Streaming
SiriusXM Boosts 2020 Subscriber Forecast on ‘Strong’ Demand
Audio entertainment giant SiriusXM has raised its 2020 subscriber forecast ahead of an appearance by CEO Jim Meyer at a virtual investor conference on Wednesday. SiriusXM now expects full-year self-pay subscriber net additions of approximately 700,000, up from 500,000. The company reiterated its financial guidance for the year. “Our business continues to demonstrate strong performance and favorable trends since we resumed providing our subscriber and financial guidance in conjunction with our second- quarter earnings report” following the initial hit from the novel coronavirus pandemic, Meyer said in a statement. “It’s clear that demand for SiriusXM remains strong – quite simply, consumers continue to find immense value in our unique audio bundle and all of the ente...
BMI Posts Record Revenue Despite Pandemic Hit to Licensing
Collections from April to June fell by an estimated $60 million, but a digital boost helped make up the difference. BMI generated $1.311 billion in revenue in the year ended June 30, 2020, a 2.2% increase over the $1.283 billion it reported in the year earlier period. Distributions were up too, totaling $1.233 billion — a 3.1% increase from the $1.196 billion paid out to songwriters and publishers in the prior fiscal year. Domestically, the performance rights organization collected $961 million, increasing 1.9% from the year-earlier period. Foreign receipts grew 2.9% to $350 million. As a percentage of revenue, that breaks out to 73.3% domestic and 26.7% foreign, a 0.2% shift in favor of international collections compared to the prior year. BMI estimates that its fourth quarter reven...
In The Duchess, Katherine Ryan Plays a Single Mum With a Beautiful Wardrobe – Here’s Why That’s So Important
Things you don’t typically see being worn on the morning school run: ballgowns, funeral attire, and satin pyjamas. Oh, and a jumper that says “world’s smallest p*ssy” worn over the top of the most fabulous feather-hemmed pyjamas. But that’s exactly what we see Katherine Ryan wearing at the school gates in her new scripted Netflix series The Duchess. The styling in the opening scene is just a slice of what’s to come in the rest of the show and plays an important role in the narrative. The Duchess is Ryan’s first-scripted series that she not only stars in, but also wrote and produced. The six-part, semi-biographical series follows a single mum whose name is also Katherine ( confusing, yes, but Katherine the comedian said she was “too lazy”...
What’s Streaming on HBO Max in September 2020
HBO Max shows no signs of slowing down heading into Fall. September sees the network adding a number of original series, in addition to all kinds of goodies being added to its ever-evolving vault of content. For exclusives, subscribers can look forward to Ridley Scott’s new series Raised By Wolves, the star-studded quarantine comedy Coastal Elites, Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are, and Jude Law’s latest venture The Third Day. It should also be noted that all five seasons of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! are now available to stream. So, if you’re looking for a good laugh — even if it’s at the risk of a cardiac arrest — by all means binge away, baby. Editors’ Picks Of course, we have to remember, it’s not TV, it’s HBO, and every weekend subscribers get new premieres of last ...
Brandy Vs Monica’s ‘Verzuz’ Was a Record Breaker
The Brandy vs Monica “Verzuz” wasn’t just a hit, it was huge. The R&B legends smashed all “Verzuz” records, organizers say, en route to pulling-in more than 6 million views. That’s well up on the initial reports of 1.2 million fans tuning in on Instagram. Breaking the numbers down, the online face-off raised more than $250,000 for Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote, and generated 1.9 million tweets, including 1 million in the U.S. alone. The veteran artists used the sparring session to “remind the world how next-level their respective catalogs,” wrote Billboard’s Carl Lamarre. Also during the back-and-forth, Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris called in with a live video message for the two artists, thanking them for their contributions to the culture and using the pla...
Lamb of God Announce Two Livestream Concerts, Featuring Full Album Performances
Lamb of God have announced two livestream concerts, taking place September 18th and 25th. The band will play its 2020 self-titled album and 2004’s Ashes of the Wake in their entirety during the respective shows, plus other favorites during the encores. The September 18th event will mark the “live” debut of Lamb of God’s acclaimed self-titled album, which came out amidst the pandemic on June 19th. The band would have embarked on a massive co-headlining tour with Megadeth in support of the album, but have postponed those dates until 2021. Instead, Lamb of God have turned to paid livestreams as physical concerts remain mostly on pause. The streams will begin at 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT on their respective days, with on-demand viewing available through those weekends. Tickets are $15 per show or ...
Building A Better Livestream: Crucial Lessons From Artists Who’ve Figured It Out
Practical advice from the players behind virtual concerts by Kane Brown, Dropkick Murphys, H.E.R. and Lissie. The first time singer-songwriter Lissie tried a livestream, in late March, she was at her then-boyfriend’s house in northern Virginia, and she had just managed to thank those in attendance — two dogs in the kitchen — before the camera fell to the floor. “This is so professional!” she declared. But over the months, both her equipment and her savvy became increasingly sophisticated, with the response to her ticketed streams strong enough to cover personal costs and make a charitable donation each time. (She also broadcast her rehearsals for fans who couldn’t afford a ticket.) On Aug. 2, she performed with a band and a dozen sound and lighting crew members at an empty Parkway The...
What’s a Livestream Worth?
How much is that concert in the computer window? Six months into the pandemic, here’s how artists are experimenting with pricing to see what consumers will pay. In April, Dutch DJ Oliver Heldens cruised the canals of Amsterdam in an open-air boat outfitted with turntables, blasting a set of future house music that was streamed on YouTube. The spectacle cost between $5,000 and $10,000 to produce, but Heldens made it free for viewers. He thought of it as a marketing expense to stay in fans’ minds as coronavirus lockdowns became the norm around the world, his manager, Dave Frank, tells Billboard. In the five months since, livestreamed concerts are slowly becoming a source of revenue, as well as promotion. These days, Frank, of management firm Milk & Honey, gets several livestream offers a...
Choosing A Livestream Platform: A Guide For Artists And Managers
The New Livestreaming Landscape Here’s how the leading livestream platforms stack up on revenue split, merch integration and more key variables for artists. When the coronavirus shut down the live industry, artists had no choice but to cancel or postpone their tours. Now they face an overwhelming range of choices as dozens of livestream platforms compete to be the next big virtual stage. Many of these livestream companies launched amid the pandemic, while new services are debuting on an almost weekly basis. They have much in common and are sometimes difficult to tell apart, but employ a variety of business models — including pay-per-view ticketing, sponsorship and virtual tipping. To help artists make an educated decision about which platform to use to reach their fans — or collect new one...
If You Stream It, Will They Come? Inside The Livestream Boom
Sessions founder Tim Westergren estimates the market for virtual concerts is worth $1 billion with the potential to grow to “tens of billions” in just a few years, but can that rate of expansion continue when actual live shows resume? At a 2007 Los Angeles music industry function, Ray Smith was pitching his new company, BE-AT.TV, to a high-ranking Live Nation executive. The business was focused on livestreaming electronic music festivals like Tomorrowland and Ultra Music Festival, and Smith says the executive’s reaction was not as he had hoped: “He was like, ‘Who the hell is going to sit at home and watch a bunch of kids partying on a laptop?'” Thirteen years and a global pandemic later, millions of music fans worldwide are doing just that, and Smith’s newly rebranded BeA...
RBD’s Catalog Coming Soon to All Streaming Platforms
When RBD performed their last concert on Dec. 22, 2008 in Madrid, the world said goodbye to a Mexican band that became an unstoppable force, thanks to their hit telenovela Rebelde and a series of coming-of-age pop anthems featuring members Anahí, Alfonso Herrera, Dulce María, Christian Chavez, Maite Perroni and Christopher von Uckermann. The group’s music has been hard to find as well, given its absence on streaming services. You could consider yourself lucky if you had a physical copy of one of their chart-topping albums or had attended one of their sold-out concerts around the world. But 12 years later, RBD’s catalog is set to be made available across all digital streaming platforms as of midnight Sept. 4. Why the catalog wasn’t available before is a complex story ...
With 100 Million U.S. Subscribers, Streaming Services Declare: ‘We Are Fully Part of This Industry’
The topline stats in the new “Streaming Forward” report from trade group the Digital Media Association (DiMA) are reason enough to sit up and notice. By the end of 2019, there were 99 million active streaming subscribers — procured from 87.5 million paid users — in the U.S. alone. And over the previous two years, paid subs jumped 74.6% and revenue rose 57.7%, fueling optimism for a long-suffering industry and turning streaming services, labels and publishers into hot investments. It’s no wonder Spotify’s stock is soaring and Warner Music Group had a successful IPO in the pandemic’s early days. Streaming has made music hot again. But the 43-page report, conducted by MiDIA Research for DiMA, begs the question on why they would fund such a market research study. ...
