New week, new Weekly Roundup! This time, the music industry saw a few newcomers as mains music industry players… And former ones! As we are still trying to figure out what the music industry will look like in a few months, some big announcements were made by the main actors. We took a look at the current trends of this fast moving environment.
#1. Collaboration between music industry players
To illustrate the fast moving shifts within the music industry, let’s start with resources. Music Ally started a series of videos in collaboration with BPI in UK: The Music & Tech Springboard. The program comes with videos filled with advices on how to navigate the music business, but also with offers and promotions dedicated to young startups to help projects get to the right doorsteps!
If you had to only watch one, we would advise you to take a look at the Record Labels explain what they want from music/tech startups video. The initiative will give you some precise insights on expectations and best practices you can apply to your own music business.
#2. Warner Music Group comes back with its IPO
Not everything was new this week. On another note, Warner Music Group brought back their plans for an IPO back to life after being pushed until further notice at the beginning of the sanitary crisis. An IPO that could potentially bring $1,8bn, right after Universal Music Group was valued at $33bn after the 10% being bought by Tencent. The momentum seems right!
#3. ByteDance makes its way as one of the main music industry players
To remain on this track, other news happened for other main music industry players. If you’re looking for big numbers, brace yourself. The statistics came up on ByteDance and their apps TikTok and Douyin (the equivalent Greater China): the group generated $17bn over the year 2019. It’s more than what Youtube generated with ads over the same period. Not bad for a karaoke app bought $800 million back in 2017!
But let’s keep in mind the fact that ByteDance still has a long way to go to get along with the music industry. Especially regarding publishing. The cause: TikTok has been overlooking copyright several times and is now railed against by associations such NMPA in the US, even though they recently built a partnership with UK’s Music Managers Forum.
But there might be light at the end considering the new music streaming Resso has been launched in India with licenses from the majors. ByteDance will have to make the effort to comply to keep broadcasting artists’ music online.
#4. Music industry players have seen artists creating more
Speaking of artists, let’s take a look at their side of things. A few weeks back we talked about music streaming numbers during the lockdown due to the pandemic. And then, we talked about the postponement of releases by artists and their teams. Well, we have news on that topic.
According to the main distribution platforms, independent artists have been more productive and releasing more than ever. This might be a great move, considering that all marketing strategies around releases set up by labels are put on hold, there is room for new content on platforms in need. A positive sign that releases are happening. And I’d like to remind you that you still can try our Beta version of Releases Manager now!
#5. Deep dive in music data for the music industry players
To follow up, I’d like to share some insights about the way we look at data in music. It might be time to rethink the study of data to understand music fans’ tastes online. Here are a few comparisons on genres and behaviors online to finish on an interesting note!
