Why India Matters to Spotify, and Why it May Not Deliver

There are two key reasons for such weak uptake to date:

1. Music plays a different role in India:Bollywood and devotional are two of the most widely listened to music genres, neither of which are mainstays of subscription services, nor streaming music consumption in general.
2. Income levels are low:the average per capita income is $553 a month, with the luxury of a music subscription far out of reach for most Indians, other than urban elites. Spotify’s $1.80 price point in India may sound cheap, but relative to average income, it is 9.3 times more expensive than $9.99 is in the US. So, Spotify would need to be priced at $0.19 to be the same relative affordability as in the US, which coincidentally is the price for its day pass.

Music Industry Blog

Warner Music and Spotify have been involved in a rather unseemly and very public spat this week over Spotify’s India launch. I’ll leave for someone else, the discussions of the potential implications of a blanket license for songwriter rights in India for an on-demand streaming service. Suffice to say, the words ‘can of worms’ come to mind. Instead, I am going to focus on why India matters so much to Spotify.

The next one billion, perhaps…

Spotify’s Daniel Ek has made much of addressing the next one billion internet users as part of Spotify’s long-term opportunity. Given the fact that China is effectively off the table for now and that sub-Saharan Africa is probably a generation away from being a major streaming market, India is the key component of that next one billion.

Europe and North America accounted for 69% of Spotify’s subscriber growth in 2018. While this…

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Amazon Is Now The 3rd Biggest Music Subscription Service

(…) Amazon’s achievement is even more impressive than it first appears. Amazon’s music streaming adoption is concentrated among 4 of its Amazon Prime markets: US, Japan, Germany and UK. In these markets 35% of Amazon Prime subscribers are Amazon Prime Music or Amazon Prime Music Unlimited users.

Music Industry Blog

At MIDiA we have long argued that Amazon is the dark horse of streaming music. That horse is not looking so dark anymore. We’ve been tracking weekly usage of streaming music apps on a quarterly basis since 2016 and we’ve seen Amazon growing strongly quarter upon quarter. To the extent that Amazon Prime Music is now the 2^nd most widely used streaming music app, 2^nd only to Spotify which benefits from a large installed base of free users to boost its numbers. So, in terms of pure subscription services, Amazon has the largest installed base of weekly active users.

But it’s not just in terms of active users that Amazon is making such headway. It is racking up subscribers too. Based on conversations with rights holders and other industry executives we can confirm that Amazon is now the 3^rd largest subscription service. Amazon has around 16 million…

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Pandora Buys Rdio To Become A Global Streaming Powerhouse

I am very glad to see that Pandora – which has been my favorite music recommendation service for at least ten years – is expanding its reach. Maybe it will even be officially available in Germany some day …

My previous praise of Pandora (in German): „Wie man das Top-Empfehlungsradio Pandora auch in Deutschland komfortabel nutzen kann“.

Music Industry Blog

Pandora today announced that it was acquiring the assets of now failed subscription service Rdio.  While the whispers about Rdio’s future had been building for some time, the deal is more interesting for what it says about Pandora’s plans than what it says about the state of the subscription business.

Rdio Battled Bravely And Set Innovation Standards But Fell Short

For what Rdio lacked in subscriber numbers it made up for in innovation.  It continually set product and feature precedents that Spotify and others subsequently aped, and its $75 million dollar ad inventory deal with US radio giant Cumulus sets a business model blueprint that other streaming services will follow. But for all its efforts and extensive marketing efforts Rdio was simply not able to get to the same sort of level as Spotify’s 2nd tier competitors, let alone to seriously challenge Spotify itself.  The music subscription business is not…

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The Global Implications Of The BBC’s Streaming Strategy

(…) Watch the BBC’s streaming endeavours closely because the outcomes will likely provide blueprints for thriving in the streaming era for media companies of all types and sizes right across the globe.

Music Industry Blog

Yesterday the BBC’s Director General Tony Hall laid out a vision for the future of the BBC (for an excellent take on this see the blog post from MIDiA’s video analyst Tim Mulligan, and yes the name may look familiar, he’s my brother!).  The BBC has long played a crucial innovation role in the digital content economy but it has yet to carve out a convincing role for itself in online music.  It has built up a compelling YouTube content offering and it has pursued a streaming coexistence strategy with its innovative Playlister initiative but the bigger play has yet to be made.  That looks set to change, with the announcement that the BBC is planning to launch a ‘New Music Discovery Service’, which would make the 50,000 tracks broadcast by the BBC every month available to stream for a limited period.  The initiative is interesting in itself…

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Auf PCs ist „Spotify-Killer“ Apple Music ein Rohrkrepierer (Update: Jetzt funktioniert’s … aber mit neuen Fehlern)

Ich bin überrascht, dass ein Konzern mit den Ressourcen von Apple nach 39 Jahren immer noch keine reibunglos verlaufenden Produkteinführungen hinbekommt – vor allem, wenn es sich um ein Hype-Produkt wie Apple Music handelt.

Bei dessen heutigem Launch las ich, dass der neue Streaming-Dienst für stationäre Nutzer ein Update von iTunes auf Version 12.2 benötige. Ich klickte also in iTunes auf „Nach Updates suchen“ und erhielt diese Meldung:

Wer profitiert von Spotify & Co.?

Dieser zwei Monate alte Beitrag ist mir erst heute aufgefallen – er ist aber immer noch interessant:

Zusammenfassend kann also konstatiert werden, dass die Labels und hier vor allem die Major-Labels vom expandierenden Musikstreamingmarkt profitieren, wohingegen die Musikschaffenden (InterpretInnen sowie UrheberInnen) kaum einen finanziellen Nutzen daraus ziehen können.

Musikwirtschaftsforschung

Eine vom französischen Musikindustrieverband (SNEP) bei Ernst & Young in Auftrag gegebene und Anfang Februar publizierte Studie über die Verteilung der Einnahmen aus einem monatlichen Premium-Abo von  EUR 9,99 bestätigt die bereits in der Blogserie „Is Streaming the Next Big Thing?“ durchgeführte Analyse, dass neben den MusikkonsumentInnen vor allem die Major-Labels & Verlage die Hauptprofiteure vom derzeitigen Trend zum Musikstreaming sind, wohingegen die Streamingservices selbst wirtschaftlich noch nicht nachhaltig arbeiten und die KünstlerInnen nur wenig vom Streamingkuchen erhalten. Die bekannt gewordenen Details der nicht öffentlich zugänglichen Studie, können hier nachgelesen werden.

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Qype: Last FM in London

London – Dienstleistungen – Medien – Virtuelle Plaetze

Last.FM war 2005 für mich persönlich neben flickr.com die wichtigste und sinnvollste Neuentdeckung in Sachen Web 2.0, so wie Qype im Jahr 2007.

Das Prinzip ist simpel, aber bestechend: Man registriert sich kostenlos bei Last.FM und lädt sich dort ein Plug-in für die MP3-Abspielsoftware seines Vertrauens herunter (etwa iTunes oder WinAmp). Das Plug-in meldet fortan Titel und Interpreten aller gespielten Songs an Last.FM, woraufhin ein persönliches Profil erstellt wird.

Nach einer Weile werden einem andere Mitglieder mit einem ähnlichem Musikgeschmack vorgestellt. Deren Songs kann man sich als eine Art individuelles Internet-Radio anhören (sofern sie bei Last.FM auf den Servern liegen).