There have been a few new buyouts and collaborations in the music industry this week. You can count on us to give you the highlights!
#1. SESAC Music Group’s deal of the week
This week starts with the news of an important acquisition in the field of content management services: AudioSalad, the content management and distribution platform based in New York, was purchased by SESAC Music Group.
Audio Salad will keep providing technological solutions for record labels, distributors and artists: content management, analysis, distribution.
We are talking of two fundamental and well-known actors within the digital music industry. The value of the agreement has not been announced, but it is certainly a very significant purchase that puts together the forces of these two. Just think that on one hand, SESAC, represents the rights to about 30,000 songwriters (including Adele, Neil Diamond, Rosanne Cash and Bob Dylan). On the other hand, AudioSalad manages 16 million audio and video resources.
#2. What’s being successful in Music?
Today more than ever, success can easily be achieved and disappear as quickly, at any given time. An unknown artist can go viral on TikTok or other platforms overnight. Midia Research has reflected on the importance of redefining success. So what now?
The music industry revolves around numbers, data and a stated definition of success, which become almost the only parameters to measure artists’ performances in the long term. But with an environment ever changing like ours nowadays, this feels outdated. What can really lead to lasting success is the support of your very own loyal fans. And that’s what the industry has to aim at/invest on, especially when it comes to independent artists.
#3. Metallica is getting into vinyl production
As we said, being real and investing in fans can mean building a lasting success. This is not a mere theory, just take a look at Metallica. The historic Metal band can count on a loyal-growing fanbase. But they never stop meeting their fans’ needs.
The band is in a particularly flourishing moment of their career. The result is a set of new projects : new tours and albums and above all a constant demand for vinyls and merchandising of all kinds by fans!
These are probably some of the reasons why Metallica has officially bought an entire record printing plant: Furnace Record Pressing. Metallica’s James Hetfield said that:
#4. Above Board becomes part of TheOrchard
TheOrchard has acquired Above Board, Dance and Electronic music distribution company and artist & label services. A lot of strong mainstream artists have been part of this distributor up until now. From now on, Above Board will be accessing the full catalog for distribution and artist & label services.
This is a move from TheOrchard to integrate one of the most important distribution actors for the Electronic music field.
#5. Spotify's latest numbers
It seems that Spotify does not respect its own mission to "unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art." In fact, despite these beautiful premises, the same data published by Spotify itself, tells us that there are less and less artists able to make a living with their art on Spotify.
According to the platform, artists should earn at least $50k on the platform in a year, to live off streaming. And considering the percentage of revenue, subtracting all the expenses and percentages that artists owe to labels, distributors etc., it remains much less. So numbers may not showcase the best for the platform…
