Mark Mulligan: Everyone hurts – the problem with ‘fixing’ streaming

by Mark Mulligan

This guest column from Mark Mulligan breaks down what mid-level success looks like from a musician’s viewpoint. “Streaming was built for yesterday’s music business,” Mark Mulligan asserts in this guest column. He breaks down what success looks like to midlevel artists, then doubles it … and it’s still not enough. Mulligan suggests two possible innovations in the existing royalty system.
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Mark Mulligan: Can Spotify break out of its lane?

by Mark Mulligan

This guest column from Mark Mulligan identifies a crucial trend: After years of relative stability, music consumption is shifting, with the streaming model exemplified by Spotify is beginning to lose some ground — as evidenced by financial reports and the growth of “social music.” Mark asks whether Spotify and the other Western DSPs are going to find themselves left behind by a fast-changing market, or will innovate to keep up the pace.
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Mark Mulligan: Spotify pushes prices up, but do not expect dramatic effects

by Mark Mulligan

This guest column from Mark Mulligan notes that Spotify is raising the price of some Premium subscriptions … and argues it is past time. The basic single-person subscription of $9.99 remains in place, but Mulligan anticipates that level will move upward, and needs to. “The fact that streaming pricing has remained locked at $9.99 since the early 2000s is an open wound for streaming,” Mulligan asserts.

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Mark Mulligan: The music business in 2021 – Joining the dots

by Mark Mulligan

This masterful write-up summarizes several important announcements which were clustered into a single week. There are three connecting threads: 1. The (continued) astronomic rise of the independent artist; 2. The growth of creator tools; 3. Streaming’s growing pains. A must-read from a global leader in digital audio industry analysis.
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