Always looking to stay relevant, Pandora is one of the most recent platforms to incorporate a ‘stories’ feature into its offerings. Given the nature of the company, their stories look a little different than other platforms, marrying music tracks and podcasts into single playlists. ______________________________ Guest post by Bobby Owsinski…
Category archives: Indie
2018 Was A Good Year To Be Spotify [Russ Crupnick]
While there has been much discussion of Spotify’s financial situation, another important metric to pay attention to is actual listeners. Here Russ Crupnick of MusicWatch breaks down some of the numbers on Spotify’s market share. _____________________________________ Guest post by Russ Crupnick of MusicWatch Spotify’s financial results are widely available and…
Publishers, Songwriters Respond To ‘Tech Bullies’ Spotify, Pandora, Google, Amazon Appeal Of Royalty Increase
National Music Publisher President & CEO David Israelite and Nashville Songwriters Association International Executive Director Bart Herbison have issued responses to Spotify, Google, Pandora and Amazon’s decision to fight the royalty increase granted to songwriters by the US Copyright Royalty Board. The NMPA, who has sad they will file their…
Ticketmaster, Amazon Partner: ‘Hey Alexa, Who Bought All The Good Seats?’
Live Nation’s Ticketmaster has announced that it was partnering with e-commerce titan Amazon to sell tickets via Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service. The partnership will allow fans to discover events and buy tickets directly from Alexa-enabled devices, such as Amazon Echo and Echo Dot via voice commands Would-be ticket buyers…
NoiseTrade Continues Serving Artists As Owner PledgeMusic Struggles, President Exits
[UPDATED] Last week, Christopher Moon, developer and President of NoiseTrade announced his resignation: "I recently wrapped up my tenure running NoiseTrade," he wrote in an email. Moon’s departure was the latest in a series of setbacks for the PledgeMusic owned music discovery platform. PledgeMusic acquired NoiseTrade, alongside online performance platform…
Kobalt Is Now A Next Generation Major Label In The Making [Mark Mulligan]
"Kobalt has been the poster child for the changing of the guard in the music business," writes MIDiA analyst Mark Mulligan. But it’s on a path to become much more as "next-generation label… plotting a course to becoming a next generation-major." __________________________________ By Mark Mulligan of MIDiA from his Music…
6 Analytics Tools: How To Change Future of Music Marketing
After a tough few years during which the sale of physical albums declined precipitously, the music industry seems to be making a relatively speedy recovery. This rebound has been assisted heavily by music companies’ harnessing of analytics and big data. Here we look at six such analytics tools that are…
Symphonic Distribution Expands To China
Independent music distributor Symphonic has expanded its reach to China via partnershipd with Tencent, NetEase and soon, says the company Alibaba.The new deals were spearheaded by indie rights powerhouse MERLIN. Content can be placed on Chinese music serives NetEase Cloud Music, Xiami (Alibaba), QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo (Tencent Music…
WMG, Dubset Partner To Offer Legal DJ Mixes
Dubset, the music marketplace and rights management database for DJs and artists, has inked a deal with Warner Music Group (WMG). Warner is the latest major label to partner with the platform whose aim it is to equip DJs with new mix and remix distribution and monetization opportunities. Sony signed…
Artists Are Increasingly Rejecting Record Deals
Some record executives are starting to sweat, as the music industry morphs into one where the climate is significantly more favorable towards a DIY way of doing business and many artists are eschewing traditional label deals in favor of doing things their own way. _______________________________ Guest post by Bobby Owsinski…