Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, the podcast in which we speak
Speaker 1: with some of the brightest minds working in the media
Speaker 1: business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein, chief Media Analysts that Illuminate Intelligence,
Speaker 1: the subscription market research service formerly known as Variety Intelligence Platform.
Speaker 1: We just announced our rebrand in tandem with the release
Speaker 1: of our latest special report all about the state of
Speaker 1: the music industry, and I am fortunate to have the
Speaker 1: reports author Rob Steiner to give us a download on streaming, publishing,
Speaker 1: the concert business, and of course AI. So Rob, thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us.
Speaker 2: Hi, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: All right. So, you know, I think there was a
Speaker 1: sense for a long time that the explosion of audio
Speaker 1: streaming had the music industry in a growth mode for
Speaker 1: a while now, but it seems like a more complicated
Speaker 1: picture is emerging crossed the various revenue streams you are
Speaker 1: tracking this report, so tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So overall, it is certainly interesting because the music industry,
Speaker 2: at least when we're talking about the top level, like
Speaker 2: the major labels, the big companies, the major artists, it's
Speaker 2: in a really good spot, a record breaking spot. In fact,
Speaker 2: it basically ever since the pandemic, that sort of supercharged
Speaker 2: the growth that was happening with the rise of streaming,
Speaker 2: you know, that started taking off around the mid twenty tens,
Speaker 2: and then the pandemic hit and that just launched that
Speaker 2: revenue stream into the stratosphere. Same thing with live music.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, this post pandemic concert demand just
Speaker 2: sent a spike in ticket sales and revenues, and that
Speaker 2: was all great, But now twenty twenty four is basically
Speaker 2: across the board signaling a slowdown. We are seeing single
Speaker 2: digit percentage growth between twenty twenty three and twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four for revenue growth and streaming in particular, and that's
Speaker 2: in due part in part due to the fact that
Speaker 2: it is sort of reaching critical mass and paid usership
Speaker 2: in develop markets like the US. Live music is also
Speaker 2: seeing a slow down in attendance, and there are it
Speaker 2: is increasingly relying more on increased ticket prices more than
Speaker 2: anything else to keep revenue growing. And then by extension too,
Speaker 2: as streaming slows down, slisoda is publishing. And then that's
Speaker 2: also not to mention the threat that AI poses to
Speaker 2: publishing in particular. So with all of this said, basically
Speaker 2: I saw the industry at an inflection point where if
Speaker 2: they continue on their current path, it won't be bad necessarily,
Speaker 2: but it probably means that it will be of, you know,
Speaker 2: the next few years of flatlining in terms of growth,
Speaker 2: which obviously a lot of these companies don't want they
Speaker 2: want to continue growing.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot there. Let's go kind of one
Speaker 1: piece at a time, starting with streaming, which seems to
Speaker 1: be sort of at the center of all of this.
Speaker 1: It sounds like from what you're saying that this is
Speaker 1: a case of market saturation mature development markets. Perhaps they've
Speaker 1: taken up all the Spotify and Apple Music and YouTube
Speaker 1: that they're going to get. So what do we do now?
Speaker 1: Is it just a matter of all, right, well, there's
Speaker 1: plenty of emerging market runway to go, or do we
Speaker 1: need to get more creative in these mature markets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little bit of both, where on one hand,
Speaker 2: the market or the industry powers that be are now
Speaker 2: looking towards emerging markets for streaming, especially in Latin America
Speaker 2: and Asia and the Middle East in particular, those are
Speaker 2: now pretty much responsible for like the major sources of
Speaker 2: growth in the streaming industry because you know, the likes
Speaker 2: of Spotify, Apple Music. They're still breaking into a lot
Speaker 2: of these markets. So we are going to see the streamers,
Speaker 2: the labels, et cetera, pushing hard into that. The Big
Speaker 2: three of all established a presence throughout Latin America, Middle
Speaker 2: East and so on, and then back home here there
Speaker 2: is sort of a debate going on where basically the
Speaker 2: Big three are really advocating for price increases for the DSPs.
Speaker 2: They believe that ten ninety nine a month is simply
Speaker 2: to loaf a price for all the music in the world,
Speaker 2: and to a degree they are right. When Spotify was created,
Speaker 2: it did in a sense solve the industry's biggest issue
Speaker 2: around digital piracy, whereas, how do we get people to
Speaker 2: pay for access to all the music in the world online.
Speaker 2: Spotify found a really you know, streamlined solution where they
Speaker 2: kind of simplified the experience of act accessing this music
Speaker 2: online and put it behind a pay wall. People are
Speaker 2: willing to pay for it, and they still are, but
Speaker 2: now it seems like as usership is sort of reaching
Speaker 2: critical mass, there's now a sense that like basically the
Speaker 2: Big Three sort of leading this charge, this idea that
Speaker 2: music had lost a lot of value in the Internet age.
Speaker 2: You know, post Napster, post the Internet, and frankly, as
Speaker 2: the report gets into the argument can be made that
Speaker 2: music never really recovered the value it lost, you know,
Speaker 2: the golden age of the nineties and the CD boom,
Speaker 2: that when you adjust for inflation, at least in the US,
Speaker 2: revenue hasn't reached those levels. The peak was nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: nine when Napster was founded.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder, and I think about I make
Speaker 1: the comparison to the video business, where you know, clearly
Speaker 1: we see the netflixes of the world have built themselves
Speaker 1: is a tremendous business. The other players in the market,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll be okay, they're actually starting to turn profit
Speaker 1: after a rough period. But I think there's also an
Speaker 1: acknowledgment that the peak era pre streaming of cable television
Speaker 1: just much better margins and much better business. And so
Speaker 1: is the music business diluting themselves, that they could sort
Speaker 1: of put the monetization toothpaste back in the tube here.
Speaker 2: It's hard to say. I mean, it does seem like
Speaker 2: that the at least the Big three. Their argument is
Speaker 2: that people will be willing to pay for you know,
Speaker 2: higher streaming subscription prices. On one hand, because we you know,
Speaker 2: the s VODs of the world and netflixes of the world,
Speaker 2: they've increased their prices several times over in just the
Speaker 2: past few years, and Spotify and the DSPs have but
Speaker 2: only like only recently, only within the past two years.
Speaker 1: They've shown they've shown much more patients. And so I
Speaker 1: just wonder whether it's going to be a mistake that
Speaker 1: they're making to push up the prices with the same
Speaker 1: sort of aggressiveness as the netflixes of the world, unless
Speaker 1: they're putting more value into these DSPs, which you know,
Speaker 1: I think of my own Spotisfy subscription and it's not
Speaker 1: just about music for me, it's podcast it's audio books. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so maybe they're not crazy to push these prices.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, especially with Spotify in particular, they have really
Speaker 2: in just the past couple of years have started pushing
Speaker 2: essentially transferring to platform to being a lot more than
Speaker 2: a music streamer. They wanted to be a multimedia location.
Speaker 2: You know, they have audio books, which has created you know,
Speaker 2: a whole whole litany of issues in terms of music
Speaker 2: royalty payments that we could get into. They have pushed
Speaker 2: hard into video podcasting, but then on the music side
Speaker 2: they are also pushed for. Basically, like the hot button
Speaker 2: concept that has really dominated the industry is leading into
Speaker 2: super fans for a lot of the for a lot
Speaker 2: of the Big three, and a lot of these major companies.
Speaker 1: Explain fans, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: It's basically it is the best way to describe it,
Speaker 2: or at least the official way that Illuminate describes it
Speaker 2: based on a survey data. Are people that engage in
Speaker 2: I believe at least five or more music related activities,
Speaker 2: so going to a concert, buying merch list in music,
Speaker 2: buying music, et cetera on a pretty regular basis. And
Speaker 2: this group is small, I believe it's about twenty percent
Speaker 2: of the US music listeners according to Illuminate, but their
Speaker 2: buying power is substantial. There is again with our data,
Speaker 2: we have found evidence of that. We've also seen it
Speaker 2: in practice give great results for particularly companies based in Asia.
Speaker 2: Hype Corporation is probably the biggest success story. They essentially
Speaker 2: launched a super fan app Weavers basically think like a
Speaker 2: social media platform but for like paid private fan clubs
Speaker 2: for like BTS and a lot of the K pop artists.
Speaker 2: But now it's expanded to like Ariana Grande and du Alipa.
Speaker 2: They have been able to generate a substantial amount of
Speaker 2: revenue and usership. They have gone up consistently pretty much
Speaker 2: every quarter for the past couple of years. Same thing
Speaker 2: with ten Cent in China. Their fan club revenue again
Speaker 2: based from like, you know, a super fan subscription streaming tier,
Speaker 2: you know, where for an extra couple bunts a month,
Speaker 2: a couple bucks a month over the standard streaming subscription,
Speaker 2: you get exclusive content or access to you know, early
Speaker 2: access to concert tickets or merch you know, just some
Speaker 2: sort of perk to incentivize the most dedicated who basic like.
Speaker 2: The idea is that like these people are so passionate
Speaker 2: about the artists they like that if given the opportunity
Speaker 2: to support these artists, they will more likely than not
Speaker 2: take it. And the industry is really banking on this
Speaker 2: particular group because they think they haven't been fully utilized yet.
Speaker 1: And I guess we'll see in time how effectively they
Speaker 1: use that super fan segment to the best of the business.
Speaker 1: And so I want to turn though to how the
Speaker 1: slow down that you've described at the top relates to
Speaker 1: the increasing headlines we're seeing around the label business. The
Speaker 1: big three, particularly with regard to how the majors and
Speaker 1: the indies are having some friction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's this particular. This month in particular has
Speaker 2: seen a lot of friction on the label front currently,
Speaker 2: probably the biggest, the biggest headline right now is the
Speaker 2: back and forth around the UMG Downtown Music acquisition. Basically,
Speaker 2: for context, UMG is I believe the biggest of the
Speaker 2: Big three. They are looking to acquire Downtown Music Holdings,
Speaker 2: which is home to a lot of vital services for
Speaker 2: the indie music sector, both from like the individual DIY
Speaker 2: artist label level too, you know, larger but still independent
Speaker 2: labels and publishers and stuff. That's sort of really been
Speaker 2: emblematic of the growing tension between those two worlds. And
Speaker 2: granted there's always been animosity between the indies and the majors,
Speaker 2: but it does seem like it is sort of being
Speaker 2: aggravated recently due to the streaming slowing down, you know,
Speaker 2: that core issue has basically led to the majors and
Speaker 2: the leading companies in the in the music industry to
Speaker 2: look for other ways to essentially dive versufy their income.
Speaker 2: And also with the rise of streaming, in part due
Speaker 2: to the rise of streaming, the indie market has actually
Speaker 2: been really able to flourish as streaming is established in
Speaker 2: these developing markets. Basically, it creates a more access to music,
Speaker 2: which then in turn creates a larger ecosystem for these
Speaker 2: independent publishers, distributors, labels to then operate on a global level.
Speaker 1: In terms of this streaming slow down to some degree,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised given the headlines I'm seeing about the flood
Speaker 1: of AI generated music hitting consumers ears these days, how
Speaker 1: big is the potential for this to compound the challenges
Speaker 1: the industry is already facing.
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, to put it bluntly, it's a pretty significant one.
Speaker 2: And it's not just from the headlines we've been seeing
Speaker 2: from you know, like these fake bands or artists getting
Speaker 2: thousands of listeners on Spotify and thousands of monthly, monthly followers.
Speaker 2: That is certainly an issue, but it's also from like
Speaker 2: the lesser known corners of the industry, where you know,
Speaker 2: I have several friends who are full time freelance producers.
Speaker 2: Their day job is creating background music for TV shows.
Speaker 2: You know, the young and the restless needs an ambient
Speaker 2: track for a coffee shop, they can whip up a song,
Speaker 2: send it over. You know, they work with the music supervisor.
Speaker 2: Now with AI, that music supervisor can say go to
Speaker 2: Suno and just request give me a soft acoustic song
Speaker 2: for a coffee shop and then there you go. So
Speaker 2: basically it is coming from multiple corners. It can affect
Speaker 2: the front facing artists that are having careers as artist,
Speaker 2: but then it also will greatly impact working musicians as well,
Speaker 2: like those who create background music or are songwriters or
Speaker 2: just session musicians. All of that is at risk here.
Speaker 2: In fact, one of the reports that I cite in
Speaker 2: the special report basically found that the industry is set
Speaker 2: to lose about four billion dollars from AI over the
Speaker 2: next several years. So it is significant.
Speaker 1: And do consumers who are facing this flood of music,
Speaker 1: how are they taking to this? Are they making the
Speaker 1: distinction with human artists? Are they just fine with it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does seem like it is kind of a
Speaker 2: mixed bag. I think early on there was sort of
Speaker 2: a novelty to it for a while AI music. I think,
Speaker 2: in at least the AI music that people were interacting
Speaker 2: with in like a positive way, where like songs where
Speaker 2: they took a major artist's voice and had them sing
Speaker 2: another major artist song, or there was that fake song
Speaker 2: by the Weekend in Drake a year or two ago
Speaker 2: that gained a lot of traction. Now I think it's
Speaker 2: I think just as the general public is more skeptical
Speaker 2: of AI overall, that is also I think applied to
Speaker 2: their view on AI music to a certain extent. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can tell you again, based on like survey data,
Speaker 2: I found that actually, like specifically asked musicians and industry
Speaker 2: people and songwriters who work in the industry, like what
Speaker 2: they thought is overwhelmingly skeptical negative for obvious reasons, And
Speaker 2: it does seem like that skepticism is also applying to
Speaker 2: these artists too, where you know, a lot of there's
Speaker 2: been a lot of pushback to these to the news
Speaker 2: of AR artists dominating dominating Spotify that in now people
Speaker 2: are like worried that that is a thing they have
Speaker 2: to potentially worry about of these DSPs putting this AI
Speaker 2: generated music onto their you know, discovery playlist without them knowing.
Speaker 2: And then there's sort of a skepticism that arises around that, like,
Speaker 2: you know, am I listening to an AI song? How
Speaker 2: can I tell? Should the DSP disclose this, so it
Speaker 2: does you know, as with everything around AI, it raises
Speaker 2: a lot of questions and answers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like we're in the very early stages
Speaker 1: of something that's going to be a pretty sticky wicket
Speaker 1: for the industry. So let's turn to a bright spot.
Speaker 1: The publishing side of the business seems to be booming.
Speaker 1: What's what's going on to explain the increase in royalties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so publishing has always sort of been an anchor
Speaker 2: of the music industry. You know, what we're talking about
Speaker 2: here is essentially like licensing for TV shows, for radio,
Speaker 2: for streaming especially, and that you know, unsurprisingly has been
Speaker 2: the biggest point of growth is amongst digital royalties. And
Speaker 2: the simple answer is that with the rise of streaming,
Speaker 2: publishing really flourish as a result. But you know, there
Speaker 2: are some pretty some pretty important caveats to make there
Speaker 2: where One part of it is also just like as
Speaker 2: music has become easier than ever for the average person
Speaker 2: to just upload to streaming services, that obviously has also
Speaker 2: contributed to it. But at the same time, it is
Speaker 2: disproportionately the majority of the royalties being generated are really
Speaker 2: only going to like the top of the heap, you know,
Speaker 2: like the Superstars, the Taylor Swifts of the world, as
Speaker 2: well as like the major labels. So in reality, you
Speaker 2: look at these numbers and you might think, oh, it's
Speaker 2: better than ever to be a working musician, but the
Speaker 2: you know, it's a lot more comp located to that, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: in part because the royalties generated by these streaming services
Speaker 2: are literally fraction of a fraction of pennies. And then
Speaker 2: add to the threat of AI as I was talking
Speaker 2: about before, and also add to the fact that certain
Speaker 2: DSPs like Spotify and Amazon as a result of adding
Speaker 2: you know, extra features that we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 2: namely audiobooks that basically allowed them to utilize a legally
Speaker 2: loophole where basically, now that they can classify their subscriptions
Speaker 2: as bundles, they essentially get to pay a lower payout
Speaker 2: rate to music artists and songwriters. So there are threats
Speaker 2: for sure at the door here, but at least for now,
Speaker 2: like this is probably the one of the few corners
Speaker 2: of the industry that is still growing more than just
Speaker 2: single digit percentages.
Speaker 1: So and what in your report does it say about
Speaker 1: the state of the catalog market in twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: which had been just cruising along at a pretty feverish
Speaker 1: clip for the past few years.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the catalog business is interesting because I do
Speaker 2: feel like if we were having this conversation six years ago,
Speaker 2: the vast majority of people wouldn't know what the music
Speaker 2: catalog business even is. But like around twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: we started seeing all of a sudden explosion of headline
Speaker 2: grabbing deals, you know, both for the artists involved and
Speaker 2: also the price tags they were fetching. You know, like
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Justin Bieber even, they were all
Speaker 2: fetching you know, one hundred million plus for their catalogs.
Speaker 2: So I would say that that sort of gold rush
Speaker 2: is definitely dissipated. But it's not like the market has
Speaker 2: come down to earth either. We are still seeing some
Speaker 2: like pretty massive deals come out of this space, chief
Speaker 2: among them being the first billion dollar deal for a
Speaker 2: single artist catalog, which was between Sony and Queen last year.
Speaker 2: So that one is interesting because again, as a result
Speaker 2: of these companies looking for ways to diversify their income,
Speaker 2: this is sort of like it's all catalogs have always
Speaker 2: been a surefire way, especially for legendary artists. Because oftentimes
Speaker 2: one of the key ingredients you get with them are name,
Speaker 2: image likeness rights. So if you have that plus publishing,
Speaker 2: plus masters, even if you only have one or two
Speaker 2: of the of that combination, you can utilize that to
Speaker 2: basically create a brand. You know, think of like how
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan sold his catalog a few years ago and
Speaker 2: we just got an Oscar nominated Bob Dylan biopic. You know,
Speaker 2: that adds value to the Bob Dylan catalog at the
Speaker 2: end of the day. And they were able to do
Speaker 2: that because you know, I forget who owns his name
Speaker 2: image likeness, but the fact that they was sold off
Speaker 2: meant that they could pretty much build the brand for themselves.
Speaker 2: And that's what we're seeing a lot with these sort
Speaker 2: of legendary artists and sort of like proven hit makers.
Speaker 1: Speaking of proven hit makers, let's talk about the live
Speaker 1: music business, which in your report I was surprised to
Speaker 1: learn given the heights that this hit last year. And
Speaker 1: this is a subject that Illuminate Intelligence in the past
Speaker 1: has dug into the phenomenon around this market, but it
Speaker 1: does seem to be cooling off, which is hard for
Speaker 1: me to understand when it's like the level of you know,
Speaker 1: you got Bruce Springsteen just finished a massive tour, Lady
Speaker 1: Gaga launches another one. It's just such a wealth of
Speaker 1: a listers on that market.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, live music is certainly interesting where that
Speaker 2: industry has proven to be pretty resilient to pretty much anything.
Speaker 2: You know, there is the long held belief that music,
Speaker 2: particularly live music, is quote unquote saying proof, with the
Speaker 2: reasoning for that being that people love music so much
Speaker 2: that they are less willing to give that up if
Speaker 2: it comes to saving money versus like going to the movies,
Speaker 2: for instance, And so we're sort of seeing that with
Speaker 2: live music. And then also at the same time as
Speaker 2: ticket prices are basically increasing higher than ever year after year,
Speaker 2: that is also in part inflating what we're you know,
Speaker 2: the the year end tallies that we're seeing, and up
Speaker 2: until now they've sort of been able to get away
Speaker 2: with it. That might be too strong of a word,
Speaker 2: but like, at least as ticket prices increased, people were
Speaker 2: still turning out, especially after the pandemic. People were willing
Speaker 2: to pay big prices to go see the favorite artists.
Speaker 2: They were willing to travel and with that incur those
Speaker 2: expenses and we are still seeing that. Again, It's not
Speaker 2: like it's you know, we're seeing a nose dive or
Speaker 2: anything in live music, but we are seeing it flatline
Speaker 2: a little bit. You know, where the past couple of
Speaker 2: years was double digit growth and now we're seeing single
Speaker 2: digit growth. And not only are we seeing that for revenue,
Speaker 2: we are seeing that for attendance as well, which is
Speaker 2: sort of the real sticking point.
Speaker 1: And Live Nation, of course is synonymous with that market.
Speaker 1: So how has it impacted them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Live Nation is interesting because when you
Speaker 2: talk about them, you are basically talking about the live
Speaker 2: music business. And you know they have at least in
Speaker 2: their Q one report they started the year actually with
Speaker 2: the revenue down from the previous Q one, but they
Speaker 2: basically framed it where they focused on essentially the rest
Speaker 2: of the year, where they were like, future or sales
Speaker 2: for or future concerts is higher than ever, We're set
Speaker 2: to have a record breaking year. That certainly might be true,
Speaker 2: but that is at the end of the day. They
Speaker 2: are kind of seeing what is happening in the larger
Speaker 2: in the larger live music industry, where yes, revenue is
Speaker 2: still high, but it is slowing down in same thing
Speaker 2: with attendance and ticket sales, and then you know, when
Speaker 2: you couple what is happening with them versus like the
Speaker 2: larger changes happening like from what like Polestar was tracking,
Speaker 2: where you know, for the top one hundred worldwide tours,
Speaker 2: everything was actually like down by a couple percentages average
Speaker 2: gross tickets sold, average tickets sold, but the two things
Speaker 2: that increased was average ticket price and gross. So to me,
Speaker 2: that signals that you know, this the gross that is
Speaker 2: being created is more more and more so happening from
Speaker 2: ticket price, and we were definitely seeing that happened within
Speaker 2: Live Nation as well.
Speaker 1: Well, we'd be remissing this conversation not to touch on
Speaker 1: the artists at themselves in terms of both the top
Speaker 1: of the food chain, the chart toppers that I would imagine, hey,
Speaker 1: the more best selling acts that you get, the better
Speaker 1: the health of the market. Then again, the music business
Speaker 1: is so catalog heavy that maybe it doesn't matter much,
Speaker 1: and then also just sort of lower down the food chain,
Speaker 1: what it's like for perhaps the musicians that aren't household names.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean basically, like I mentioned before, for
Speaker 2: working artists. The concept of the working class musician is
Speaker 2: becoming much much less of a reality for the most part.
Speaker 2: And you know, as as much as this has been
Speaker 2: like a particularly you know, particularly strong topic for me personally,
Speaker 2: or one that I feel is strongly about, there unfortunately
Speaker 2: isn't a whole lot of data for it, at least
Speaker 2: when it comes to the US. But what we do
Speaker 2: have shows that, at least like from anecdotally and stuff
Speaker 2: like you hear about musicians like needing to even successful
Speaker 2: ones or quote unquote successful ones within like the indie space,
Speaker 2: we'll still need to maintain day jobs or you know,
Speaker 2: find other more stable sources of income. Earlier this year
Speaker 2: we saw Chapel Roan on the Grammy stage while accepting
Speaker 2: an award advocate for greater access to healthcare services and
Speaker 2: mental health services for artists. So like, we are seeing
Speaker 2: that happen. And the one, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: sources we do have for data, which I was very
Speaker 2: happy to find, was actually a music census, a musician
Speaker 2: census done in Nashville, which probably next to New York
Speaker 2: and LA maybe even more so, is has the highest
Speaker 2: concentration of working musicians in the US. And you know,
Speaker 2: from there we were able to get at least a glimpse,
Speaker 2: like they offered a case study of what it could
Speaker 2: be of what you know, the musician experience is in
Speaker 2: the US, and for the most part, they averaged around
Speaker 2: fifty two K per year from music, most of which
Speaker 2: came from live shows rather than recordings. But you know, again,
Speaker 2: a lot of the main concerns was access to healthcare
Speaker 2: and rent, and you know that is also the same
Speaker 2: in the UK. It's a very similar story.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't want to forget the other half of
Speaker 1: the equation, which is the artist at the top of
Speaker 1: the charts, the Morgan Wallens of the world, the Kendrick
Speaker 1: Lamars of the world. Are they bigger than ever? And
Speaker 1: you mentioned Chapel Rome earlier. Is she an example of
Speaker 1: there's still a rising tide of new artists joining those
Speaker 1: top ranks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, certainly, Like these artists are doing incredibly well.
Speaker 2: And it's it's sort of that it's like the ones
Speaker 2: that make it are still able to really make it.
Speaker 2: You know, Morgan Wallen, even though like his listenership is
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly in the US, like, he's still able to embark
Speaker 2: on highly successful global tours. What's interesting that with that too, though,
Speaker 2: is that sort of as a result of these developing
Speaker 2: markets adopting streaming and usership growing in you know, other
Speaker 2: parts of the world. Along with like the big artists
Speaker 2: obviously being listened to there, we are also seeing what
Speaker 2: sort of become known as like localization, where it's like
Speaker 2: these markets will adopt streaming, but then they will continue
Speaker 2: to listen to their local artists and sort of like
Speaker 2: as a result of that, these artists then get access
Speaker 2: to the global stage, as it were, a lot more
Speaker 2: so than they were before, in part thanks to like
Speaker 2: streaming algorithms picking them up and stuff. So that's sort
Speaker 2: of like why what we've seen, you know, the rise
Speaker 2: of K pop or the rise of Latin music, or
Speaker 2: even the rise of country music outside of the US,
Speaker 2: Like that's all part of it. But again, at the
Speaker 2: same time, just given the amount of people that now
Speaker 2: can upload music and you know, create build platforms online
Speaker 2: thanks to streaming, it's sort of a double edged sword.
Speaker 2: Like the ones who can break through the noise are
Speaker 2: able to potentially find a lot of success, but then
Speaker 2: everyone else kind of has to fight a lot harder,
Speaker 2: especially as like you know, platforms like Spotify have now
Speaker 2: instituted policies where it's like unless basically artists that don't
Speaker 2: make x amount of streams per month they don't get paid,
Speaker 2: which you know, on one hand, you can make the
Speaker 2: argument that it's like that allows the royalties to be
Speaker 2: better distributed for the artists that do have established careers,
Speaker 2: and that is certainly good. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: it does make people that are trying to you know,
Speaker 2: float to the surface more. It just makes it a
Speaker 2: lot harder than it already was.
Speaker 1: Well, we're touching on some trends here that make clear
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty five, as you put it in this report,
Speaker 1: is clearly a pivotal year. There's a lot to monitor
Speaker 1: going forward, and so can't recommend enough people check out
Speaker 1: the report Rob just authored, available on the Illuminate Data
Speaker 1: dot com website on the state of the music industry. Rob,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming in and giving us a taste of
Speaker 1: what you wrote about.
Speaker 2: Of course, thanks so much for having me.
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