Music Industry News Roundup For The Week Of 4/28/17

Here’s the Music Industry News Roundup for the week ending on April 28th, 2017. There was a wide variety of news stories this week, from streaming struggles to hardware development to streaming royalties to radio. Let’s get into it.

Spotify has acquired the blockchain startup Mediachain Labs. The company wants to use blockchain technology to help with attributing streams to the correct owner, a problem that its been having for some time.

It’s also developing its own hardware. Reports are that Spotify wants to have its own version of Amazon’s Echo wireless speaker.

Streaming music is booming, so why is SoundCloud struggling? A look at why the service is losing its successful artist customers, and its valuation.

The Global Jukebox displays cultural data. It’s a very cool interactive representation of the music of the world. Take a deep dive into the data.

The music industry had a big year, but it could have been better. Income (or lack of it) from YouTube is still hampering the recovery process.

A look back at Record Store Day. Its founders take a look at how it all started, and answer the critics about why its going corporate.

The top 1% of artists make most of the revenue from recorded music. No surprise there, but the amount (77%) really is.

UMG has fewer employees than 10 years ago. That’s even after acquiring EMI. There seems to be a new round of layoffs every time you turn around even though the company is worth more today ($22 billion) than ever.

iHeartRadio will probably enter bankruptcy. It’s carrying way too much debt and bankruptcy may be the only way to turn its financial hardship around.

Radio stations have to have a studio on-site. It’s an FCC rule, but since we all work in the cloud today, an outdated one that needs changing.

That’s the Music News Roundup of what went on in the music industry last week. Have a great week ahead!