DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS

Digital Music Market Will Grow 15% Annually To $22.5 Billion In 2017

 

A new report from analyst firm Ovum says the global digital music market is expected to grow 15% annually over the next five years, reaching nearly $22.5 billion by 2017. Subscription music services are projected to be largely responsible for the growing revenues, and are expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46%. Ovum also anticipates strong digital music growth in most regions across the globe, with exceptions being North America and Europe, where mobile music revenues are expected to actually decline by 5-7%. In fact, the decrease in the growth rate of mobile music will come from "the underperformance of ring tones, the dominance of free ad-supported music, and data costs that are making over-the-air (OTA) mobile music less appealing to consumers," according to Ovum's consumer telecoms analyst Mark Little. Meanwhile, in the Asia-Pacific region, "growth created by consumers migrating to subscription services will result in a regional CAGR of 44%," Little says. "With Spotify landing in the U.S., joining Rhapsody, Sony Music Unlimited, Rdio and MOG, such brands are helping reinvigorate on-demand subscriptions, and we estimate a 40% CAGR over the forecast period." Overall, the main driver of digital music in the forecast period will be subscriptions, which can be bundled easily by service providers, as well as offered directly, resulting in increased penetration of subscriptions around the world, the Ovum report concludes. [Full story: Hypebot]

Pandora Beats Forecasts, Reports Break-Even Q2 Results   Pandora today (August 30) reported break-even second quarter results, surpassing most analysts' forecasts, which had the online streaming music company losing three cents per share. Company chairman/CEO Joe Kennedy reported that mobile advertising surged 86% in the period that finished July 31, and total sales jumped 51% to $101.3 million. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had anticipated total revenues of $101.1 million. Wedge Partners analyst Martin Pyykkonen wrote in a research note Monday that he has a "glass half-full" take on Pandora because it's still adding listeners and the time spent listening per user is rising, but "the company needs to more rapidly monetize the advertising business." Meanwhile, William Blair analyst Ralph Schackart recently said he sees more advertisers moving to online radio from terrestrial radio, which "feels 'threatened' by Pandora's current 'national play,' and eventual movement into local will be a game-changing event for incumbents." Pandora shares surged as high as $11.20 on the news, up from a Wednesday ending price of $10.08 in New York. [Full story: Investors Business Daily]

Muve Founder: "One Day Music Will Be Like Voice Mail"   "Our vision is that one day, music will be like voice mail." That's the perspective of Muve Music founder and SVP Jeff Toig, who recently told GigaOm that music subscription service - which was launched as a business division of Cricket Wireless - has attracted more than 600,000 subscribers since its launch in early 2011, and expects Muve to have "millions" of customers within the next 12 months. To help it get to that point the company this week introduced three new Android smartphone plans that include a complimentary subscription to Muve Music, as well as plans to launch up to nine more Android phones by year's end. "Android represents a large and fast-growing segment of Cricket's customer base," Toig said, noting that 60% of Cricket's new customers sign up for an Android phone. The new plans come with a bit of a caveat for consumers: Like most mobile providers, Cricket is moving away from offering unlimited data, and instead will provide different data plans at varying price points. However, Muve Music downloads don't count against a customer's data plan, since the service is focused on downloads instead of streaming, a marked difference between it and Spotify. "Muve is very efficient for the carrier's network," Toig explkained, adding that with Muve there is no web interface, no desktop client, and - as an Android-specific platform - no iOS app. [Full story: GigaOm]

Where There's A Will, There's No Legal Way To Transfer Digital Music   When it comes to digital music, not only can't you take it with you, but technically you can't leave it to anyone else, either. The fact is, when a person buys a song or album from such online services as iTunes or Amazon, he/she actually is buying a license to download and use that file, but does not actually own it - or anything in it. Apple and Amazon.com grant "nontransferable rights" to use licensed digital content, so someone who "buys" tracks on iTunes can't leave the Bruce Springsteen library to their son and the Adele collection to their daughter (or vice versa). According to both Amazon's and iTunes' terms of use, the buyer does not acquire any ownership rights in the software or music content, and thus legally cannot bequeath those files to another person. "The law is light years away from catching up with the types of assets we have in the 21st Century," Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, an estate-planning attorney, recently told MarketWatch. Indeed, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Idaho only recently passed laws to allow executors and relatives access to email and social networking accounts of those who've died, but the regulations don't cover digital files purchased. Still, some enterprising lawyers have begun setting up software that create trusts to oversee accounts and digital collections once the "owner" dies. And, as MacWorld's Christopher Breen notes, apart from "soliciting Apple's supportive hug to bypass estate laws," any concerned estate planner can provide their next-of-kin with their current Apple ID, password, and payment details so they can access an account after "more important matters" are handled - even if doing so might not fall within the letter of the law. [Full story: MarketWatch  MacWorld]

Townsquare Acquires MOG Music Ad Network Townsquare Media Group this week acquired the MOG Music Network for an amount that, while officially undisclosed, has been estimated to be somewhere between $10 million and $14 million. According to a company statement, the MOG Music Network serves an aggregation of music and music-related publishers, reaching more than 62 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 170 million monthly uniques globally. It now becomes part of Townsquare Media Group's platform, which includes 244 radio stations and such internet sites as PopCrush, ScreenCrush, Taste of Country, Diffuser.fm, TheFW, Loudwire, GuySpeed, and Ultimate Classic Rock. "Our publishing partners are the tastemakers of the digital music ecosystem as it relates to their ability to connect deeply and emotionally with their audiences and shape music related trends and opinions," Townsquare Media Group chairman and CEO Steven Price commented. "This acquisition complements our high touch portfolio of radio, digital, mobile, and live event assets and helps us to balance our media footprint from local-to-national." [Full story: Digital Music Wire]

Al Bell Presents American Soul Music ... And American Soul TV

If you're into classic and contemporary Soul, R&B, Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Hip-Hop Soul, Rap Soul, and Neo-Soul, we invite you to listen to Al Bell Presents American Soul Music. Former Stax Records owner and Motown Records Group President Al Bell personally has programmed this awesome radio station online, presenting your favorites from the 1960s and '70s [and some '80s], a lot of the best new music that's being released today, and some real gems you haven't heard in a long, long time. Come to www.AlBellPresents.Com

 and hear it for yourself!