Towards a music streaming economy – Scandinavia part 3

Part 1 of the blog series highlights that the Scandinavian countries are the world’s music streaming avant-garde due to a well-established broadband Internet infra-structure, a high smartphone penetration rate and domestic business innovations (see also part 2). The most influential Scandinavian business innovation was Sweden’s Spotify, which was launched in October 2008 at the culmination of The Pirate Bay lawsuit. However, several other services early offered music access to music in Scandinavia. In 2009, Finnish smartphone company Nokia launched the Comes-With-Music service, which allowed unlimited music access for a year on special Nokia Comes-With-Music phones. In the same year, Swedish Sony-Ericsson in collaboration with Norwegian Telenor offered the PlayNow plus service on its special edition of Sony Ericsson Walkman phones (IFPI 2009: 8). However, the mobile phone manufacturers failed to meet the music consumers’ convenience. Nokia’s music was DRM protected until 2010 and limited to special Nokia devices, whereas Sony Ericssons’ music was DRM free, but limited in time and to special devices.

In 2011 both services were, therefore, were discontinued,[1] when Spotify, WiMP and TDC Play started to dominate the digital music market. In 2009, the Danish TDC Play was the first ISP music service offering unlimited music streaming from 6.1 million tracks without any additional costs (IFPI 2010: 8). Spotify’s ad-supported unlimited streaming tier was also bundled in ISP TeliaSonora in Sweden and Finland and the premium tier could be directly paid on the broadband bill (ibid.: 9). WiMP’s subscription service also succeeded in Norway due to its bundling in Telenor’s mobile phone contracts (IFPI 2011: 9).

Consumer convenience, therefore, was the key success factor for music streaming services in Scandinavia. It was easier to access music by a streaming services than downloading music from P2P file sharing networks with the risk of malwares and viruses. Music consumption studies in Norway and Sweden highlight this shift from P2P file sharing to music streaming as outlined in the following analysis.

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Towards a music streaming economy – Scandinavia part 2

A series of blog entries tells the story of how the Scandinavian countries have become the forerunners of the music streaming economy and highlights the background of this development. In the second part of the  series on Scandinavian’s way to a music streaming economy technological and business innovations that fostered music streaming are highlighted.

The Scandinavian countries are forerunners in broadband Internet penetration. From 2000 until 2006 the share of households with broadband Internet access increased from almost zero to 70 percent in Denmark and Norway, even to 80 percent in Finland and Sweden. Currently, almost all Scandinavian households have a broadband high-speed Internet access (figure 1).

 

Figure 1: Recorded music revenue and broadband Internet penetration in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, 1996-2017

Source: Wlömert and Papies (2019: 56).

 

International Journal of Music Business Research – April 2019, vol. 8, no. 1

The April issue 2019 of the International Journal of Music Business Research (IJMBR) opens with the article “Digital enabled experience – the listening experience in music streaming”. Bård Tronvoll, Professor of Marketing at the Business School of Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, analyses the drivers as well as the outcomes of music listening on streaming platforms such as Spotify.

The second article – “An analysis of ticket pricing in the primary and secondary concert marketplace” – by Terrance Tompkins of Hofstra University in New York City is a literature survey on the factors that impact the pricing of concert tickets in primary and secondary markets.

Silvia Donker, who was awarded the best paper in the Young Scholars’ Workshop of the 9^th Vienna Music Business Research Days 2018, contributes the third article of this issue. “Networking data. A network analysis of Spotify’s socio-technical related artist network” provides a case study on Spotify’s related artist network of the Dutch drum & bass band Noisia.

This issue rounds up with a book review of “The Music Business and Digital Impacts. Innovations and Disruptions in the Music Industries” by Daniel Nordgård, published as the first volume in the Music Business Research series of Springer Publishing.

 

Volume 8, no 1, April 2019

Editorial by Peter Tschmuck, pp. 4-5

Bård Tronvoll: Digital enabled experience – listening experience in music streaming, pp. 6-38

Terrance Tompkins: An analysis of ticket pricing in the primary and secondary concert marketplace, pp. 39-66

Silvia Donker: Networking data. A network analysis of Spotify’s sociotechnical related artist network, pp. 67-101

Book review by Peter Tschmuck: The Music Business and Digital Impacts. Innovations and Disruptions in the Music Industries by Daniel Nordgård, pp. 102-105

 

 

Music Business Research 2018 – in retrospective

Dear all,

The music business highlight of 2018 was Spotify’s IPO on April 3^rd. The public listing of the music streaming service at the New York Stock Exchange was warmly welcomed by the investors with a price per share of US $166 and a market capitalization of US $26.5bn.[1] In the following Spotify’s stock price reached an all-time high of US $196.3 at the end of July – giving it a market capitalization of US $35.3bn. In the meantime, however, Spotify’s stock price lost more than 40 percent and currently the company is worth US $20.6bn.[2] This can only partly be explained by a bearish stock market in the second half of 2018, since the S&P 500 stock exchange index lost just 11.7 percent in the same period. It seems that investors have doubts about Spotify’s business model. The business analysis highlights increasing losses despite a sharply rising number of monthly active users – currently 83m premium subscribers and 109m ad-supported monthly active users.[3] However, the music industry major companies (except Universal Music Group) and the indie label licencing agency MERLIN sold their stakes in Spotify shortly after its IPO at a profit. The recorded music majors are the main beneficiaries of the booming music streaming market, which has grown by 41.1 percent to globally US $6.6bn in 2017.[4]. In-depth analyses of the Universal’s as well as Warner’s business performance highlight that the major companies as well as larger indie labels have increasing revenues and profits due to music streaming.

Beyond Spotify and the booming music streaming, I also want to point at the following music business related topics in 2018:

• Vivendi’s plans to sell at least 50 percent of Universal Music Group to Liberty Media (owner Sirius XM Radio Inc.), which also bought a controlling stake in US music streaming service Pandora in 2018,
• the announcement by Chinese Tencent Holdings of an IPO of its Tencent Music Entertainment Group at the New York Stock Exchange,
• the enactment of the US Music Modernization Act
• and the fight over Article 13 of the pending EU Copyright Directive.

Spotify goes public – an economic background analysis

April 3^rd 2018 is a historic moment in the digitized music industry, when the Swedish music streaming company Spotify is listed at the New York Stock Exchange. Spotify’s stock exchange listing is not just a touchstone for the music streaming service’s business model, but for the entire recorded music industry that is back on a path of growth. Spotify is the darling of the big music industry players. It provides a legal business model that can be monetized by hefty advances and royalty payments. This allowed the music majors and the indie label licensing agency MERLIN to become Spotify’s shareholders in return for advance payments Spotiy could not afford. Sony Music Entertainment’s Spotify stake of 5.7 percent (Spotify 2018: 148) e.g. is worth US $500m to 1.3bn.[1] The following analysis highlights Spotify’s success story, but also outlines potential risks of going public. It also analysis who benefits from Spotify’s stock exchange listing and assesses the impact on the music streaming market.

The Economics of Music Streaming – Book presentation & Panel Discussion

In collaboration with the Austrian and Viennese Chamber of Commerce an additional event of the 8th Vienna Music Business Research Days 2017 wil take place in Gewerbehaus of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (3., Rudolf Sallinger Platz 1) on September 13 from 19:00-21:00. After the book presentation “The Economics of Music” by Peter Tschmuck, Peter Jenner (Sincere Management, London), Sally Gross (University of Westminster, London), Hannes Tschürtz (ink music, Vienna) and Alexander Hirschenhauser (VTMÖ – Austrian Indie Label Association, Vienna) discuss on “The Economics of Music Streaming – Revenue Streams for Musicans and Music Producers from Spotify & Co?”

Entrance is free, please register here: Austrian Chamber of Commerce (WKO)

 

The Economics of Music Streaming – Revenue Streams for Musicans and Music Producers from Spotify & Co?
September 13, 2017
19.00-21.00
Gewerbehaus
Große Dachterrasse
Rudolf Sallinger Platz 1, 1030 Wien

 

in collaboration with        and      

 

 

Music Business Research 2016 – in retrospective

Dear readers of the music business research blog,

2016 seems to be the pivotal year in the recorded music industry. Although no annual statistics have been published until yet, we can take it for granted that the positive trend of 2015 continued in 2016. In 2015, the global recorded music market expanded by 3.4%. The US-market slightly grew by 0.9% and the German recorded music sales even increased by 4.4%.

The booming music streaming market was of course the main driver for the economic recovery of the recorded music business in 2015 and we can expect a further growth in 2016 and the upcoming year. The revenue growth of the streaming business compensated for the decline in CD sales, despite decreasing music download sales as highlighted in “The fate of the CD – an international CD-market analysis”. However, an in-depth analysis of the statistics unveils very different market dynamics in various countries. Whereas music streaming is the main business of the recorded music industry in Scandinavia, CD sales are still relevant in Germany and in Japan (see “The Music Streaming Market Revisited, 2011-2015”).

The Economics of Music Streaming: Spotify

2016 is the pivotal year for the music streaming industry. After years of growth, we can expect a market consolation for the new few months with mergers, acquisitions and insolvencies. Thus, the question arises which music streaming services will survive that consolidation process. I try to assess who will be the winners and losers by analysing the financials of several music streaming companies. In the first part of this series I examine the global market leader in the music streaming market, the Swedish music streaming company Spotify.

Music Streaming Revisited – the Problem of Income Distribution

The Rethink Music initiative recently published a report on “Fair Music: Transparency and Money Flows in the Music Industry”. The report identifies barriers in the money flows to artist and states:”[O]nly a small proportion of the money beyond the initial recording advances ultimately makes its way to artists as ongoing revenue.” (Rethink Music, 2015: 3). Especially in the digitized recorded music business the revenue streams are often obscure and non-transparent. And if it comes to music streaming, artists are sceptical about the underlying business model. Based on the report’s finding, the revenue streams from music streaming and the structures behind the business are analysed.

Music Streaming Revisited – the International Music Streaming Market 2014

Music streaming is on the rise. In the recent IFPI report “Recording Industry in Numbers 2014” IFPI CEO Frances Moore is cited with “Streaming is now a mainstream part of the modern music industry.” (IFPI 2015: 5) Indeed, global subscription streaming revenue increased by 39.0 per cent and ad-supported streaming revenue by 38.6 per cent in 2014. In 2014, the global music streaming market (ad-supported as well as subscription) has a volume of US $2.2bn, which is even bigger than the single track download market (US $1.9bn) (IFPI 2015: 9). Music streaming, therefore, accounts for nearly a third of the global recorded music market. However, the market share of music streaming differs between countries. Whereas in Sweden the music streaming market share is 70 per cent of the overall recorded music market, in Germany just 6.3 per cent of the recorded music revenue comes from music streaming sources. And Japan, the second largest recorded music market in world, lags behind with meagre 3.1 per cent.

In the following I would like to highlight the economic relevance of the music streaming market segment in an international comparison.