So they are technically paying them more but their (distributor?) is taking 30%?
30% is a lot of money. Perhaps the problem isn’t what the services are paying but that there are too many middle men taking their share.
Anonymous
Tunecore takes 0%.
(You can’t use them for Youtube though, but Youtube pays you directly.)
Oh Yeah
Middle-men suck, as do PROs. Pay the artist directly. That’s where we’re heading.
anon
Really? Its not viable for music services to deal directly with each artist or label individually. There’s a good reason that iTunes will only deal with approved distributors and a hand full of labels.
Tidal’s waffle about allowing artists to upload their own metadata and assets is more pr fluff from them, its never going to happen. No sensible business would allow it and they have already backtracked on it.
anon
and to add, there are very few artists who either want to or are able to provide the services with data and assets to a good enough standard for the services to be able to sell their music. until the serves are prepared to bear the cost of making idiot proof back ends there will always be the need for middle men, either labels, most of whom don’t at present have the expertise or the means to pay for it, or distributors, who do.
r.p.
viable? It’s not 1960 anymore. You can easily contact anyone and get answers within seconds. -_-
lazy? yes. a bit.
Anonymous
That wasn’t my point, I was referring more to the headache that dealing with a lot of artists and data and technology involves. There is a cost involved in that that a present is borne by the distributers and larger labels that would be passed on to the artist if the services dealt directly with the artists
But you inadvertently make a good point about customer service, it’s not something that interests them at all the moment. And why would it – no service in its right mind would take on the cost of providing customer service to every small artist and label at the moment, there isn’t the money and theres nothing to be gained from it as long as there are distributors to do that job for them. Again, if they did it they would only pass the costs onto the artist – theres no way they’ll give up market share by raising their prices to pay for it.
Vail, CO
Is that a distributor cut? I think it’s the cut of the service, 70% standard.
Anonymous
No, YouTube keeps 45% — not 30%.
indie label
we are stupid. we expected millions. we suck.
we will work at mcdonalds tomorrooooowww….
Chris
This is very misleading – very small sample size for YouTube. How have you only had 763 monetised streams? and all just in the USA?
Anonymous
I think Amyt is right, this isn’t YouTube, it’s Music Key.
Chris, yeah I was thinking this was YouTube MusicKey also. I didn’t clarify with the source, but I wanted to just show the data exactly as we received it. Let me ask about that.
Anonymous
YouTube pays 3 cent/stream? Hahaaa! In which world…
It pays about 3-15% of that (per click-through, not per stream).
Amyt
I’m guessing this chart is about YouTube Music Key, which is currently in beta I think
Anonymous
Ah yes, that explains the few streams.
Jiri
Anyone notice how good those Scandanavian numbers look compared to the U.S.?
Nick Dixon
Uschi Digard was always a favourite.
HansH
Interesting stuff. Paul, maybe you can add a graph of the total revenue per service? That would put things a different perspective.
1. Xbox Music 3,478.29 2. Google Play 786.78 3. Spotify 691.53 4. Rhapsody 537.63 5. Omnifone 357.95 6. Rdio 132.93 7. Aspiro 107.65 8. Beats 80.21 9. YouTube 28.16 10. Deezer 0.88 11. Yandex 0.09 12. Cricket 0.02
Anonymous
So, why aren’t we talking about Xbox Music?
Anonymous
…also, why oh why doesn’t it have video…
I actually like the fact it’s Microsoft. Sure, they used to be stupid or evil, or both (like Google today), but look at them now — they keep innovating, and they’re very good at it.
So why this old-school audio-only?
Genius
Xbox is the real deal. Supported by gamers, no music subscriptions and supported by a large company selling software and related items. Good business supporting fledgling music streaming service, sort of like many Starbucks locations opening in other existing businesses. Great music selection on Xbox too AND you don’t need an Xbox gaming device to use it- unlike the new Sony Playstation/Spotify merger.
That’s something I could into more. Actually, under youTube there were two designations: one for video stream, the other for audio stream. So maybe there’s more data on that.
Anonymous
Speaking of which — Spotify may decide to offer VIDEO now!
Pandora fits under ‘non-interactive streaming,’ not on-demand, so the reports come from a different source (administered through SoundExchange).
Alex Cann
TIDAL isn’t Aspiro. TIDAL bought out Aspiro and revamped things entirely, including upping the money paid to artists.
Rickshaw
This entire industry is a joke. The time spent complaining that things aren’t the same as they used to be outweighs the efforts to make things better. It’s a constant wait-and-see mode that labels are in when it comes to technology, with expectations set incorrectly. Here’s the plan going forward – work with everyone, because despite popular thinking, most online services don’t cannibalize other revenue streams. Now go to work.
John Smith
It would be interesting to see a more detailled version of the report, as most services have applied different Unit Prices within the same territory. Can you disclose the different types of “Streams” as listed within the report ? The per stream rates for Rdio for example within the US are ranging between 0.0003 to 0.0101
Chris Horvath
Believe me – I’m 100% on the side of the music creators, but…
On a shear journalistic level, I have an issue with a “Confidential Independent Label” as the source model. Either do it on the record with open books, or don’t.
So they are technically paying them more but their (distributor?) is taking 30%?
30% is a lot of money. Perhaps the problem isn’t what the services are paying but that there are too many middle men taking their share.
Tunecore takes 0%.
(You can’t use them for Youtube though, but Youtube pays you directly.)
Middle-men suck, as do PROs. Pay the artist directly. That’s where we’re heading.
Really? Its not viable for music services to deal directly with each artist or label individually. There’s a good reason that iTunes will only deal with approved distributors and a hand full of labels.
Tidal’s waffle about allowing artists to upload their own metadata and assets is more pr fluff from them, its never going to happen. No sensible business would allow it and they have already backtracked on it.
and to add, there are very few artists who either want to or are able to provide the services with data and assets to a good enough standard for the services to be able to sell their music. until the serves are prepared to bear the cost of making idiot proof back ends there will always be the need for middle men, either labels, most of whom don’t at present have the expertise or the means to pay for it, or distributors, who do.
viable? It’s not 1960 anymore. You can easily contact anyone and get answers within seconds. -_-
lazy? yes. a bit.
That wasn’t my point, I was referring more to the headache that dealing with a lot of artists and data and technology involves. There is a cost involved in that that a present is borne by the distributers and larger labels that would be passed on to the artist if the services dealt directly with the artists
But you inadvertently make a good point about customer service, it’s not something that interests them at all the moment. And why would it – no service in its right mind would take on the cost of providing customer service to every small artist and label at the moment, there isn’t the money and theres nothing to be gained from it as long as there are distributors to do that job for them. Again, if they did it they would only pass the costs onto the artist – theres no way they’ll give up market share by raising their prices to pay for it.
Is that a distributor cut? I think it’s the cut of the service, 70% standard.
No, YouTube keeps 45% — not 30%.
we are stupid. we expected millions. we suck.
we will work at mcdonalds tomorrooooowww….
This is very misleading – very small sample size for YouTube. How have you only had 763 monetised streams? and all just in the USA?
I think Amyt is right, this isn’t YouTube, it’s Music Key.
Chris, yeah I was thinking this was YouTube MusicKey also. I didn’t clarify with the source, but I wanted to just show the data exactly as we received it. Let me ask about that.
YouTube pays 3 cent/stream? Hahaaa! In which world…
It pays about 3-15% of that (per click-through, not per stream).
I’m guessing this chart is about YouTube Music Key, which is currently in beta I think
Ah yes, that explains the few streams.
Anyone notice how good those Scandanavian numbers look compared to the U.S.?
Uschi Digard was always a favourite.
Interesting stuff. Paul, maybe you can add a graph of the total revenue per service? That would put things a different perspective.
1. Xbox Music 3,478.29
2. Google Play 786.78
3. Spotify 691.53
4. Rhapsody 537.63
5. Omnifone 357.95
6. Rdio 132.93
7. Aspiro 107.65
8. Beats 80.21
9. YouTube 28.16
10. Deezer 0.88
11. Yandex 0.09
12. Cricket 0.02
So, why aren’t we talking about Xbox Music?
…also, why oh why doesn’t it have video…
I actually like the fact it’s Microsoft. Sure, they used to be stupid or evil, or both (like Google today), but look at them now — they keep innovating, and they’re very good at it.
So why this old-school audio-only?
Xbox is the real deal. Supported by gamers, no music subscriptions and supported by a large company selling software and related items. Good business supporting fledgling music streaming service, sort of like many Starbucks locations opening in other existing businesses. Great music selection on Xbox too AND you don’t need an Xbox gaming device to use it- unlike the new Sony Playstation/Spotify merger.
All hail Xbox.
That’s something I could into more. Actually, under youTube there were two designations: one for video stream, the other for audio stream. So maybe there’s more data on that.
Speaking of which — Spotify may decide to offer VIDEO now!
http://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-laying-plans-to-enter-web-video-business-1431012726
IF it’s going to survive, of course (I assume you’ve seen the latest numbers).
YouTube is #9 because it isn’t YouTube, but Music Key…
That explains for the low # of streams. Thanks!
What is the name of this distributor?
I’m surprised there’s no data for Pandora.
Presumably because Pandora is not on-demand streaming. I don’t see Tidal either, despite the headline, but I don’t think Tidal had started yet.
Tidal is included in the numbers for Aspiro, I think.
TIDAL is Aspiro.
Pandora fits under ‘non-interactive streaming,’ not on-demand, so the reports come from a different source (administered through SoundExchange).
TIDAL isn’t Aspiro. TIDAL bought out Aspiro and revamped things entirely, including upping the money paid to artists.
This entire industry is a joke. The time spent complaining that things aren’t the same as they used to be outweighs the efforts to make things better. It’s a constant wait-and-see mode that labels are in when it comes to technology, with expectations set incorrectly. Here’s the plan going forward – work with everyone, because despite popular thinking, most online services don’t cannibalize other revenue streams. Now go to work.
It would be interesting to see a more detailled version of the report, as most services have applied different Unit Prices within the same territory. Can you disclose the different types of “Streams” as listed within the report ? The per stream rates for Rdio for example within the US are ranging between 0.0003 to 0.0101
Believe me – I’m 100% on the side of the music creators, but…
On a shear journalistic level, I have an issue with a “Confidential Independent Label” as the source model. Either do it on the record with open books, or don’t.