Narrative: Streaming is Saving Music

Each narrative page (like this) has a page describing and evaluating the narrative, followed by all the posts on the site tagged with that narrative. Scroll down beyond the introduction to see the posts.

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    Sprint Acquires 33 Percent of TIDAL and Creates Game-Changing Partnership – Sprint Newsroom (Jan 23, 2017)

    The one thing missing from this Sprint/Tidal press release? Subscriber numbers for Tidal, which have been the source of recent controversy. As I said in commenting on that news, Tidal may have a tough time surviving if its subscriber numbers are as bad as they seem, and I’m guessing this Sprint investment is designed to stabilize things a bit. Partnerships between streaming services and wireless carriers are old hat – Spotify has lots of these in Europe, and they’ve helped its paid subscriber numbers enormously, while we’ve seen several others here in the US too. From a Sprint perspective, this can be seen as a response to T-Mobile’s Music Unlimited program, which offers free music streaming from every major music service, though Tidal is a much more niche approach, which means it’ll likely have limited benefit unless Sprint heavily subsidizes the service for its subscribers.

    via Sprint Acquires 33 Percent of TIDAL and Creates Game-Changing Partnership | Sprint Newsroom

    Jay Z Is Fraudulently Inflating Tidal Numbers, Report Says – Digital Music News (Jan 20, 2017)

    Tidal has been one of the second tier music streaming services that often gets rolled up into the “Other” slice of streaming music subscriber number pie charts, but its reported numbers have been big enough in their own right to be broken out in some cases. There are only a handful or so of major music services around the world with more than a million paid subs, and Tidal is one of them, along with giants Spotify and Apple and fellow medium sized players Rhapsody/Napster and Deezer. But this report suggests Tidal has been exaggerating its actual subscriber numbers, which have always seemed surprisingly high, and that its real numbers are much closer to one million than the three million it has reported publicly. The reality is that Spotify and Apple between them dominate this market, with Spotify quite far ahead, and everyone else well behind Apple, which has also been growing rapidly. The other players have all struggled to find meaningful growth here, though the ad-supported streaming business is far more popular (though it also delivers far lower revenues to the industry). I wouldn’t be surprised if Tidal exits the market in the near future if this is the true state of its business.

    via Jay Z Is Fraudulently Inflating Tidal Numbers, Report Says – Digital Music News

    Pandora Reducing Workforce by 7% – Variety (Jan 12, 2017)

    Pandora is one of the longest-standing music streaming services in the US, and yet it is perennially challenged to make a decent profit. Today, it announced it’s cutting 7% of its US workforce to refocus its business, though it hasn’t said which bits are being cut and which are now considered core. My guess is that this is a reflection of the imminent launch of its subscription all-you-can-eat service and perhaps a de-emphasis on its traditional radio-style business, but more clarity will likely emerge soon. This is just another indicator of just how tough it can be to make money in streaming music, despite the boon paid music subscriptions have been to the music labels in the last couple of years.

    via Pandora Reducing Workforce by 7% | Variety

    Music streaming hailed as industry’s saviour as labels enjoy profit surge | Technology | The Guardian (Dec 29, 2016)

    The headline is right on here – streaming has been a boon for the music industry, arguably the second time the tech industry (and Apple in particular) has come to its rescue. But it doesn’t go far enough – it’s paid streaming that’s saving the industry, while the best that can be said for ad-supported streaming is that it provides a useful funnel for the services that really drive revenue. That tension between paid and free streaming and their respective economics is a key one to watch in the music industry over the next couple of years.

    via Music streaming hailed as industry’s saviour as labels enjoy profit surge | Technology | The Guardian

    Apple Music: Platform? Promoter? Both. – The New York Times (Dec 22, 2016)

    Competition in the streaming music market is tough – everyone is offering roughly the same catalogs for roughly the same monthly price. So competition happens at the margins – in recommendations, user interfaces, and exclusive content, which is the subject of this interview with Apple Music execs.

    via Apple Music: Platform? Promoter? Both. – The New York Times