What Do People Listen To On Their Smartphones?

Edison Research recently completed a study on smartphone usage and discovered that the listening habits of users isn't quite what we believed it to be. in fact, the results were pretty surprising.

• 54% listened to a radio channel
• 16% listened to music they own
• 15% listened to Pandora or other radio-like streaming services
• 7% listen to Sirius XM
• 5% to TV music channels
• 2% listen to podcasting

Heavy listeners (those defined by listening to 2 hours or more per day) have a slightly different consumption pattern.

• 43% listen to music they've downloaded and own
• 37% listen to streaming audio
• 9% listen to AM/FM radio
• 7% listen to podcasts

Finally, 87% of adults from 18 to 34 never let their smartphones leave their sides.

All that said, we're under the impression that the listening world belongs to exclusively to streaming, but that's far from the case, according to the study. While radio listening and downloads may be dropping, they're still a vital portion of our listening day.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Prince Passes, Record Store Day and Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire On My Inner Circle Podcast

As those of you who are songwriters or copyright holders know, you make money when people use your songs, especially on television, films or commercials. It's not easy to get placement though, but it's getting easier thanks to Songtradr, a marketplace that matches songs and cues to people and brands who are looking for them.

Paul Wiltshire's the founder and CEO of Songtradr and he's my guest on this week's podcast. Prior to coming up with the idea, Paul was an award-winning songwriter and producer in Australia, and he's also had some big successes in the US with the likes of the Backstreet Boys, so he knows what it's like to be on the creative end of things.

In the intro I'll take a look at a part of Prince's legacy that not many see, his business acumen that changed the music industry in many ways. I'll also give you a report on the backlash by record retailers at what was once their biggest day of the year - Record Store Day.

Remember that you can find the podcast at BobbyOInnerCircle.com, either on iTunes, Stitcher and now on Mixcloud and Google Play

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Major Labels Say That Content ID Not Effective Enough

The 3 major labels are furthering their attack on YouTube, the platform they love to hate.

With licenses up for renewal soon, the majors are trying their best to gain some leverage in the negotiation, so they have filed a submission to the US Copyright Office claiming that YouTube's Content ID is ineffective in identifying uploads using content illegally using their copyrights a great deal of the time.

Content ID is YouTube's secret sauce in that it's the content recognition technology that allows the copyright holder to identify and monetize unauthorized uploads of copyrighted material.

Universal Music Publishing claims that it fails to identify as much as 40% of its compositions, according to an article in the Financial Times.

YouTube, of course, claims that Content ID is successful 99.5% of the time. Even if that were true, 0.5% still represents hundreds of thousands of unlicensed uploads, so there's a lot of money being left on the table.

Ultimately, the labels would like the 55/45 revenue split with YouTube to be increased, since all other music streaming platforms are in the 70+% range. YouTube has little incentive to change, however, since even if the labels pull their licenses, the user generated uploads will continue, so the label's vast catalog of music will still remain on the platform.

If it's true that Content ID doesn't catch 40% of the unauthorized uploads, that only puts YouTube in a stronger negotiating position. One should never bet against the major labels in a negotiation, but in this case, my money is on YouTube coming out on top.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

How Long Should Your Teaser Video Be?

Many artists and bands will post a teaser video of their album before it's released, or as a brief sampler afterwards. The problem is that there's several schools of thought on how long the teaser should be.

One school has it that shortest is best, since YouTube attention span is around 8 seconds. The second school says that you should make it as long as necessary to get the point across, even up to several minutes long.

It turns out that neither may be right. According to a study done by Think With Google, good old fashioned 30 second ads performed far better than either 15 or 60 second ones when it came to people viewing it all the way through. This allowed the viewer to get more detail about the product without the dreaded viewer fatigue.

This contradicts what happens on television, where 15 second ads are up to 75% more effective (and cheaper) than their longer counterparts. No surprise since online advertising has proven to be substantially different because of its random access nature.

The bottom line is that 30 seconds is a sweet spot in that it's neither too long nor too short, giving you enough time to get the point across while the viewer doesn't feel like she has to sit through too much information.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

6 Best Practices For Using Facebook Live

Facebook Live looks to be a boon to artists and bands everywhere who want to reach their Facebook fans. That said, there are some best practices in using the platform, according to Facebook's Media Blog. Here's what they suggest:

   1. Alert friends and followers in advance about plans to broadcast live, in order to build up anticipation.

   2. Ensure that you have a fast enough connection to broadcast live video, preferably WiFi or 4G. Be aware that the “Go Live” button will be grayed out if the signal is not strong enough to support Facebook Live.

   3. Post a description of what you are about to share before going live.

   4. Ask friends and followers to sign up for notifications so that they are aware of your Facebook Live offerings.

   5. Respond to comments by saying hello and mentioning the names of users who comment.

   6. Stay live for longer time periods: Facebook recommends at least 10 minutes, and the feature supports broadcasts up to 90 minutes.

There are plenty of live video platforms out there, and you may be successfully using some of them already. That's fine if you're sure you're reaching your fans, but keep in the mind that Facebook has more users outside the United States than in. If you want to reach those fans, consider using Facebook Live.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Tidal Subscribers Sue Kanye West For Posting On Other Services

Here's an interesting twist in the Kanye West/Tidal story. He's getting sued by Tidal subscribers who claimed they were duped into paying for the service.

It all stems from when the performer released his latest album The Life of Pablo exclusively on Tidal. At the time, West claimed that the album would never appear on another streaming services, and as a result, some two million people flocked to Tidal to pay at least $9.99 a month to have a listen.

Alas, that exclusivity was to be short lived as TLOP is now available on both Apple Music and Spotify - for free.

That's part of the reason why West has been named in a class action suit against him. Perhaps because that might be a flimsy case to present, the plaintiff's attorneys are leaning more heavily on a privacy issue instead.

"Mr. West's promise of exclusivity also had a grave impact on consumer privacy," the lawsuit states, mostly because user credit card information, music preferences and other personal information were collected.


The lawsuit contends the value of new subscribers and their personal information could be as much as $84 million for Tidal.

The album was reportedly streamed some 250 million times within 10 days of its release.

This will be an interesting one to watch.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Amazon Prime Music Takes Another Baby Step

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know that I've been saying all along to watch out for Amazon Prime Music as the next big disrupter in the streaming music space.

Why? Prime Music is part of the popular Amazon Prime subscription service that already has a reported 75 million subscribers (although Amazon isn't saying just how many). Amazon is also dabbling in its own record label, and is generally getting into the mainstream music distribution waters one toe at a time.

Well, maybe two toes, as the company recently dropped a few new nuggets of what might come next.

First of all, T-Mobile must added Amazon Music to its data-free music streaming program called Music Freedom. This is the first instance of Prime Music being available to off-the-platform users.

What might be more an indicator of the future is the fact that Amazon just made it's Prime Video service available as a stand-alone product for $9 a month. For $11 a month you could also buy the full Amazon Prime membership complete with Amazon Prime Music and 2 day shipping (which is more expensive than just paying the $99 a year fee for the same thing).

Although this last move has little to do directly with Prime Music, it's another baby step in the direction that we inevitably know Amazon will take. Don't be surprised if there's a big announcement about a free-standing Prime Music service in the next few months.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Facebook Finally Launches Its Version Of Content ID

Content creators have been complaining for months that many of their YouTube videos have been showing up on Facebook posted by someone else - an action called "freebooting."

In an effort to alleviate the situation, Facebook has now officially launched its version of YouTube’s Content ID called Rights Manager. 

This is an admin tool for Facebook Pages that lets them upload video clips, then monitors Facebook news feeds for copies of these videos that might be later illegally posted to Facebook. It can then either automatically report them as violations to be deleted or notify the original publisher.

Rights Manager allows copyright owners to set up whitelists of Pages that are allowed to distribute their videos, and upload unpublished videos they don’t want anyone else using even if they haven’t posted them themselves.

It will also show what Page posted a video, how many views it has gotten, and sort alerts about freebooting by these parameters, too.

Live videos can be monitored as well, which is designed to prevent people from rebroadcasting pay-per-view TV content like boxing matches, which has become a huge issue that has put Periscope in the television industry's crosshairs.

Rights Manager isn’t available to all Facebook users yet, although content owners can now apply for access.

Interestingly, there's been no discussion about monetizing Facebook videos yet, although it seems like only a matter of time now that Rights Manager is in place.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Keep Your Eye On These Next 3 Social Trends

Social media is the lifeblood of so many artists, bands, musicians and record labels in terms of engaging and growing their fanbases. That means it's important to stay current on the latest developments so you don't get left behind.

With that in mind, there are 3 new trends in social media that are really heating up that you should keep an eye on, according to Kevan Lee of of the social posting tool Buffer in a post on thenextweb. Look out for the following:

1. Purchasing items directly from your News Feed.
We're already seeing this on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest where your fan can make a purchase from within the app, which means she's avoided linking to the multiple steps in an external shopping cart and possibly losing the sale. Facebook has also been testing a Buy button for more than a year, and is slowly rolling it out to a specific group of advertisers.

One of the downsides of News Feed purchasing in the current crop of social platforms is that you usually need to be involved with a third part app like Shopify, Stripe or Gumroad to use as a payment processor/gateway, but if you're selling merch online already, chances are that you're already connected.

2. Custom social networks at work.
Companies are beginning to see the advantage of having their own internal social networks. The thought being that if employees are going to be on social media during the workday anyway, the company might as well have some control over it. Facebook at Work is the first network to jump into this game with a customized work version, but expect others to follow.

There are still a lot of unknowns here, but the trend is worth watching since it could affect the timing of your posts. In other words, it might be better to wait until after 5PM when people are away from their work networks so you can catch them on their personal networks. On the other hand, a work network might be able to be penetrated by a certain type of post, which then gives you the inside track at engagement. We'll know more as it rolls out.

3. How to reach people who aren't checking their feeds.
Social media is more broadcast while messaging is more personal. Many people prefer messaging because there are no algorithms involved, nor are there ads. As messaging becomes more popular, the influence of social lessens, as does your ability to reach your fans who depend less on a social platform. But what would happen if you could broadcast to a group of fans over a messaging app? Whatsapp has already started something like this with a newsletter that is broadcast to a wide group of people, and Everlane for Facebook allows a broadcast over Messenger.

The upside of this is that it gives your fans another way to hear from you if you give them multiple options when subscribing. The downside is that it can definitely clutter up a service with unwanted messages.

Many of the social distribution companies are also trying to wrap their heads around this one, but the hope is (at least from me) that messaging stays private. Don't be surprised if ads start to pop up in places that you never expected though.

(Photo: Sebastiaan ter Burg via Flickr)

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

IFPI Releases New Global Music Industry Sales Figures

The IFPI (the organization that tracks global music sales) finally released its annual report on the sales for 2015. If you've been reading this blog for a while, none of the figures surprise you.

Here are the numbers right out of the report.

• Digital revenues now account for 45 per cent of total revenues, compared to 39 per cent for physical sales.

• There was a 10.2 per cent rise in digital revenues to US$ 6.7 billion, with a 45.2 per cent increase in streaming revenue more than offsetting the decline in downloads and physical formats.

• Total industry revenues grew 3.2 per cent to US$ 15.0 billion, leading to the industry's first significant year-on-year growth in nearly two decades. Digital revenues now account for more than half the recorded music market in 19 markets.

• Streaming remains the industry's fastest-growing revenue source. Revenues increased 45.2 per cent to US$ 2.9 billion and, over the five year period up to 2015, have grown more than four-fold.

• Streaming now accounts for 43 per cent of digital revenues and is close to overtaking downloads (45 per cent) to become the industry's primary digital revenue stream.

• Premium subscription services have seen a dramatic expansion in recent years with an estimated 68 million people now paying a music subscription. This figure is up from 41 million in 2014 and just eight million when data was first compiled in 2010.

• Downloads remain a significant offering, but now account for just 20 per cent of industry revenues. Income was down 10.5 per cent to US$ 3.0 billion - a higher rate of decline than in 2014 (- 8.2 per cent). Full album downloads are still a major part of the music fans' experience and were worth US$1.4 billion. This is higher than the level of sales in 2010 (US $983 million) and 2011 (US $1.3 billion).

• Performance rights revenue grew. Revenue generated through the use of recorded music by broadcasters and public venues increased 4.4 per cent to US$2.1 billion and remains one of the most consistent growing revenue sources. This revenue stream now accounts for 14 per cent of the industry's overall global revenue, up from 10 per cent in 2011.

• Revenues from physical formats declined, albeit at a slower rate than in previous years, falling by 4.5 per cent compared to 8.5 per cent in 2014 and 10.6 per cent in 2013. The sector still accounts for 39 per cent of overall global income and remains the format of choice for consumers in a number of major markets worldwide including Japan (75 per cent), Germany (60 per cent), and France (42 per cent).

That's a lot of data to take in, but the big takeaways are that the total industry revenue remains flat at $15 billion, despite streaming's growth, and paid subscriptions are taking off, at 68 million worldwide as compared to 41 million the year before.

There's more than meets the eye here though, which I'll address in an upcoming post.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

YouTube Has All The Leverage In New Label Negotiations

If you’re a record label, or an artist, band or publisher for that matter, the one thorn in your digital side is YouTube. Why? It’s by far the most widely used streaming service for consuming music, yet it pays the least of all the services. However, it’s come to light that YouTube’s licensing agreements with the three major labels have either expired or are about to, which brings new hope that renegotiated terms might mean increased revenue for the industry.

That hope may prove false though, since YouTube continues to hold all the leverage - in fact, it holds virtually all of it.

Until now, the major labels could drive a hard bargain with all other streaming services that not only gained them hefty upfront fees, but also even a piece of the company in some cases. If a music service didn’t like a label’s terms, it still had no choice but to take the deal, otherwise it would be minus the label’s catalog, which could mean a death blow to the service.

Not so with YouTube.

Since so much of the music on the service is illegally uploaded by its users, the company is able to dictate the license agreement terms, since if a label balks and refuses to agree to the deal, its music will still appear on the service.

In fact, Warner Music tried this very tactic a few years ago, but after a year of its songs still appearing on YouTube yet generating zero revenue, the company acquiesced and signed a deal on YouTube’s terms. Getting some money is better than no money at all.

All this is made possible thanks to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which protects YouTube and other similar services in that they can’t be held liable as a result of unlicensed content that its users might upload. A record label can ask that the content be taken down, and YouTube will comply, but chances are that content will be re-uploaded immediately and the cycle will continue. Plus the burden of finding any unlicensed versions lies with the labels, all of which spend a great deal of time and resources searching for violations. 

So YouTube is in the drivers seat in these negotiations. Even if the labels don’t like the deal presented, they have no recourse since their music will find its way onto the service, but the labels will get zero money if they pull their catalogs because they don’t like the terms.

Read more on Forbes.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Everything You Wanted To Know About Facebook Live

Facebook Live is about to the "next big thing" on the platform, and it seems like it will be a boon for artists and bands wanting to engage with their fans on the service.

Since it's so new, you may not be sure of exactly what Live is and what it will do. Here are some facts about the service from the FB Live page.

• What is Facebook Live? Live lets people, public figures and Pages share live video with their followers and friends on Facebook.

• Live is available to all Pages and profiles on Facebook for iOS, Android, and Facebook Mentions. There will be a red icon at the top left-hand corner of the video indicating that it is a live video. The word “Live” is written next to the icon, along with the number of current viewers.

• The video will be published to the Page or profile so that fans and friends who missed it can watch at a later time. The broadcaster can remove the video post at any time, just like any other post.

• Videos will appear in News Feed and on the broadcaster's Page or profile while they are live. Once a broadcast has ended, live videos are eligible to show up everywhere that other videos appear.

• Live videos are more likely to appear higher in News Feed when those videos are actually live, compared to after they are no longer live.

• You can apply control and customization settings to the video on the broadcast after it has ended if you're a Page.

• Live broadcasts can last up to 90 minutes.

• People can discover live videos right in News Feed. To get notified when certain a broadcaster goes live, tap the "Live Subscribe" button on the top of a live video to get notified when that person or Page goes live again. People who frequently engage with or have recently interacted with a person or Page going Live may receive a notification.

• You need a strong signal before going live. WiFi tends to work best, but if you can't find a nearby network, you'll want a 4G connection. To check your internet speed ahead of time, download the Speedtest app from the App Store or Google Play.

Just like natively uploaded videos, Live videos will rank higher in news feeds and more of your followers will see it, so it's a very useful tool for engagement.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).