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LATEST ARTICLES - PAGE 2

Spotify Experimenting With Online Video Courses

Jason Tate

Jon Porter, writing for The Verge:

Spotify’s UK users are getting access to a fourth category of content to sit alongside its existing library of songs, podcasts and audiobooks: online courses. The company is today launching a new experiment that’ll see video-based lessons from BBC Maestro, Skillshare, Thinkific, and PlayVirtuoso made available via Spotify’s apps on mobile and desktop. The experiment is running in just the UK, and there are currently no guarantees that it’ll get a wider more permanent launch.

Spotify Adding Music Videos

Jason Tate

Spotify is rolling out music videos as a new beta feature for some artists.

The beta version of music videos on Spotify begins rolling out today with a limited catalog of music videos, including hits from global artists like Ed Sheeran, Doja Cat, and Ice Spice, or local favorites like Aluna and Asake.

Despite Music Industry Growth, Companies Are Tightening

Jason Tate

Lucas Shaw, writing for Bloomberg:

Last year was brutal for the media business, as nearly every major entertainment and technology company fired employees. This year is shaping up to be more of the same.

More than a dozen major corporations across technology, finance and media announced major job cuts this past week, including Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Unity Software Inc. Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, plans cuts in the first quarter. Animation studio Pixar will let staff go in the second half. All told, media companies have fired more than 70,000 employees since the start of last year, according to Vivek Couto at Media Partners Asia.

EU Regulating Music Streaming Royalties

Globe
Jason Tate

The Verge:

The EU has proposed sweeping changes within the music streaming industry to promote smaller artists and make sure underpaid performers are being fairly compensated. 

A resolution to address concerns regarding inadequate streaming royalties for artists and biased recommendation algorithms was adopted by members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on Wednesday, highlighting that no existing EU rules currently apply to music streaming services, despite being the most popular way to consume audio.

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Spotify Protests New Tax in France

Jason Tate

Paul Sawers, writing for TechCrunch:

Spotify is pulling support for two music festivals in protest against a controversial new tax directed at music-streaming platforms operating in France, and threatened more action will follow in the coming months.

Antoine Monin, managing director for Spotify in the France and Benelux regions, took to X this week to decry a new tax that will impose a levy of what is expected to be between 1.5 and 1.75% on all music-streaming services, with the proceeds going toward the Centre National de la Musique (CNM), which was established in 2020 to support the French music sector.

Spotify Announces More Layoffs

Jason Tate

Spotify has announced they are laying off 1,500 people:

This brings me to a decision that will mean a significant step change for our company. To align Spotify with our future goals and ensure we are right-sized for the challenges ahead, I have made the difficult decision to reduce our total headcount by approximately 17% across the company. I recognize this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions. To be blunt, many smart, talented and hard-working people will be departing us.

Meanwhile, the stock spiked on the news so the CFO cashed in.

Spotify Announces New Royalty Policy

Jason Tate

Spotify has officially announced their new royalty system:

However, as the royalty pool and catalog on Spotify have surged, three particular drains on the royalty pool have now reached a tipping point. So, we’re working in close collaboration with industry partners — artist distributors, independent labels, major labels, label distributors, and artists and their teams — to introduce new policies to (1) further deter artificial streaming, (2) better distribute small payments that aren’t reaching artists, and (3) rein in those attempting to game the system with noise.

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Spotify Is Changing How It Pays Artists

Jason Tate

Billboard:

A new threshold of minimum annual streams that a track must meet before it starts to generate royalties. The threshold, according to MBW, will de-monetize tracks that had previously received 0.5% of Spotify’s royalty pool.

Financial penalties for music distributors and labels when fraudulent activity on tracks they have uploaded to Spotify has been detected.

A minimum play-time length that non-music noise tracks, such as bird sounds or white noise, must reach to generate royalties.

Streaming Is Changing the Sound of Music

Jason Tate

Wall Street Journal:

To keep the “skip rate” as low as possible, musical artists are increasingly moving a song’s hook or chorus to that initial 30-second sweet spot. Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding, the hosts of the “Switched on Pop” podcast, have coined the term “Pop Overture” to describe a new trend in which a song “will play a hint of the chorus in the first five to 10 seconds so that the hook is in your ear, hoping that you’ll stick around till about 30 seconds in when the full chorus eventually comes in.”

Creators are modifying more than just the introductory sections of tracks for optimal performance on streaming. Every track that is listened to for more than 30 seconds counts as a play, but whether a listener makes it all the way through a song helps to determine whether a streaming service like Spotify will recommend similar songs in the future.

Spotify Share New Report on “Super Listeners”

Jason Tate

Murray Stassen, writing at Music Business Worldwide:

According to Spotify’s new study, averaged across all artist sizes, ‘super listeners’ on the platform make up 2% of an artist’s monthly listeners, but account for over 18% of monthly streams.

Spotify defines monthly listeners as all listeners that have at least 1 stream over 30 seconds of an artist in the past 28 days. These stats are based on streaming data on the platform between February 15 and March 15.

Spotify Planning More Expensive Subscription Tier

Jason Tate

The Verge:

Spotify is reportedly planning to include lossless audio streaming in a new, more expensive subscription tier codenamed “Supremium” internally, according to Bloomberg. The lossless streaming feature was first announced in February 2021 as “Spotify HiFi,” but is still yet to release over two years later. Bloomberg reports that the new more expensive plan could release later this year, initially in non-US markets. 

The pricing of Spotify HiFi has been a source of much speculation in the years since its announcement, especially after competitors Amazon Music and Apple Music started offering lossless streaming as part of their standard plans at no additional charge. Bloomberg reports that Spotify delayed the release of HiFi after Amazon and Apple’s announcements.

Spotify Redesigns Home Screen

Jason Tate

The Verge:

Spotify is redesigning the core homescreen of its app, trying to make it easier for users to find new stuff to listen to — and watch. The new design goes heavy on imagery and vertical scrolling, turning your homescreen from a set of album covers into a feed that much more closely resembles TikTok and Instagram. As you scroll, Spotify is also hoping to make it easier to discover new things across the Spotify ecosystem.

The new look, which Spotify just announced at its Stream On event, is clear evidence of the kind of company (and product) Spotify wants to be. Over the last few years, it has invested heavily into podcasts, audiobooks, live audio, and more, all in an attempt to be more than just a music app. The company also wants to be a home for creators: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told The Verge in 2021 that he hoped to have more than 50 million “audio creators” on the platform. Spotify has also pushed for years to make video podcasts happen and is now largely watching as YouTube pulls it off.

Uh, pass.

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Spotify HiFi Was Announced Two Years Ago — Where Is It?

Jason Tate

Chris Welch, writing for The Verge:

At this point, it’s fair to assume that something went wrong with Spotify HiFi. Two years ago today, during the company’s Stream On event, Spotify announced a new streaming tier that would let customers enjoy lossless, CD-quality audio from the leading subscription music service. 

Spotify felt the news was worthy of some star power and filmed a promotional video for HiFi with Billie Eilish and Finneas. It remains on the company’s YouTube page, and you can still read the blog post saying upgraded sound would arrive “later this year” — meaning by the end of 2021.

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