Tag: Streaming Revenue

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Music accounts for 5% of all YouTube content — and 20% of all views

YouTube, Youtube music, music on YouTube, streaming, streaming music

Despite being one of the lowest paying streaming platforms, artists worldwide can see their careers change overnight through YouTube.

The study by Pex showcases categories on YouTube that are dominant drivers of growth and engagement for the platform. The study examined the performance of publicly available videos on YouTube for a period ending December 31, 2018. The results reveal that YouTube has over 5.2 billion videos, 1 billion hours of content, and 29 trillion views.

To put that figure into perspective, it would take 41,666,667 days of nonstop watching to view everything that was available on YouTube when the study was completed. Even more content is available now.

According to the data Pex shared, YouTube saw around 621 hours of content uploaded every minute in 2018, or roughly 10 hours of content every second. That’s even higher than the 500-hour estimate shared by CEO Susan Wojcicki earlier this year. Unsurprisingly, the length of these videos has increased each year since the restriction lifted.

Youtube videos are getting longer, and ads are largely to blame.

The reason for the change of the average video length is likely the result of YouTube’s advertising deal with creators. YouTube shares a portion of the revenue for ads shown during the video with that clip’s creator, but the service limits how many ads can be displayed based on the length of the accompanying video. Longer videos, therefore, equal more ads, which means more money for creators (even if their viewers are frustrated).

Gaming is the fastest-growing category on YouTube thanks to the popularity of services such as Twitch, but music still has the lead.

The average length of a music video on YouTube is 6.8 minutes, with an average of 2,411 views per minute and 16,397 views per video. That’s compared to the gaming category’s average of 24.7 minutes per video with only 121 views per minute and 2,987 views per video.

Music is the category with the shortest videos, but it generates the most views per average video. The music category received 20% of all total views on YouTube last year — but makes up only 5% of YouTube’s content. Music and Entertainment are the two YouTube categories that deliver the highest returns, but YouTube doesn’t want you to know that because both entertainment and music videos often require the company to pay royalties. YouTube does not want to share revenue anymore than it needs to, which is likely why the streaming giant has been investing heavily into original content.

The less YouTube needs major labels and movie studios, the better, at least for YouTube.

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The Biggest Streaming Earners In 2019 (So Far)

Streaming has changed the way artists make money, but that doesn’t mean the biggest stars of today have fallen on hard times.

When its the last time someone told you about buying an album? When is the last time someone who wasn’t a collector (vinyl, cassette) told you they bought an album? Unless your inner circle is filled with devoted, old school music fans the answer is probably not anytime in the recent past. We live in the age of digital, which means we live in the streaming era, and that evolution has changed the ways musicians make money.

Depending on who you ask, this is a good and bad thing. Newer artists, especially in the world of rock and metal, claim streaming has made it harder to earn money because fewer people are willing to pay $5 or $10 to purchase their music outright. On the other hand, artists who create strong singles have found that the ease of access that Spotify and similar platforms provide has lowered the barrier to discovery. Those artists still make far less per stream than they would if each play was tied to a sale, but high stream counts can prove more beneficial than sales over time.

Whatever the struggles for newer artists may be, those talents at the top of the industry hierarchy are continuing to rake in plenty of cash in the age of streaming. Understanding the math behind the streams is often a struggle, but Billboard recently uncovered the top 5 streaming earners of 2019 so far, as well as a rough estimate of just how much money they’ve brought in for their label and team.

1. ARIANA GRANDE
Total label streaming revenue YTD: $12.08M
Total audio and video on-demand streams YTD: 2.83B

2. DRAKE
Total label streaming revenue YTD: $11.29M
Total audio and video on-demand streams YTD: 2.58B

3. POST MALONE 
Total label streaming revenue YTD: $10.90M
Total audio and video on-demand streams YTD: 2.63B

4. JUICE WRLD
Total label streaming revenue YTD: $8.38M
Total audio and video on-demand streams YTD: 1.92B

5. BILLIE EILISH
Total label streaming revenue YTD: $7.93M
Total audio and video on-demand streams YTD: 1.89B

Billboard’s estimates are based on Nielsen Music data and other information as of the week ending April 18. It’s a month later now, but the top five most likely remains the same, only with larger play counts.

It’s important to note that the second figure under each artist’s name combines song and video streams. Audio streams generate more revenue than video streams, but YouTube is an incredibly popular platform for music.

The figures above cover the sound recording royalty that the record label collects and doesn’t include publishing.

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Spotify founder says “close to 40,000” tracks added to streaming service every day

The latest data point from Spotify’s founder reveals a hard truth about competition in the streaming age.

Spotify Founder and CEO Daniel Ek spoke with investors this week during a quarterly earnings call to discuss the latest developments at the streaming giant. Amongst the many tidbits of information shared, including the companies’ recent success crossing the 100-million paid user count, was the fact that nearly 40,000 new songs are added to the service each day. To be specific, Ek said:

“with more than 50 million tracks now available on Spotify, and growing by close to 40,000 daily, the discover[y] tools we’re building have never been more important to consumers and artists alike.”

Daniel Ek, speaking to investors on April 29, 2019

Let’s put that figure into perspective. Forty thousand tracks per day equal about 280,000 songs a week or around 1.2 million tracks per calendar month. In a year, this volume would add up to a whopping 14.6 million.

Therefore, at its current rate, every three-and-a-half years, Spotify will add over 50 million tracks to its library. Considering the platform currently boasts a catalog of roughly 50 million songs total, the current growth rate would double Spotify’s music library by 2022, and it could happen sooner than that.

To look at it another way, let’s accept that the average song is about three minutes long, or 180-seconds. With 40,000 songs added every day, Spotify is creating roughly 2,000 hours worth of new competition for clicks each morning.

If you listened to every song added to Spotify in a single day without taking breaks it would take you a little more than 83 days to hear everything. That’s almost three months of music being added to one streaming service each day.

Daniel Ek also added that the “number of creators that are engaging directly with Spotify’s platform continues to increase, growing to over 3.9 million” in the first three months of 2019. That figure refers to musicians and podcasters, both of whom are contributing to the overwhelming amount of content being added to the platform each day.

Artists reading this now may find themselves in a panic. After all, how can anyone adding music to the platform with a promotional juggernaut behind them hope to stand out in a sea of music far too large to ever be consumed in full? For them, Ek offers this data point:

“In Q1, we saw a 20% increase in the number of artists streamed on our platform year-over-year and a 29% increase in the number of artists with at least 100,000 listeners.

Daniel Ek, speaking to investors on April 29, 2019

The best chance most artists have of being discovered on Spotify is through appearances on popular playlists. We ran the advice of one playlisting professional on our blog last week, and we plan to share more in the weeks to come.

If Spotify’s catalog is growing at this unprecedented rate, it’s highly likely that the same can be said for Apple Music and Amazon Music, as well as their smaller competitors. Streaming may be helping the music business recover from its low point, but it’s certainly not helping developing artists make careers out of their work in the same way physical media sales once did. At least, not yet.

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Streaming now accounts for 37% of global recorded music revenue

Paid streaming subscriptions have taken the world by storm, and their increasing domination in the recorded music marketplace is likely to continue.

It’s no surprise that paid streaming subscriptions are on the rise worldwide. Here in the US, a report from the RIAA discovered that paid subscription streaming in the US remained the largest driver of revenue for the American music industry. Their data was backed up by a similar report from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), which published its own findings showing that paid streaming revenue has also overtaken physical and download revenue in the UK.  The ERA found that 62.1% of all British music revenue last year came from paid subscription streaming.  Just 37.9% came from physical sales and digital downloads.

And we cannot forget the British. A recent data dump from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) revealed paid subscription streams accounted for 54% of British labels’ income last year.  Revenue from these streams grew 34% over 2017 to £468 million ($614 million).  Overall streaming music revenue grew to £516 million ($687 million).  Ad-funded streams (Spotify, Deezer, etc.) 25.8% to £19 million ($25 million).

As if all those reports were not enough to confirm paid streaming subscriptions impending rule over the recorded music marketplace, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has released its own report for 2018.

The report, which is available online, reveals that the global recorded music market grew 9.7% year-over-year in 2018 to $19.1 billion, thanks in large part to paid streaming subscriptions (which accounted for 37% of total global revenue). That figure is but more impressive still is the fact that all streaming-related revenue grew 34% year-over-year to $9 billion, accounting for 47% – essentially half – of all global revenue.  

The continued growth of streaming revenue helped to offset a 10.1% decline in physical revenue and a 21.2% drop in download revenue. Figures that, if trends hold true, will continue to drop in 2019.

Speaking to the report, IFPI’s Chief Executive Francis Moore explained:

“Last year represented the fourth consecutive year of growth, driven by great music from incredible artists in partnership with talented, passionate people in record companies around the world.

“We continue to work for the respect and recognition of music copyright around the world, and for the resolution of the value gap by establishing a level playing field for negotiating a fair deal for those who create music.

“Above all, we’re working to ensure that music continues its exciting, global journey.”

Artists around the world are continuing to fight for higher royalty rates while asking fans to consider purchasing physical media, but the fact remains that streaming is here to stay. The question is whether or not the companies that provide the services will work with artists to raise their returns or continue to keep mechanical royalties as low as possible.

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Pre-Adds (Pre-Saves) are the new pre-orders, but is that a good thing?

Consumers are replacing pre-orders with pre-adds and pre-saves, but is something important being lost along the way?

Fast-rising pop sensation Billie Eilish will release her debut record, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, this Friday, but the teenager’s album is already being considered a massive success. Despite not yet being released, the LP has already accrued more than 800,000 pre-adds on Apple Music, which allows users to register to add an album to their streaming collection before it ships, with Eilish setting a new record for the service.

That volume of pre-adds for Eilish’s album is a sign of how the industry is continuing to evolve. Speaking to Music Business Worldwide, Apple Music boss Oliver Schusser said:

“While most services focus the majority of their efforts around playlists, Apple Music still emphasizes albums because we understand their value as a storytelling tool for artists to create context around their music.

To that end, pre-adds are great early indicators of engagement around an artist and the intention of the fans. To actively pre-add an album, much like the pre-order we invented with iTunes, means that the fan is excited about the content and wants to be among the first to enjoy it the moment its available. That kind of engagement is very valuable to an artist and to us.”

Spotify offers a service similar to Apple Music. The company’s pre-save feature allows users to register to have the album added to their library and to receive an alert regarding the content’s availability. The reliability of the notifications depend on how many pre-saves a user registers, but the content is always added as soon as its made available.

While the figures for Eilish’s album are great, pre-adds and pre-saves are not a perfect replacement for pre-orders. Schusser was right to say the numbers can tell a lot about excitement for a release, and they can also help predict initial performance, but the tools currently available to artists through streaming platforms do not provide context about their audience.

If a user pre-saves or pre-adds an album, what does the artist get? Do they know my name? Where I live? My email address? Do they receive anything other than a counter that tells them I am one of the however many people that have decided to request notification of their release becoming available?

Streaming services also do not offer any data that informs artists as to whether or not consumers who pre-save their release actually listen to it.

The real winner in the rising popularity of pre-saves and pre-adds are the streaming services offering them. By using that functionality, consumers are providing the platforms with additional insight into their listening habits. Their actions are strengthening the algorithms that recommend content and create playlists. Whether they know it or not, consumers are strengthening the services they use more than the artists they’re hoping to support.

Still, streaming is here to stay and there is no getting around that fact. If the industry is lucky, Spotify, Apple Music, and similar platforms will make more listener data available to them as time progresses. That seems more likely than a rise in royalty rates based on recent events, but it’s still not going to happen overnight.

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Spotify Premium now includes Hulu at no extra cost

Will Spotify’s latest marketing ploy boost its subscriber count as Apple Music’s popularity continues to rise?

Spotify Premium now includes a free subscription to Hulu’s ad-supported plan. That perk goes into effect today, and it is available to new and existing users of Spotify’s Premium streaming service in the US.

The announcement marks the latest bundling collaboration between the two streaming giants in recent years. In 2017, Spotify introduced a plan for university students priced at $4.99 a month. The subscription included ad-free access to Spotify’s entire catalog, as well as access to Hulu’s limited commercial plan.

To take advantage of the offer, new Spotify users can sign up now. Once joined head over to the “Your Services” page within account settings and activate your Hulu subscription. If you already get Hulu through Spotify, you won’t have to do anything to start saving an extra $3 per month. On the other hand, if you subscribe to Hulu and don’t yet have a Spotify account, you’ll need to cancel your billing through Hulu, then set it up through Spotify to receive the discount.

Unlike the $4.99 Student Plan, which bundles Hulu’s limited commercial plan, plus the Showtime channel alongside the music streaming service, its new promotion doesn’t include any other free extras. The new deal does not allow subscribers to add additional services to their plan, which means those who access Hulu through Spotify will need to find another way to enjoy Game Of Thrones and Billions in the months ahead.

The timing of Spotify’s new offer could not be better for the company, who has spent the past week embroiled in controversy after taking a stance against raising the royalty rate it pays artists. The deal also reveals yet another way the streaming company hopes to combat the rising popularity of Apple Music, which has been growing its premium subscribe count at an alarming rate in recent months.

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Spotify, Amazon, and more sue songwriters to prevent royalty rates from rising

Four of the largest music streaming services are appealing a ruling that promises to raise mechanical royalty rates by 44% over the next five years.

How much is a song worth? According to most streaming services, the answer is roughly $0.003 per stream. A new ruling from the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) aims to raise that value to $0.004 per stream, but Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, and Google disagree.

The four streaming giants are appealing the ruling that hopes to raise mechanical royalty rates by 44% over the next five years. Spotify, Amazon, Google, and Pandora have each filed separate appeals, with Apple the only major streaming player choosing to abstain.

The four companies also released a joint statement detailing their decision, which reads, “The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), in a split decision, recently issued the U.S. mechanical statutory rates in a manner that raises serious procedural and substantive concerns. If left to stand, the CRB’s decision harms both music licensees and copyright owners. Accordingly, we are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the decision.”

In a statement released today, March 7, the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) said that a “huge victory for songwriters is now in jeopardy” due to the streaming services’ filings.

NMPA President & CEO David Israelite commented:

“When the Music Modernization Act became law, there was hope it signaled a new day of improved relations between digital music services and songwriters.

That hope was snuffed out today when Spotify and Amazon decided to sue songwriters in a shameful attempt to cut their payments by nearly one-third.

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) spent two years reading thousands of pages of briefs and hearing from dozens of witnesses while both sides spent tens of millions of dollars on attorneys arguing over the worth of songs to the giant technology companies who run streaming services.

The CRB’s final determination gave songwriters only their second meaningful rate increase in 110 years. Instead of accepting the CRB’s decision which still values songs less than their fair market value, Spotify and Amazon have declared war on the songwriting community by appealing that decision.”

“When the Music Modernization Act became law, there was hope it signaled a new day of improved relations between digital music services and songwriters. That hope was snuffed out today when Spotify and Amazon decided to sue songwriters in a shameful attempt to cut their payments by nearly one-third.

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) spent two years reading thousands of pages of briefs and hearing from dozens of witnesses while both sides spent tens of millions of dollars on attorneys arguing over the worth of songs to the giant technology companies who run streaming services. The CRB’s final determination gave songwriters only their second meaningful rate increase in 110 years. Instead of accepting the CRB’s decision which still values songs less than their fair market value, Spotify and Amazon have declared war on the songwriting community by appealing that decision.

No amount of insincere and hollow public relations gestures such as throwing parties or buying billboards of congratulations or naming songwriters “geniuses” can hide the fact that these big tech bullies do not respect or value the songwriters who make their businesses possible.

We thank Apple Music for accepting the CRB decision and continuing its practice of being a friend to songwriters.  While Spotify and Amazon surely hope this will play out in a quiet appellate courtroom, every songwriter and every fan of music should stand up and take notice. We will fight with every available resource to protect the CRB’s decision.”


Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) Executive Director Bart Herbison also responded to the companies’ decision, saying:

“It is unfortunate that Amazon and Spotify decided to file an appeal on the CRB’s decision to pay American songwriters higher digital mechanical royalties. Many songwriters have found it difficult to stay in the profession in the era of streaming music. You cannot feed a family when you earn hundreds of dollars for millions of streams.

Spotify specifically continues to try and depress royalties to songwriters around the globe as illustrated by their recent moves in India. Trying to work together as partners toward a robust future in the digital music era is difficult when any streaming company fails to recognize the value of a songwriter’s contribution to their business.”

If the ruling holds, the 44% increase will be only the second substantial increase to mechanical royalty rates to pass in the last 110-years.

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50 million US consumers paid for streaming music last year, RIAA says

The latest report from the Recording Industry Association of America shows consumer interest in premium streaming music subscriptions is on the rise.

Numbers can be deceiving. When asked to discuss their growth, streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music will often quote their global user statistics instead of those related to a specific country or continent. That isn’t necessarily wrong by any means, but it can lead consumers and investors alike to perceive a company’s standing in a different light.

In January, Spotify announced it now welcomed over 200 million users every month. That figure, which refers to the platform’s total global user count, included 96 million paying premium subscribers. No further details were given related to where paying subscriptions came from, nor has any similar information been provided to the media since.

A new report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has shed a bit more light on the streaming market. According to the study, 50 million US consumers paid for streaming music services in 2018. Use of such platforms rose 33% over 2017’s numbers, and it’s likely to grow further still in 2019.

“Tremendous output from the artist community fueled a historic milestone of 50 million subscriptions to music services, which in turn helped drive U.S. music’s third consecutive year of double-digit growth,” RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier said in a statement.

“Rejuvenation in the industry means more opportunities to find and break new artists for fans to enjoy,” Glazier said.

Additional data found in the report reveals that 75% of music industry revenue now comes from various forms of streaming. Physical sales of vinyl records continued to increase, up 8% to $419 million, the highest level since 1988.

Unfortunately, other forms of physical media were not as successful. Revenue from CD sales are down almost 34%, to $698 million; music video sales fell more than 28%, to $28 million; and sales of “other physical media,” including cassette tapes, was off nearly 22%, to $9.6 million.

Total music revenue for 2018 totaled just under $10 billion — a significant recovery from the low of $6.7 billion in both 2014 and 2015 — but the industry is only back to a level close to what it was in 2007 when the total was $10.7 billion.

The RIAA did not comment on how the rising popularity of streaming services is impacting the lives of artists. The most popular performers have reported big earning from Spotify and the like, but many smaller and mid-size artists have found it harder to rely on recorded music to pay their bills.

Regardless, it appears the streaming boom will continue for the foreseeable future. Follow HaulixDaily on Facebook and Twitter for more industry news and insight.

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The pros and cons of Spotify’s direct distribution deals

Spotify playlists are shaping the future music business, but reaching the curators of the most influential lists is often incredibly difficult. We can help.

Spotify shook the music industry late last month by announcing plans to empower all artists to directly upload music to their services. The decision marked a change from the industry norm, which has traditionally required artists to work with distributors like Tunecore and CDBaby, but it also left many questions. In particular, how much will artists get paid, and how does it compare to the deals currently being made throughout the industry?

In a new report released by MusicBusinessWorldwide late last, it is revealed that Spotify’s latest move is actually quite beneficial…As long as you know what you’re doing.

Spotify has confirmed the direct distribution deals with artists will pay a 50% share of all streaming revenue. This figure is in line with industry expectations, as anything less would make the service no better than any current distribution offerings.

But how does that compare to Spotify’s label deals? Currently, Spotify pays all major labels a 52% share of all streaming revenue. That number looks better on paper, but only before you remember that the label shares that figure with the artist. Performers working with major labels typically receive anywhere from 15-50% of that share, which is far less than artists choosing to use the direct upload model. Only hitmakers like Drake or Taylor Swift have any chance at securing the full 52%.

To further illustrate these numbers, MBW produced the following infographic:

To use an example, let’s say an artist generate $10,000 in streaming revenue over the course of a single month.

With the new directly upload deals, Spotify makes $5,000 and the artist makes $5,000.

With traditional major label deals, Spotify makes $4,800, and the label gets $5,200. The artist then gets anywhere from $780-2,550.

With the average internet distribution deal, Spotify makes $4,800, and the artist generates $4,420, while the distributor claims the remaining $780.

Taking all this into consideration, Spotify’s direct upload deals would appear to be ideal for anyone hoping to get the most significant return for their music. However, these figures do not take into account how a major label can aide an artist in getting their music heard. While an independent act may make more on paper, artists backed by labels staffed with marketing geniuses have a higher likelihood of bringing in large amounts of money as long as their music is as popular as the label hopes it will become.

Still, if an album released through a major flop, the overall take for the associated artist could be next to nothing when compared to an independent act with a similar amount of streams.

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