Archive
Monthly Archives: May 2016
May 30, 2016
- in Commentary by Bobby Owsinski
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- 1 comments
The Seamy Side Of The Music Business Circa 1980
I just returned from speaking at Nimbus School of Recording and Media in Vancouver (one of the best recording schools anywhere – thanks Mike, Rob and Brandon), and one of the questions that I received from the students was if the music business is more difficult now than it was in the past. Actually, getting into […]
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May 27, 2016
- in Tips by Bobby Owsinski
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- 1 comments
5 Tips For Increasing YouTube Engagement
Even though Facebook is catching up, YouTube engagement is still a primary concern for every artist. Information is power, and some brand new data about viewership on YouTube help to maximize its usefulness as a promotional tool. For instance, video length is one of the biggest deciding factors for engagement. Videos under one minute are […]
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May 26, 2016
- in Book Excerpt , Streaming Music by Bobby Owsinski
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- 3 comments
Making Sense of Streaming Income
In Part 3 on my series on streaming music royalties, we try to make sense of streaming income as we look at why it varies so much and why the sales parameters we set in the days of vinyl and CDs no longer apply in the digital age. Once again, this is an excerpt from […]
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May 25, 2016
Pirate Radio Stations On The Rise Again
Once upon a time pirate radio stations were big business and a big influence, with Radio Caroline, Radio Luxembourg and XERF all helping birth the modern radio and music industries. Most pirate stations have been long closed, and it was thought that they’d be gone for good thanks to the Internet. Surprisingly, pirate radio is […]
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May 24, 2016
Pandora’s Largest Investor Worried About Its Future
Pandora’s largest investor is so concerned about its future that it sent a letter to the company’s CEO and board members asking them to reconsider its strategy and explore the possibility of a sale. According to a report in Music Business Worldwide, Corvex Management LP, the investor that sent the letter, owns 8.3% of Pandora and is fed up […]
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May 23, 2016
Flipagram’s John Bolton On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast
On this week’s edition of my Inner Circle Podcast I’m happy to have digital music veteran John Bolton as my guest. John is the head of music at Flipagram, and prior to that he held a similar position at Muve Music, which is one of the larger streaming music services. We’ll discuss what it’s […]
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May 23, 2016
Twitter Won’t Count Photos And Links In 140 Character Limit
If you use Twitter for promotion you know that while the 140 character limit seems like plenty, it can decrease rapidly with the addition of a photo or link. Those days may soon be over as the company will soon stop counting photos and links as part of its 140 character limit. Currently links take up […]
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May 20, 2016
Facebook’s New Slideshow Feature Just For Music Videos
It’s obvious that Facebook has been gunning for YouTube for some time now, and the service now claims that it now has more video viewers (although that’s debatable). That’s not enough though, as Facebook will soon introduce a feature called Slideshow that will allow users to create their own soundtracks from a list of licensed popular songs. Although only […]
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May 19, 2016
The Streaming Performance Royalty Rate Explained
Artists and songwriters, even some publishers, very often misunderstand how streaming income and royalty rates and payments are determined because it’s a immensely complex subject. One of the things that I’ve done in my new Music 4.1 book is provide an overview of how streaming royalties work and are paid, in many cases following the revenue stream down […]
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May 18, 2016
Steve Miller’s Rock n’ Roll Hall Of Fame Rant
I’ve been no fan of the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, as you probably know if you read this blog. I don’t believe there should be such an institution, since there’s really no way to quantify who should be in it, unlike a sports HOF where there are plenty of statistics to gauge someone’s […]
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May 17, 2016
YouTube Adopts A New Tool For Faster Royalty Payments
One of the things that bugs artists, songwriters and labels about YouTube is that it’s pretty difficult to get precise information about views and payments. In many cases, views aren’t counted and in other cases payments take too long to arrive. YouTube is hoping to alleviate those problems by implementing a new tool based on the […]
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May 16, 2016
Universal Music Makes Nearly $4 Million A Day From Streaming
Who says that there’s no money in streaming? It seems that all of those micro-payments add up after all as Universal Music Group is making about $3.9 million per day just from streaming music, according to its parent Vivendi’s first quarter earnings statement. In fact, UMG’s streaming revenue was up almost 60% over the previous quarter, […]
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May 13, 2016
- in Book Excerpt , Streaming Music by Bobby Owsinski
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- 4 comments
A Streaming Music Royalty Primer
Streaming music royalty rates are such a morass of different percentages and possibilities that few people on the planet totally understand everything, and the ones who do are attorneys working in that narrow end of the music business. Even label and publishing execs who have been in the business for 20 or more years can […]
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May 12, 2016
Spotify To Launch 12 Original Video Shows
Spotify recently announced that it was getting into the original content business by launching 12 new shows, and guess what? They’ll all be on video. According to the company, the video shows will be “centered around three main themes – music performances, music profiles and music culture,” and the episodes will be up to fifteen minutes long. The foray […]
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May 11, 2016
Amazon Launches YouTube Rival With Amazon Video Direct
User generated videos must be a really big business because another huge online player just jumped into the arena with YouTube and Facebook. Yesterday Amazon announced the launch of its new video posting service, called Amazon Video Direct, in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and Japan. The launch partners include Conde Nast Entertainment, HowStuffWorks, Samuel Goldwyn […]
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