Catalog
Ex-WMG Innovation Chief Scott Cohen Named CEO of Music Investing Platform
Former Warner Music Group executive and the Orchard co-founder Scott Cohen said on Tuesday (Nov. 1) he is taking a new job as chief executive officer of a fintech platform aimed at selling fractional shares in song catalogs. Cohen, who stepped down from his role as chief innovation officer at WMG in September, said the aim of the new venture is to “fractionalize ownership of music royalties.” Fractional shares are a familiar concept in finance, and brokerages like Robinhood and Fidelity Investments sell them as a way to buy a slice of a share for less than the price of the whole stock. The market for buying and investing in music publishing rights has traditionally been open to only the world’s largest music companies and, more recently, money managers. Introducing fractional shares could ...
Drake Outstreams All Pre-1980 Music: The 2021 Streaming Market, by Decade
The most popular oldies are getting younger. Since at least 2014, the market share of catalog has been rising – from just over 65.1% in 2020 to 69.8% of album consumption units last year, according to Luminate (formerly known as MRC Data). At the same time, though, the music that dominates the catalog category – defined by Billboard as albums released more than 18 months ago, as long as they’re not being actively promoted by labels or in the top half of the Billboard 200 – is more recent than ever. In a trend apparently driven by streaming, growth is now being driven mostly by older albums from newer artists – sometimes referred to as “shallow catalog” – rather than the “deep catalog” of the ’60s and ’70s rock acts that used to dominate the category. To get a sense of how profound this shi...
(This Is) Not Your Father’s Catalog Music
Streaming has made catalog music more important than ever – it jumped from about 65% of the market in 2020 to about 70% last year. But the catalog that’s growing isn’t necessarily what you’d expect. Icons like The Beatles are thriving, but the category is now dominated by Drake, Taylor Swift and other modern acts. Billboard explains where the growth is – and how it could continue. Plus: Why Drake streams as much as all music before 1980 combined, how TikTok turns yesterday’s tracks into today’s hits, how classic rock acts are holding up and why the only thing that hasn’t changed is the industry’s ability to hype up trends. Related Related Deep Dive: A Musician’s Guide to Web3 04/15/2022 Read the full Deep Dive here. More Swift Than Dylan: How Newer Hits Overtook Classic Rock to Rule ...
More Swift Than Dylan: How Newer Hits Overtook Classic Rock to Rule the Catalog Market
At the beginning of the year, Luminate (formerly MRC Data) issued its 2021 annual report, which showed that catalog music — which Billboard defines as a track that is older than 18 months — increased its share of overall U.S. music consumption from 65.1% in 2020 to 69.8% last year, as measured by album consumption units. The initial interpretation of that data was that, more than a year into the pandemic, listeners were soothing themselves with nostalgia — relaxing with Fleetwood Mac, rather than blasting Doja Cat. The market share of catalog has actually been rising since 2014, back when sales still dominated the industry, when it accounted for just 35.8% of the business. Since then, the popularity of catalog has climbed steadily, until its big jump last year – when consumption in the cat...
