Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:
Forbes on Nielsen: Forbes has been churning out some very insightful reading about the music business lately, and this profile of Nielsen is another worthy entry. It examines how Nielsen’s role has changed as traditional sales and airplay are replaced by streaming, and how much it has been helped by the recent interest in collecting and leveraging all forms of listening data.
Why Tidal’s exclusives are bad for streaming: Another day, another discussion of Tidal. This one comes from Engadget, which took a close look at Tidal’s model of artist exclusives. It has been promising the musician-owners more direct control over the rights to their creations, which means that their upcoming releases will be harder for services other than Tidal (or maybe YouTube) to get their hands on. The article delves into how the exclusives at Tidal might impact the business plans and listener numbers for other rival streaming platforms.
A review of YouTube Music Key’s indie artist challenge: Music Business Journal has a write-up of YouTube Music Key, which has been surprisingly quiet during its beta testing period. The article reviews the difficulties the service has had in successfully courting independent musicians and labels, as well as exactly how it plans to make money for the artists involved.