Streaming
The Ledger: Spotify Beats SXM Media to Top Podcast Network Rankings
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. With the help of ratings juggernaut Joe Rogan, Spotify topped SXM Media — just barely — in Edison Research’s Q2 2022 podcast network rankings, covering April 1 to June 30, after taking the runner-up position the previous two quarters. The streaming company has made Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, a cornerstone in its efforts to expand the audio platform beyond its music roots. If Rogan’s role was to help make Spotify a podcast leader, he accomplished his mission. “Rogan is not the only reason they’re no. 1, but he’s the main reason,” says Edison Research president Larry Rosin. For all the c...
Ben Gibbard Talks Death Cab for Cutie at 25 Years and Today’s ‘Unfair and Unethical’ Streaming Economy
Twenty-five years after Death Cab for Cutie began as a solo project for frontman Ben Gibbard, the indie band is thriving. As the quintet celebrates its silver anniversary, they’re showing no signs of following anyone into the dark. Their 10th album, Asphalt Meadows (out now), follows 2018’s Thank You for Today and has already spawned the group’s seventh No. 1 Adult Alternative Airplay hit with “Here to Forever.” Plus, Death Cab is revving up to launch a tour on Sept. 22 in Madison, Wisconsin. Here, Gibbard shares how the Seattle-based band wrote Asphalt Meadows during the pandemic, what the group’s legacy is after 25 years and the moment he knew that they had arrived. Congratulations on your 10th album. That’s a big milestone number. Did you go into it wanting to create something special t...
Cinq Sues Create Music Group for ‘Falsely Claiming’ Copyright Infringement
Record label and distributor Cinq Music Group sued Create Music Group on Monday, accusing the company of preventing it from monetizing Swell’s 2016 song “I’m Sorry” on YouTube. Cinq’s complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, asks for “no less than $200,000” in damages, claiming intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective economic relations, and negligent interference with prospective economic relations. Billboard previously reported that more than 10 sources — including artist managers, lawyers and executives at other royalty collection companies — said they know of times when Create has claimed YouTube publishing royalties it has no right to receive. Create vehemently denied the allegations. Cinq’s lawsuit, in contrast, invol...
Can YouTube Catch Spotify to Become Music’s Top Royalty Stream?
Spotify is the king of music streaming — but its lead is dwindling. YouTube generated over $6 billion to the music industry in the 12 months ended June 2022, the company announced Tuesday (Sept. 13). That was a 50% increase from the last figure YouTube reported, $4 billion over a 12-month period, in June 2020. Reaching the $6 billion milestone raises the question of when — if at all — YouTube might surpass Spotify in terms of value to rights holders and creators. “We want our twin engine of ads and subscriptions to be the #1 contributor of revenue to the industry by 2025,” wrote Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s global head of music, in a blog post on Tuesday. That won’t be easy, but it isn’t impossible. Consider how fast YouTube has grown since Cohen joined the company from Warner Music Group (where ...
The Santa Clauses Trailer Finds Tim Allen’s Potential Replacement in Peyton Manning?: Watch
Tim Allen may have been unceremoniously replaced in the new Buzz Lightyear movie, but he’s bowing out gracefully in The Santa Clauses, the Disney+ sequel series to his long-running Christmas comedy franchise. Watch the first trailer below. The preview opens with a solemn announcement from Allen’s jolly, ol’ Kris Kringle: “For the good of Christmas, for the good of my family, I, Santa Claus have decided to retire.” The news doesn’t exactly land with a warm reception from the elves in Santa’s workshop, who devolve into despair and lead their big boss man Mr. Claus to ask, “we have a grief counselor, right?” It won’t be a complete Blue Christmas though as Santa sets off to find his successor. Unlike the 1994 film’s fine-print fiasco that initially caused the unsuspecting Christmas curmudgeon ...
Netflix Might Abandon the Binge Model and Start Releasing TV Episodes Weekly
Netflix made binge-watching famous, but as the streaming industry looks more and more like cable with content split between a million competitors, Netflix may soon adopt cable’s traditional releasing model, too. According to Puck News, the platform is considering releasing episodes of TV shows weekly instead of all at once. Puck’s new profile on Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings reports that “Netflix says there’s no hard evidence that week-to-week episodes reduce subscriber churn, but the Netflix churn rate has been inching higher, and it is now the only streamer with a default all-at-once strategy.” Because of this, Hastings “appears” to be willing to switch models after previously refusing to abandoning binge mode. The argument for releasing episodes weekly is that it drums up consistent ...
Surprise! BTS: PERMISSION TO DANCE ON STAGE – LA Is Now Streaming on Disney+
Surprise! As part of the Disney+ Day celebration, BTS’s PERMISSION TO DANCE ON STAGE – LA is now streaming on the platform as of today (September 8th). PERMISSION TO DANCE ON STAGE – LA is described as a “stage-focused” concert film, showcasing the enormous event held at So-Fi Stadium at the end of 2021. The four concerts, November 27th-28th and December 1st-2nd, saw the 70,000-seat arena entirely sold out for all four nights. (Read our recap of the spectacular show here.) While the timing is a surprise, this concert film was announced without a release date in July as one of multiple projects created for Disney+, alongside a spin-off of BTS’s In the Soop (In the Soop: Friendcation, which was released on Disney+ in South Korea) and a still-to-come docuseries called BTS Monuments: Beyond th...
Publishers, Streamers Reach Deal for Highest Streaming Royalty Rate Ever: Here’s How It Works
Songwriter and publisher U.S. mechanical streaming royalty rates are going up — slowly — to a headline rate of 15.35% of total revenue from 2023-2027. That’s the big news out of Wednesday’s (Aug. 31) joint announcement on the “Phonorecords IV” settlement from the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the Nashville Songwriters Associations International and the Digital Media Association (DiMA). But how long will it take to get there and at what pace? What are the other conditions? Billboard now has more more key details about the deal. Under the new settlement agreement — which the NMPA touts will set the “highest royalty rate in the history of streaming anywhere” — the headline rate will escalate from 15.1% of revenue in 2023 to 15.2% in 2024 and then a half a percentage point inc...
New Report Hints At What Netflix’s Ad-Supported Tier Could Cost For Potential Users
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: NurPhoto / Getty Netflix’s ad-supported tier is the movie streaming service’s worst-kept secret. A new report shows what it could cost when it finally launches. It looks like some users will get some strategically placed ads during their binging experience. A new Bloomberg report dropped details about Netflix’s ad-supported tier. According to the website, the new tier will cost between $7 and $9 per month, a significant price drop from its current $9.99, $15.49, and $19.99 offerings. Per the report shared on Friday (Aug.26), Netflix will sell approximately four minutes of ads per hour that would be placed ahead and in the middle of content. Bloomberg also reports that kid’s content or original movies will not see any ads, and it hopes to launch the ad-sup...
Twitter Adds Podcasts to Live Audio Tab
Twitter will start recommending and streaming podcasts directly to users as part of a redesigned hub that groups live and recorded audio content by category. The podcast integration, which signals Twitter’s continued expansions into audio, launched Thursday to a select group of English-speaking iOS and Android users via the Spaces tab on Twitter’s mobile app. Categories in the redesigned tab include news, sports and music; each category will include live audio rooms, replays of recorded rooms and popular podcast episodes from those categories that will be personalized based on user interests. To bring the podcast episodes onto the platform, a Twitter spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter that the company is pulling from existing RSS feeds and will tailor the recommendations based on the...
Deezer Lost Subscribers, Added Revenue in First Half of 2022
With a newfound focus on a small number of lucrative, established markets, music streaming company Deezer reported revenue of 219 million euros ($218 million) in the first half of 2022, up 12.1% as reported (+9.9% at constant currency) versus the prior-year period. The Paris-based company received 132.4 million euros ($131.9 million), or 60.3% of its revenue, in its home country of France, up 11.1% year-over-year. Revenue from the rest of the world improved to 87 million euros ($86.7 million), up 13.6% from the prior-year period, and accounted for 39.7% of revenue, up from 39.1% a year ago. In Brazil, Deezer’s second-largest market, revenues improved 25% at constant currency. Other revenue — advertising and ancillary revenue — grew 58.3% (50.3% at constant currency) to 6.8 million euros ($...
House Representative Rashida Tlaib Takes Aim at Music Streaming Services In New Resolution
Rashida Tlaib, House Representative for Michigan’s 13th congressional district, has introduced a resolution that seeks to establish a new royalty program. The resolution effectively continues her fight for musicians to earn a “reasonable” living from their recorded music. “Expressing the sense of Congress that it is the duty of the Federal Government to establish a new royalty program to provide income to featured and non-featured performing artists whose music or audio content is listened to on streaming music services, like Spotify,” reads the bill. Tlaib’s resolution proposes the royalty rate be administered by SoundExchange and the Copyright Royalty Board, who would calculate, collect, retain and distribute payments to the appropriate copyright ...
