By Dwight Brown
As summer ends and days at the shore dwindle, several digital music partners are making waves you won’t see at the beach.
Digital music stores are doing their best to live up to expectations, embrace radio play, take advantage of music fans’ incessant love of streaming and stake out their niche territory in an ever expanding music market. See how…
Based on numbers from MusicWatch, (a company dedicated to marketing research and industry analysis for the music and entertainment industry), Billboard Magazine thinks it’s possible that Apple Music could become a top-three subscription service (behind Spotify and Deezer) and could quickly reach number two. They came to that conclusion after a difference of opinion between MusicWatch and Apple Music spilled over into the pages of their magazine.
A MusicWatch 5,000-person survey produced findings that don’t jive with Apple Music’s assertions, especially regarding the number of Apple Music users. MusicWatch: 8.6 million. Apple Music: 11 million. Turns out the MusicWatch’s figures were only for the U.S. and Apple Music’s figures are global, hence the disparate figures. The article delves into the habits of Apple Music users who are not giving up on Spotify as they toy with the new Apple streaming service. Considering Billboard’s prediction, artists who make sure their tunes are in Apple Music are preparing themselves for the future.
A MusicBusinessWorldWide article has made the observation that Apple Music isn’t the only streaming music service to boast a traditional radio element. Rdio has introduced nearly 500 broadcast radio stations into its US offering, driven by US-based network Cumulus. Popular stations that will now be featured on Rdio include Indianapolis’s 93.9 The Beat, LA’s 95.5 KLOS, Nashville’s 95.5 NASH Icon, New York’s NASH FM 94.7, San Francisco’s KFOG and more. Additional radio stations will launch later this year in the US and in a number of other international markets. Though solid user numbers are yet to be confirmed, it’s believed that Rdio offers streaming across more than 35 million songs in 85 countries.
Bollywood movies aren’t the only
universally liked form of entertainment in India. Streaming is getting a lot of love too. According to the Times of India, based on a study conducted by market research firm JuxtSmartMandate, listening to music online is the third most preferred activity of urban internet users in the country. (If you’re curious how emails and social media stack up, read the article.) As many as 97.4 million people in urban India listen to music online which is close to 63% of the 168 million total urban internet users in the country and around 75% of this traffic comes from mobile phones. With a total app download of 25.6 million, and an active user base of 14.1 million users, the digital distributor saavn is a co-market leader.
Music streaming in the UK has almost doubled over the last 12 months; hence Amazon has entered into the UK streaming market with Prime Music, a service available to Amazon Prime customers as part of their annual £79 subscription. The service provides access to one million+ songs and about 500 specially created playlists. So what’s the big deal, if Apple or Spotify offer more than 30 million tracks? Let’s call it a unique holistic approach. Paul Firth, head of music for Amazon UK, told the BBC News, “Being the one place where you can buy CDs and vinyl, you can buy downloads or you can stream – I think that’s the best place to be right now.” For artists, that means their music can be sold in any format with Amazon Music. Soup to nuts music sales? Great for music fans. Even better for artists.
Summer beach days are concluding. But digital music sales opportunities never die.
If you’re a TuneCore Artist, our store partners want your music. Add your new music today! Or for more convenience add Store Automator and every time we add a new store we will add it to the releases you selected.
If you are not distributing your music through TuneCore yet, this summer is the perfect time to start.
Tags: amazon music apple music digital distribution featuring indie rdio saavn sell music online tunecore