Nielsen Music’s data for the week ending Aug. 27 was the lowest for digital song sales in seven years. Only 15.66 million songs were sold on digital platforms for the week. The top track for the period, “Locked Away” by R. City, sold only 92,000 downloads. On the other hand, that same week had the highest level of on-demand audio and video streams. Continue Reading
The general trend in the music industry has been a steady decline in sales of downloads, and that appears to be impacting even niche stores. EDM and DJ specialty platform Beatport’s financial information was released in the quarterly filings for parent company SFX Entertainment. In the first quarter this year, the company’s revenue from digital downloads totaled $8.9 million, compared with $11.6 million for the same metric in the year-ago period. Continue Reading
Qtrax is aiming for a relaunch some time in 2015 as an ad-supported streaming service that will stop piracy and better compensate artists. CEO Allan Klepfisz talked a big game in an interview with The Telegraph, calling those goals “two paradigm shifts.” But the news of Qtrax’s resurgence has been met by the music press with mostly skepticism. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Most innovative companies in music; Onkyo announces expansion. Continue Reading
Today, we wrote about how The Overflow’s Christian and gospel music streaming app could be signaling a new trend toward niche genre services. Fitting then that shortly after publishing, we heard that Naxos announced the global launch of a classical music service. ClassicsOnline HD is both a streaming service and a download store specializing in high-definition and lossless classical music files. Continue Reading
Continuing the year-end roundup, BPI released data about sales and streams in the UK. The industry group reported a doubling in number of streams to 14.8 billion songs. Streaming accounted for 12.6% of music consumed in the nation in 2014. Continue Reading
Nielsen SoundScan released its 2014 year-end figures for both music sales and streaming in the U.S. Streaming totaled 164 billion songs, up 54% from the 106 billion songs streamed the previous year. According to the Wall Street Journal (paywall), the overall music consumption didn’t change extensively between 2013 and 2014 based on an equivalence where 1,500 song streams or 10 individual song downloads count as an album sale. Continue Reading
Beatport has built itself as a digital store for creators and fans of electronic music, but now parent company SFX Entertainment seems poised to add a streaming component. The Beatport website will reportedly have free, ad-supported, on-demand streaming starting early next year, sources told The Wall Street Journal. Continue Reading
BitTorrent drew attention for its collaboration with Thom Yorke, where it made the Radiohead frontman the first artist to sell a pay-gated torrent of his new solo album. The company announced today that the direct-to-fan Bundle approach can now be used by any artists. The pay-gated platform’s opening was linked with an anniversary album release from DJ and producer Diplo. Continue Reading
Country sensation Garth Brooks took his first baby step into the digital realm in July, but today he announced the beta launch of an entirely new online music service. It’s called GhostTunes.com. The focus with this platform is control for the musicians, but listeners will also have several options for how to enjoy their purchases. Continue Reading
Kurt Hanson looks at a recent survey, and analyzes why music download sales lost ground in 2013, especially in the fourth quarter. A bit of arithmetic connects the trend to music subscription growth. Art Linkletter is unexpectedly involved. Continue Reading
Digital single-track sales are down over the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period in 2012. The decline has accelerated quarter-over-quarter, with the July-Aug-Sep period showing a 6-percent skid, according to Billboard. Digital album sales have… Continue Reading