Indies seek a share of major labels’ eventual Spotify stock proceeds; Sony agrees

Spotify’s latest strides toward a direct public offering has led to some speculation around how the labels that own stakes in the streaming company will distribute their windfall. But independent artists and labels are looking for more assurance that they won’t be shortchanged. Continue Reading

Spotify expected to launch in South Africa soon

Spotify is expected to roll out in South Africa later this month. The streaming service is hosting a press event on March 13 when it is expected to formally announce the expansion. The first indication of Spotify’s interest in South Africa came with a job listing posted in September 2017 for a senior editor/music programmer to be responsible for that region. Continue Reading

Webcast listening steady in December; leaders led (Triton Webcast Metrics)

In the December report of Triton Digital’s Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker, overall stream listening remained steady from the previous month. The three leaders — Pandora, Spotify, and iHeartRadio — each gained a single percentage in Average Active Sessions (Triton’s AAS metric). Spotify continued its chase of Pandora. Continue Reading

Apple Music has 36 million subscribers, reportedly posting 5% monthly growth in the U.S.

Much of Apple’s subscriber increase is reportedly happening in the U.S. Unnamed sources told WSJ that Apple is posting 5% monthly subscriber growth in the United States, compared with 2% growth for Spotify. That has led many other publications to see this as a sign that Apple could overtake Spotify as the biggest subscription streaming service in one of the major markets, but that projection requires some caveats. Continue Reading