied on a global scale, or would differences in listening behavior in different markets limit the wider applicability of the study?
We are a global company with a presence in 180 countries. We have a large user base in France — less than half of our subscribers — then we have a lot of subscribers … in Brazil and then a bit everywhere else. Our model will have a big impact on the French market because there we are a massive player, but the learnings can be applicable anywhere in the world.
However, Lucian has mentioned that he sees different models for different platforms at different stages of their development in different countries. I think there is some merit in that. Our Brazilian business is very different from our French business and American business. You might need different models as you go through different stages in a market. Right now, it’s one model that came up really quickly, built 15 years ago on the back of piracy, and that model fits all. I think in the future we need more flexibility.
Is there anything I didn’t ask that you wanted to highlight?
Something that is really important is that we are working really closely with UMG because they are the largest label in the world. And they are a very important player and you cannot change the system without having Universal on board. I’m really excited that Lucian is leading this discussion and trying to make the industry better for everyone.
But I want to make sure it is well understood, as well, that this should benefit all real artists, whether they are from Universal, any other label or independent. We want to reward real artists that create real music. This is not to benefit Universal alone in any way. This is not a Universal-centric payments system. We’re working together to make the industry better for everyone who creates high-quality content.
You said a better system will reward “real artists” and “high-quality content.” What is the opposite of that? And should it not be rewarded in this new system?
There is a whole discussion on what are we going to do when machine-generated music comes because it is going to happen. There is not that much yet, but I think it’s a matter of months before we start getting flooded by machine-generated content, and we need to think about how we’re going to handle it. The other thing is it’s not the same that an artist creates new music and creates a fan — is a real artist in a way — compared to, for example, people that do a cover…. Those streams are not as valuable to us as the original song from the original band. The same thing with sounds that get uploaded, for example, the sound of the washing machine for people who need that to sleep. The sound of rain is not as valuable as a proper album created by an artist recorded in a studio. The fact that the recording of rain gets more streams than Lady Gaga, I find that astounding. We have to do something about it. It is hurting the user experience. We cannot flood the catalog with poor-quality stuff.
What should be done, and is this part of artist-centric royalties or another initiative?
We are trying to address that problem as part of the artist-centric discussion. We believe there are things we can do with the artist-centric model that will create the right incentives and will solve part of that problem. Yes, there are other areas where we might be stricter about the rules of what can be uploaded to the platform or not. We will explore all the different options. Obviously taking a big part of the economic incentive [away] is a big part of the job.
China’s leading music streaming company Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) reported on Tuesday a 9.3% decline in the company’s annual revenues last year, as falling earnings from its social entertainment services business compounded a decline in monthly active users on its music platform.
TME’s total revenues fell to RMB 28.34 billion (USD $4.11 billion) in 2022 from RMB 31.24 billion 2021, with revenues for the fourth quarter ending Dec. 31 having fallen by 2.4% to RMB 7.43 billion ($1.08 billion) compared to the fourth quarter in 2021.
TME, which owns streaming platforms QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo, plus karaoke app WeSing, said revenues from its social entertainment services and others fell 19.8% in 2022 to RMB 15.86 billion ($2.30 billion). The number of paying users fell 24.3% due to the macroeconomic environment, competition from other platforms and COVID-19, the company said.
Revenues from music subscriptions rose 18.6% to RMB 8.70 billion ($1.26 billion) helping TME’s online music services revenues to increase overall by 8.9% to RMB 12.48 billion ($1.81 billion) for 2022. The number of paying subscribers grew by 22.7%. However, average revenue per user was slightly lower — RMB 8.6 in 2022 compared to RMB 8.9 in 2021 — due to higher marketing costs, and the number of mobile monthly active users (MAU) of its online music division fell 7.8% to 567 million in the fourth quarter.
“During the fourth quarter, as a result of macro headwinds, increased competition from other platforms and the surge in COVID cases social entertainment services MAUs and paying users declined year over year,” said Tony Yip, TME chief strategy officer, on a call discussing the company’s earnings on Tuesday.
China’s late-year increase in COVID cases as it loosened pandemic restrictions and increased competition also led to the year-over-year decline in online music mobile MAUs, Yip said.
Declining social entertainment services revenues held one benefit for TME: lower revenue sharing fees in 2022. That contributed to a savings of more than RMB 2.27 billion, as its cost of revenues for the year fell 10.4% year-over-year to RMB 19.57 billion ($2.84 billion).
This helped TME achieve an operating profit up nearly 17% to RMB 4.44 billion ($644 million) in 2022. Operating income is the income that remains after accounting for nearly all costs of doing business.
TME expects 2023 total revenues and profitability to be up from last year, and for the share of quarterly revenues coming from online music services will exceed those coming social entertainment services at some point this year as they continue to achieve “high quality growth in both subscription and non-subscription revenue,” Yip said.
Tencent Music Entertainment Group’s 2022 Highlights:
Mobile monthly active users (MAU) for its online music division fell 7.8% to 567 million in the fourth quarter 2022 from 615 million in the fourth quarter 2021
Mobile MAU for social entertainment fell 16.6% to 146 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 from 175 million in the fourth quarter 2021
Paying users of TME’s online music platform rose 16.1% to 88.5 million in the fourth quarter 2022 from 76.2 million in the fourth quarte 2021
Paying users of TME’s social entertainment platform fells 15.6% to 7.6 million in the fourth quarter 2022 from 9 million in the fourth quarter
MUMBAI – Spotify has removed Indian record label Zee Music Company’s catalog after negotiations for a renewal of their licensing agreement fell through, Billboard has learned. As a result, the No.1 track on Spotify in India over the past two weeks, “Apna Bana Le” from the soundtrack to the 2022 Hindi film Bhediya, is no longer available on the platform.
“Spotify and Zee Music have been unable to reach a licensing agreement,” Spotify says in a statement sent to Billboard. “Throughout these negotiations, Spotify has tried to find creative ways to strike a deal with Zee Music and will continue our good faith negotiations in hopes of finding a mutually agreeable solution soon.”
Anurag Bedi, the chief business officer at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, declined to comment.
Apart from Spotify, Zee Music Company is also absent from Gaana, which it disappeared from in 2022 only a few months before the Indian audio-streaming platform became a subscription-only service.
On March 14, the last day its releases could be streamed on Spotify, Zee Music had over two dozen tracks on Spotify’s Daily Top 200 Songs chart for India. These included long-running Bollywood hits such as “Maiyya Mainu” from Jersey (2022), the title tracks from Kalank (2019) and Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas (2019), “Makhna” from Drive (2019), “Namo Namo” from Kedarnath (2018) and “Zaalima” from Raees (2017).
The label’s catalog also includes soundtracks to films distributed by sister company Zee Studios, such as the 2018 rom-com Veere Di Wedding and the 2019 hip-hop-centric Gully Boy.
Zee Music Company, which is part of the Zee Entertainment Enterprises media conglomerate, is one of India’s largest domestic record labels. Its YouTube subscriber base of 93.6 million makes it the second most-subscribed-to Indian music channel after global leader T-Series, which boasts 239 million subscribers.
In the last 25 years, the music industry has evolved in huge leaps: the arrival of Napster in 1999, the launch of the iTunes music store in 2003 and YouTube’s debut in 2005 are notable, epoch-defining events. But progress often comes in a series of small steps forward.
One such small step is Spotify’s Loud & Clear, an annual report that provides some transparency into the amounts of royalties the company pays each year. The third Loud & Clear report was released March 8 to coincide with Stream On, Spotify’s live-streamed media event where a parade of executives introduced new product features and discussed the future of the world’s largest music subscription service.
Loud & Clear is helpful because it puts artist royalties in context. Any artist knows how much they earned on a streaming platform. But Loud & Clear will tell an artist how they stack up to others. It’s one thing to make $100,000 in annual royalties but another thing to know how many other artists are also making at least $100,000.
“I think it’s very important for ecosystems to have an understanding of the shape and size of how results are going for different participants so that people can understand where they are, where they stand and how the ecosystem is evolving,” says Charlie Hellman, Spotify vp, global head of music product.
And how well is the ecosystem evolving? Spotify wants to give “a million creators the opportunity” to making a living from their art — which could include both musicians and podcasters. That goal goes back to a statement by CEO Daniel Ek at its 2017 Investor Day. At the time, Spotify counted 22,000 artists as “top-tier” earners (it didn’t specify exactly how much they earned, however). Today, thanks to Loud & Clear, we can see a million creators are probably not making a living from their art. But as Spotify, and streaming in general, has grown in popularity, the number of artists making a sustainable amount — define that as you may — is slowly increasing.
There are 27,000 established artists defined as being in Spotify’s top 50,000 artists three straight years but outside of the top 500. In 2022, they earned an average of $224,000 from Spotify and averaged 1.45 million monthly listeners in 2022. So, they’re not superstars but they’re far from hobbyists. They’re also likely signed to record labels and receive only a fraction of those royalties.
In 2022, there were nearly 3,000 “catalog-heavy” artists that earned more than $100,000 on Spotify. Those artists earned over 80% of their streams from tracks five years old or older. Given that Spotify estimates other streaming sources account for 75% of an artists’ revenue, those artists probably earn around $400,000 a year in streaming royalties.
If streaming is going to provide a living for many musicians, the economics need to work for the independent musicians that make up a large portion of the working class. In 2022, a quarter of the 57,000 artists who earned $10,000 or more in royalties from Spotify in 2022 are self-distributed through the likes of DistroKid, TuneCore and CD Baby. That works out to nearly 15,000 artists, a 200% increase since 2017. That’s a far cry from one million. But as streaming platforms continue to grow, the number of self-distributed artists earning that amount will grow, too.
Increasingly, streaming platforms will facilitate other parts of artists’ careers, such as ticket sales and merchandise sales. Spotify lists some merchandise sales through third-party providers such as Shoptify and Merchbar. And although it hasn’t included merch sales in Loud & Clear, Hellman says, “I can imagine in future years doing more data share about that in particular. We didn’t do that this year, but it is a big strategic focus for us.”
There are 29 debuts on the March 18-dated Billboard Global 200 and 25 of those come from Morgan Wallen. The hit parade doesn’t stop there, with Wallen breaking ground among country – and all – artists on Billboard’s flagship global chart.
On top of Wallen’s 25 debuts, he adds five re-entries. More, four of his tracks hold over from last week’s chart. All of that adds up to 34 placements on this week’s Global 200, more than any artist has ever simultaneously charted in the list’s two-and-a-half-year lifespan. Taylor Swift previously held the record, with 31 songs on the Nov. 27, 2021, list in the wake of the release of her country-pop rerecording Red (Taylor’s Version).
Wallen’s total streaming figure and record-breaking hold on the chart are unqualified triumphs for any artist and especially so for country acts. Since launching in September 2020, the Global 200 has had 125 instances of an artist charting 10 or more songs at once, but only three of those belong to a current core country artist – in each case Wallen. He landed 19 songs on the Jan. 23, 2021-dated tally and 10 the following week. His new album, the Billboard 200-topping One Thing at a Time, sparks his latest chart haul, just as the arrival of his prior LP, Dangerous: The Double Album, yielded his big weeks on the Global 200 two years ago.
To find a full-on country act other than Wallen with a noteworthy robust one-week sum, we arrive at Luke Combs, who totaled six songs on the Nov. 7, 2020-dated Global 200. There have been 591 counts of an artist with six or more titles on the Global 200, spread among 65 distinct acts, but just 11 by two artists – 10 by Wallen and one by Combs – among country artists.
Country music has long struggled to find crossover success internationally. The genre is native to the United States, headquartered in Nashville and driven in large part by U.S.-based country radio, while often honoring authenticity above all else. That means that hometown (and in the case of these charts, home-country) pride goes a long way and could make exporting to Asia, Europe, South America and beyond difficult.
Wallen’s own chart entries perhaps prove that point. His song titles alone are specifically American, referencing Ford trucks (“F150-50”), Tennessee (“Tennessee Numbers” and “Tennessee Fan”) and the particulars of a certain baseball team’s near-championship run from 25 years ago (“’98 Braves”). Those songs, and most others from his latest album, storm the Global 200 powered by domestic streams but miss out on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart.
Of Wallen’s 34 Global 200 entries, just one appears on Global Excl. U.S., where “Last Night” debuts at No. 103. It’s his first song to ever hit that tally, and though it’s a debut worth celebrating, it’s dwarfed by the track’s No. 5 rank on this week’s Global 200 (and No. 1 status on the U.S.-based Billboard Hot 100, where Wallen achieves his first leader). Further, it’s just the second song by a country act (excluding Swift), to appear on Global Excl. U.S.. The other was Combs’ “Forever After All,” which hit No. 105 for one week before falling off, while peaking at No. 4 on the Global 200 in the first of 38 weeks on the chart.
Among songs on both of this week’s global charts, the average streaming breakdown is 25% domestic and 75% international. Wallen’s “Last Night” is all the way at one end of that spectrum, with 84% U.S., well more than three times the average and distinctly separated from even the next highest-U.S. share, Nicki Minaj’s “Red Ruby Da Sleeze,” with 65%. One Thing at a Time’s 36 songs go even further, averaging out to 88%. Hip-hop has its own noted difficulty spreading outside the U.S., making Wallen’s more extreme lack of international streaming even more stark.
Wallen’s drastically stateside lean falls in line with the near-total lack of country consumption outside the U.S., but there are small caveats. “Last Night” is on two of Billboard’s Hits of the World charts, at No. 6 on Australia Songs and No. 10 on New Zealand Songs. Oceania has historically been a friendly non-U.S. market to country acts, even supplementing Morgan’s top 10 appearance with Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange” at No. 23 on the former chart. Next week, Wallen will play two arena shows each in Sydney and Melbourne alongside ERNEST, Hardy, and Bailey Zimmerman, before returning to North America for a supersized stadium tour.
Like Wallen, most country acts don’t play many concerts outside of North America. Australia and London have been welcoming, but barring major pop crossover stars like Swift or Shania Twain, genre artists remain focused on honing their U.S. fan bases. As the premier country superstar of the streaming era – a democratized and globalized evolution of a previously segmented music industry – Wallen’s ballooned presence on Billboard’s global charts could be the foot in the door for Bryan, Combs, Zimmerman, and others to test the boundaries of international music consumption.