Streaming
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...
‘The Best Man: The Final Chapters’ Trailer Hits And That Book Is Still Causing Trouble
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty Peacock is giving out an early Christmas gift. The Best Man: The Final Chapters is heading to the streamer on Dec. 22 just before the holiday. A teaser trailer dropped late over the weekend to preview the show. The 8-episode series began with two popular movies, 1999’s The Best Man and 2013’s The Best Man Holiday, helmed by director Malcolm D. Lee. The movies starred Taye Diggs, Nia Long, Sanaa Lathan, Terence Howard, Morris Chestnut, Monica Calhoun, Melissa de Souza, and Harold Perrineau, becoming one of the most beloved of the black rom-coms. In the first movie, Diggs plays Harper, a writer who draws animosity from his college buddies after publishing his first novel Unfinished Business, a thinly disguised version of their l...
Ozzy Osbourne to Perform Virtually as Part of “Ozzfest” at Metaverse Music Festival
Ozzy Osbourne is set to perform virtually for the “Ozzfest” portion of the second annual Metaverse Music Festival, which takes place online November 10th through the 13th. The Metaverse Music Festival (MVMF) will be hosted in Decentraland, the largest user-owned and operated virtual social world. Presented by digital asset platform Kraken, this year’s MVMF will feature 100-plus artists virtually performing across curated community genre stages that utilize new, Web3-enabled immersive virtual concert experiences. That said, the festival is free for all and can be attended even if you have don’t have a VR headset. As an example, the main attraction for this year’s MVMF is the “Tower of Babel” stage, which is set in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Here, attendees can watch headliners such as Uni...
Apple Hikes Music and TV+ Subscription Prices
Apple Music and Apple TV+ subscribers are about to see slightly bigger numbers on their bills, because Apple has today hiked the prices of both subscription services. 9to5mac reports that the prices of both Music and TV+ will raise about $1-$3 monthly. Individual Apple Music plans will now be $10.99 a month instead of $9.99, or $109 a year instead of $99. For family plans, you’ll see your total increase from $14.99 to $16.99. Apple TV+ subscribers will now pay $6.99 a month instead of $4.99, or $69 annually instead of $49.99. This is the first time Apple has raised their subscription prices in the US. According to an Apple spokesperson, you can blame increased licensing costs for the jump, but the silver lining is that artists and songwriters will earn a tiny bit more per stream....
Apple Music’s Price Hike Boosts Music Stocks
Universal Music Group, Hipgnosis Songs Fund and other music stocks got a much-needed boost on Tuesday (Oct. 25) following news of Apple Music’s price hike, as investors bet it would trigger a wave of streaming subscription cost increases. Universal Music Group’s stock closed 11.6% higher, Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd ended up 7.8% and Korean music companies SM Entertainment and HYBE finished the trading day 4.8% and 4.4% higher, respectfully, on Tuesday. On Monday, Apple announced that it was raising the standard U.S. and U.K. individual plan price to $10.99 from $9.99. This 10% price hike — Apple’s first — comes amid high inflation and a darkening economic environment in many global markets. If Apple can raise prices at a time like this, that is a sign the music industry can charge more ...
TikTok to Launch Songwriting Platform for Creators With Simon Cowell, UMG & Samsung
TikTok creators will soon be handed a fresh set of tools to soundtrack their videos and potentially make hit songs when a new in-app platform created by Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment company, in partnership with Universal Music Group and Samsung, launches on the platform later this month. Called StemDrop, the initiative will provide TikTok’s more than 1 billion monthly users with access to music “stems” (the isolated components of a song, such as drum tracks or individual vocal parts) from an exclusive new track composed by hit songwriters Max Martin, Savan Kotecha and Ali Payami entitled “Red Lights,” which creators can then use to record and share their own versions. The project was conceived by British music mogul Cowell and entertainment executive Tim Van Rongen in pa...
The Ledger: How Streaming Platforms Are Looking Beyond Music to Boost Their Margins
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. The 2004 documentary Super Size Me took a humorous look at the health consequences of fast-food restaurants’ practice of up-selling customers to higher-priced, larger-portioned items – a super-sized cup of Coca-Cola rather than a large, for example. To the customer, up-selling looked like a good deal: the additional soda or food cost only a few cents more. For restaurants, the tactic padded margins because the difference in price dwarfed the cost of goods. Super Size Me comes to mind when looking at music subscription services and their quest to improve their margins. Those services have the equivalent of a super...
Wednesday Addams Trailer Reveals Christina Ricci’s New Character and Fred Armisen’s Uncle Fester: Watch
The official trailer for the upcoming Netflix Addams Family adaptation Wednesday has arrived, and like any long-awaited family reunion, there are a lot of new people to meet and a few familiar faces that look a bit different since the last time we saw them. Jenna Ortega stars in the Tim Burton-directed solo series for the titular teenage daughter of the Addams Family, who is sent to Nevermore Academy after a horrific piranha incident previously shared in the show’s teaser. After a series of unusual occurrences including an attempted murder, Wednesday summarizes her new digs in her signature, sardonic delivery with “There’s just something wrong about this place, not just because it’s a school.” On top of fleshing out the series’ overarching mystery, the trailer also introduces a number of n...
White Supremacist Acts Are ‘Prevalent’ on Spotify, But the Streamer Says It’s Working On It
Spotify is vowing to remove racist, anti-semitic and other hate content from its platform following a new report that says music from a number of white supremacist acts is “prevalent” on the streaming service. The report, published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Thursday (Sept. 22), found a total of 40 white supremacist acts hosted on Spotify, violating the platform’s rules against “dangerous content.” According to the report, “extremist” musical sub-genres encompassed by these artists include Fashwave, electronic music that espouses white supremacist ideology; Rock Against Communism, a sub-genre of punk that promotes racism and antisemitism; and National Socialist Black Metal (NBSM), a sub-genre of metal that espouses fascism and white supremacy. The ADL noted that several of thes...
