Streaming
Disney+ Launches Ad-Supported Plan: What You Need to Know
Disney has dipped its toe into ad-supported streaming by launching the new Disney+ Basic plan. Initially only available in the US, the cheaper tier arrives roughly one month after rival streamer Netflix rolled out its own ad-supported subscription. It’s worth noting that Disney+ Basic launches with access to the platform’s entire catalog as opposed to Netflix’s ad-supported plan, which debuted without many popular TV shows and movies. However, the cheaper tier does come with some restrictions: It doesn’t allow downloads or come with extra features like GroupWatch and Dolby Atmos support. Along with Disney+ Basic, there is a reworked lineup of ad-supported Disney Bundles that come with Hulu, ESPN+, and/or live TV. Advertisement Related Video Read on to find out everything you need to k...
What’s a TikTok Hit Worth? This Year’s Most Popular Track Grew Over 1,000% on Streaming
TikTok has proven its success at renewing widespread interest around old songs countless times over the past several years. 2022 was no exception, as the short-form video platform announced Swedish Sadboy rapper Yung Lean’s 2013 track “Ginseng Strip 2002” was its most popular track of the year thanks to a trend of users singing along for about 10 seconds and then kissing at the end. The nearly decade-old track was used in almost 11 million videos across the app in 2022, and while TikTok royalties are notoriously low to music rights holders, the upside proposition has been established that a viral hit there will drive streaming elsewhere. With “Ginseng Strip 2002,” that was most certainly true. Since the “Ginseng Strip 2002” TikTok trend started to take off around the turn of the new year, ...
What’s a TikTok Hit Worth? This Year’s Most Popular Track Grew Over 1,000% on Streaming
TikTok has proven its success at renewing widespread interest around old songs countless times over the past several years. 2022 was no exception, as the short-form video platform announced Swedish Sadboy rapper Yung Lean’s 2013 track “Ginseng Strip 2002” was its most popular track of the year thanks to a trend of users singing along for about 10 seconds and then kissing at the end. The nearly decade-old track was used in almost 11 million videos across the app in 2022, and while TikTok royalties are notoriously low to music rights holders, the upside proposition has been established that a viral hit there will drive streaming elsewhere. With “Ginseng Strip 2002,” that was most certainly true. Since the “Ginseng Strip 2002” TikTok trend started to take off around the turn of the new year, ...
Here Are the Best Spotify Wrapped Memes of 2022
It’s Spotify Wrapped season, that wonderful time of the year when a multi-billion dollar corporation tricks its users into running a global marketing campaign for free. With quirky graphics, completely made-up genres and plenty of opportunities to publically shame your friends, it’s tough to refrain from sharing your top songs and artists of the year and flexing your greatness—or cringiness. In honor of this brazen display of data harvesting, we’ve compiled the best Spotify Wrapped memes of 2022. Obliterating your parents’ computer for a YouTube rip of a song was so worth it Let’s get this out of the way right now: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with listening to 225 hours of Skrillex in a year Can’t tell if we’re supposed to laugh or cry? ...
A Track Sung By an AI Voice Has Eclipsed 100 Million Streams
While artists work hard to produce new music for fans and increase their streaming numbers, an A.I. has effortlessly recorded a song that eclipsed 100 million streams. According to a report by Music Business Worldwide, Chinese streaming giant Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) has recorded and released over 1,000 new songs that feature AI-generated vocals mimicking the human voice. One track in particular, titled “Today,” has become the first song with an AI voice to surpass the nine-digit milestone. That led to just under $350,000 in streaming revenue, per MBW. The songs use TME’s “patented voice synthesis technology,” Lingyin Engine, which is said to be able to replicate the voices of real-life singers to produce original songs throughout any genre and language. The company also repo...
Failure Announce “We Are Hallucinations” Streaming Concert Film
Failure have announced a streaming concert film, dubbed “We Are Hallucinations,” premiering December 15th. It marks the veteran alt-rockers first foray into streaming and captures performances from the band’s summer 2022 tour in support of their 2021 album Wild Type Droid. The 18 songs selected for the film span all six of Failure’s studio albums, including choice cuts such as “Stuck on You” — as seen in the trailer below. “It’s crazy that we have never made a concert film before,” remarked guitarist Greg Edwards in a press release, “but I think this will really stand as a definitive document of the dynamic between the three of us on stage and the connection we have with our fans.” Advertisement Related Video Failure are treating fans just in time for the holiday. In addition to the c...
Metallica’s Helping Hands Benefit Concert To Stream on Paramount+ and YouTube
Metallica have announced that their Helping Hands benefit concert on December 16th will stream via Paramount+, Pluto TV, and YouTube. The show will take place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles and also features a charity auction. Along with the streaming announcement, the band also revealed that Greta Van Fleet will play an opening set and Jimmy Kimmel will host the evening’s festivities. Metallica shared the following in a statement: “We’re looking forward to celebrating the achievements of All Within My Hands in our final show of the year, the Helping Hands Concert & Auction at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Friday, December 16. This will be the third time we hit the stage to benefit the Foundation, but the very first time that it will be streamed live with a full audi...
TikTok Has Gen Z Hooked — Can Its Streaming Service Get Them to Pay for Music?
Ask music business executives to characterize their relationship with TikTok and the response is typically a variation of, “It’s complicated,” as one major-label executive puts it. As the short-form video streaming platform continues to dominate pop culture — last September, it claimed 1 billion monthly active users globally, a figure that has surely ballooned in the 13 months since — it has continued to draw the ire of the music industry for its low payouts to rights holders, even as labels, managers and publishers increasingly rely on the platform to market singles and break artists. But as TikTok’s parent company ByteDance explores an expansion of its fledgling music streaming service Resso — currently only available in India, Indonesia and Brazil — into new territories, another respons...
What’s It Like Using TikTok’s Music-Streaming App?
After swiftly taking over social media in a matter of years, TikTok has its sights set on music streaming, too. In 2020, the company’s Chinese owner ByteDance, officially debuted a music-streaming app, Resso, in three countries — Brazil, India and Indonesia — with ambitions to soon expand into new territories, likely under a brand name associated with its most famous product. This past spring, the company registered the handles @TikTokMusic on both Twitter and Instagram; in May, it filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a service under that name. And in October, The Wall Street Journal reported, and Billboard has confirmed, that ByteDance is in conversations with all the major music rights holders to launch its music streaming service in additional coun...
The Ledger: How Much More Revenue Can Streaming Price Hikes Bring?
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. Apple Music’s recent subscription price increase and a likely forthcoming price hike by Spotify would provide a boost to U.S. and global music revenues and likewise impact catalog valuations. Higher prices for Apple Music and Spotify’s individual plan could be worth hundreds of millions in additional subscription revenue annually in the U.S. Incremental revenues resulting from these price increases have the potential to reach roughly $650 million a year for streaming services. That assumes 7% growth in subscribers in 2023, no additional churn, a full year of higher prices and higher prices for both self-paid and p...
Netflix’s Ad-Supported Plan Launches Without Popular TV Shows and Movies
Prior to the launch of the Netflix Basic with Ads plan, the company revealed between 5% to 10% of its TV shows and movies would be unavailable due to licensing restrictions. As it turns out, some of the most popular shows and movies on the streamer are locked out from the cheaper subscription tier. As Variety points out, some of the shows currently unavailable in the US on the $6.99 per month plan are Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder, The Crown, Cobra Kai, and House of Cards. Also not included are Peaky Blinders, New Girl, The Magicians, The Last Kingdom, The Sinner, Good Girls, The Good Place, and Friday Night Lights. As for movies, subscribers to the ad-supported plan won’t be able to watch Skyfall, 28 Days, The Imitation Game, and The ...
Amazon Music Now Offers 100 Million Songs to Prime Members
Amazon Music will expand its ad-free offering for Prime members from 2 million songs to more than 100 million songs, the company announced on Tuesday (November 1). There is one caveat, however: Prime members can only listen on shuffle, unless they upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited. Along with the increased access to music, Amazon announced that Prime members will also have access to a wide-selection of ad-free podcasts, plus a newly launched Podcast Previews feature that lets listeners easily test snippets of episodes to see if they like them. “When Amazon Music first launched for Prime members, we offered an ad-free catalog of 2 million songs, which was completely unique for music streaming at the time,” Steve Boom, vp of Amazon Music, said in a statement. “We continue… to bring eve...
