Welcome to our Spring 2024 quarterly report, which analyses the music streaming ecosystem.
Last year DSPs sought aggressive expansion into new territories, explored platform differentiation, and crept towards new forms of engagement with fans. They were rewarded with growing revenues and subscriber numbers – so is the full story simply a happy one of wealth and success, or are there still challenges ahead? The short answer is yes, and also yes – we take a close look at both aspects.
In our cover feature we mark 10 years since the founding of Spotify by looking at its journey so far and pointing to where it needs to move next if […]
Our cover feature picks apart the investment trends in music companies and services over the past two years and draws some surprising conclusions. The headline figure is that investment in 2015 was actually double that in 2014, showing that investors have not been scared off. While a few big names like Kobalt, Sonos, Spotify and Dailymotion have each drawn investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the overall sector is encouragingly eclectic. The pressure, however, is on for music services to come good on their investment – a fact exacerbated by concerns that the VC sector as a whole is going to have a turbulent 2016.
Our cover feature surveys the startup boneyard to try and understand precisely why so many music services, all promising a fizzing new future at their launch, hit the wall quickly, found out […]
Our cover feature picks apart the two lawsuits that hit Spotify either side of Christmas to consider not only what they mean for the Swedish streaming company but also digital […]
Our cover feature looks into what Pandora’s recent flurry of acquisitions – parts of Rdio and all of Ticketfly (as well as Next Big Sound earlier in the year) – […]
Our cover feature nails down what the issues dominating the publishing industry currently are. Metadata is, by far, the biggest time bomb. Payments are being slowed down and discovery options […]
In our cover feature we look at the BBC’s plans for a streaming music service, and why they’re causing tension with music rightsholders in the UK. The broadcaster is planning […]
Please note that after today both the Music Ally Report and Sandbox will be taking a short break for the summer where they will go paddling in the sea, get […]
Lead: Streaming is unlocking intricate data about super fans and their listening behaviour, putting artists and labels in powerful new positions to make the most of this real-time flow of […]
In our cover feature we speak to Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine, the people behind Apple Music – the biggest launch in digital music for years. We look at what […]
In our cover feature we pick apart streaming playlists to look at how pitching, “power-seeding” and payola (or, more specifically, play-ola) is being used and abused to break acts and drive hits. The indies, for now, are more than holding their own in this space (certainly compared to radio); but that doesn’t mean they can rest on their laurels. Another brewing issue here relates to playlist data – or, more specifically, who can access it and, ultimately, who will own it.
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