Monday Music Brief: 4/28/14

Monday Music Brief: 4/28/14

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New Music Seminar monday music brief

Never miss a beat! Stay up to date on the top stories in music business and anything else you may have missed last week in the industry.

Streaming & Subscription

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”Spotify Closing In On iTunes Europe, Take Down Vulpeck’s Silent ‘Sleepify’ Album” css=”custom-class”] Spotify revealed they’ve added 1 million active users in the UK during the last four months. The streaming service is expected to announce further statistics over the next months as it looks to pass 10 million paying subscribers worldwide.

These subscribers, however, won’t be listening to Vulfpecks ‘Sleepify,’ albums of silence which the group used to raise tours funds. The ‘album’ was removed from Spotify last week.[/toggle]

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”Rdio Teams Up With New International Partners To Grow Subscriber Base” css=”custom-class”] As part of Rdio’s strategy focused primarily on global expansion and localized customer experience, the streaming service announced new partnerships last week with companies in Canada and Brazil, two of its largest markets.

Looking to grow its Canadian subscriber base, Rdio announced a new partnership with Canadian broadband provider Shaw last Thursday. Canada is Rdio’s second largest market, making it a huge priority for the streaming service to both expand its presence in the country and provide Canadian customers with the overall top digital streaming experience.

Rdio recently reached a similar agreement a few days prior with Brazil’s Grupo Bandeirantes, a big media group responsible for Brazil’s top radio stations, newspapers, magazines, TV networks and out-of-home media. The Brazilian company will integrate the streaming service into some of their personal online platforms, in addition to promoting Rdio through their print and broadcast media. [/toggle]

Digital & Music Tech

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”Music Content Companies Bargaining for Up-Front TV Ad Revenue” css=”custom-class”] Media Companies, including music stalwarts VEVO and YouTube are currently in middle of “upfront season” where media companies compete for upfront advertising revenue from TV, cable, radio and online networks.

As the negotiations go on, music content providers, Live Nation, Clear Channel and Vice are pressing their case for a share of these revenues, thought to amount to around $20 billion through a series of public and private presentations.[/toggle]

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”VEVO Monthly Viewership Increases by 46%” css=”custom-class”] VEVO has just announced that monthly average streams of music videos on their platform has increased by almost 50% from a year earlier.

VEVO now has monthly average views of nearly 6 billion as at December 2013. Interestingly 65% of videos are being watched on mobile, while 5 billion of these views took place outside the United States.

VEVO launched an update to it’s iOS application which includes a video feed new homepage as well as access to programmed video channels.[/toggle]

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”Beats Music Rises To #1 Music App Days After Enabling In-App Purchases At 30% Cost” css=”custom-class”] Days after enabling in-app subscription purchases, Beats Music is now the number one free music app download in iTunes. Beats Music now pays 30% of any $9.99 monthly subscription fees generated via their app to Apple. Others app allowing in-app subscriptions include Rhapsody and Rdio, while Spotify notably has not.[/toggle]

Labels & Publishing

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”Biggest Day Out for Record Store Day” css=”custom-class”] Independent record stores’ sales surged last week, courtesy of Record Store Day (RDS). Indie record stores’ sales in the United States accounted for 19.4% of all physical albums sold this week.

Vinyl sales within the independent sector increased by 57.5% for the week. Top selling vinyl albums included Childish Gambino, The Afghan Whigs and Joy Division.[/toggle]

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”Sony Music U.S. Latin and ZZinc Group Partner, Focus On Music Projects for US Hispanic Market” css=”custom-class”]Sony Music U.S. Latin announced a new partnership with ZZinc group that will leverage both party’s expertise to jointly develop talent and music-related projects, focusing primarily on crossover projects for the US Hispanic market. The entertainment company headed by Mexican promoter/manager Armando Lozano and Mexican film financier Alex Garcia, includes management, film and live entertainment divisions and has been based in Mexico since 2008. However, earlier this year, since group recently has opened two new offices in LA and Miami as part of their US expansion plans. The two organizations hope to increase the artist’s value overall by providing more readily available resources and new ways to take advantage of marketing and media opportunities, primarily among U.S. Latino audiences. [/toggle]

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”SFX Entertainment Acquire Perryscope Productions” css=”custom-class”]SFX Entertainment have acquire Perryscope Productions a merchandising and licensing company run out of New York. Perryscope will now oversee all SFX Entertainment’s global merchandising.[/toggle]

Legal & Copyright

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”FCC Consider Pay Standards for Home Broadband” css=”custom-class”] The Federal Communications Commission will announce new open internet rules this Thursday, to replace the existing net neutrality regulation. It has been reported that the replacement regulations are set to permit internet service providers to charge content companies to preferential access to home broadband consumers.

Such a proposal is in direct contrast to the principle of ‘net neutrality’ forged under the prior rules.[/toggle]

[toggle heading=”h5″ title=”UK Government Back Second-Hand MP3 Market” css=”custom-class”]The UK Government, in response to a European Union consultation on copyright, have laid support for ‘the forward and delete’ resale MP3 marketplace. The stance contrast’s the recent US case where ReDigi’s second hand mp3 service has deemed illegal.[/toggle]
 

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