When it comes to technology, the music business has always been about convenience. It’s ultimately never about the sound or even a lower cost, it’s always comes down to what’s easiest to use. Still, it’s surprising to see the MP3 file format (or the “download” as many know it) accelerating so quickly towards the end […]
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The largest radio station ownership group is in big financial trouble. iHeartRadio, which owns over 850 terrestrial radio stations, is struggling as it’s projected to lose more than $80 million this year and has threatened bankruptcy. That has spooked the investors that loaned the company more than $6 billion, and now they want their money. Actually, […]
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Here’s the music industry news roundup from the last week. Warner Music was in the spotlight, as was Sony/ATV publishing, but Spotify and YouTube couldn’t stay out of the news if they tried. Warner Music signs with Vevo. Warners is the last of the big 3 major labels to do a deal with Vevo, but it finally […]
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Many artists and bands think that they’ll automatically make money when their videos are viewed on YouTube, but that’s far from the case. In the last part of my series on streaming royalties and an excerpt from my new Music 4.1 Internet Music Guidebook, you’ll see all of the variables that go into how YouTube views […]
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Ed Cherney has become one of the legends of the audio end of the music business, having won 3 Grammys, an Emmy award, 5 TEC awards and been inducted into the TEC hall of fame. His client list is a who’s who of great artists that include Bonnie Riatt, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Bob […]
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The numbers in total are staggering. To date, there are roughly 2 billion total videos on YouTube that have been watched a total of 39 trillion times, totaling 196 trillion minutes (or 400 million years) of time spent, according to Bernstein Research. What might be most interesting is that out of billions of videos, viewership tends to be […]
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SoundCloud is seeking a buyer, and that could make it much more difficult for indie music artists across all genres to have their music heard. The streaming music service is reportedly seeking a sale in the $1 billion range in a deal that could alter that part of the music landscape for a long time. According to […]
Continue readingHere’s the music industry news roundup from the last week. There’s much more diverse news than previous weeks, but streaming continues to dominate the conversation. Taylor Swift is the highest earning celebrity. The thing is, she didn’t get that way from selling music. She learned early that it’s the brand that sells. Elizabeth Warren has it in […]
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Here’s a very interesting video from The Economist that looks at the new dynamics of the record business and whether an artist really needs a record label these days. It’s a veiled advert for Kobalt, but frankly, that company is way ahead of the game when it comes to not only collecting artist royalties, but […]
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We all love vinyl and if you’re an artist you’d like to release your next album on it. The problem is the long 6 month+ wait times at the pressing plants and the big orders that you have to place just to get in line. Qrates.com offers vinyl orders for as few as 100 copies, […]
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YouTube is capable of making people stars, and while that happens to exceptional content creators, most of them are not music artists. One of the reasons that artists don’t fall into the YouTube star category is that their general mindset is still set in the past. Here are the 4 places were artists go wrong on YouTube, […]
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After a year run up, the streaming service Deezer has finally launched in the United States. Spotify’s major competitor in Europe is now in the world’s largest market, but the question is, does it have enough to differentiate itself from the rest of the current streaming contenders in the space? The Paris-based service launched in […]
Continue readingHere’s some interesting music business news from the last week. There’s a lot going on in the streaming world, but as usual, that’s not all. Warner Music had it’s best quarter in a long time. Streaming agrees with this major label, and it’s up around 14% over the same time last year. Guest what? It’s […]
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Who says Apple’s music executives aren’t smart? In what may end up being a brilliant strategic move, the company discretely made a proposal to the governing Copyright Royalty Board to increase the song publishing royalty rate to 9.1 cents per 100 interactive streams, a significant increase over what is currently paid, according to the NY […]
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On this week’s Inner Circle Podcast #118 I’m happy to feature Bobby Summerfield, my compadre from the AudioNowcast, as my guest. Bobby’s worked with a variety of great artists ranging from Michael Jackson to Carole King to world music superstar Johnny Clegg to the legendary Harry Belafonte. He’s also a composer with his own music […]
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