It’s an exciting time for the owners of Universal Music Group. Paris-based Vivendi, parent to the world’s biggest recorded music company, updated its shareholders this month with the news that a $3 billion–plus deal with China’s Tencent — the latter company is set to acquire 10%–20% in UMG – should …
Read More »Spotify Now Has 232 Million Users, But Only Half of Them Pay for Music
On Wednesday, Spotify reported its second-quarter earnings with both happy and unhappy news alike: The Swedish music-streaming giant now has around 232 million people around the world using its service each month, marking a 29 percent increase in audience from last year — but the number of paying subscribers within …
Read More »Vinyl, Still In Revival, Isn't Just Rock Music Anymore
The vinyl revival of the last few years is still going strong, but the crazy pace is finally showing signs of slowing down. Vinyl album sales were up around 12 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to year-end figures from data company BuzzAngle, which tracks U.S. music consumption, representing a …
Read More »A Christian Singer Is Bigger Than Drake and Ariana Grande This Week
Paul McCartney easily took the top spot on the Billboard 200 this week when his new albumEgypt Stationblew past 153,000 equivalent album units — a forceful 147,000 of which were traditional album sales. Eminem’sKamikaze,now two weeks old,slotted in at Number Two with 136,000 units. But just under those two, and …
Read More »Ticketmaster Replies to Mass-Scalping Report
Editor’s note (9/21): The original headline of this article implied that Ticketmaster called CBC and the Toronto Star‘s report “categorically untrue.” In its statement, the company was referring to “any program in place to enable resellers to acquire large volumes of tickets at the expense of consumers” as untrue and …
Read More »U.S. and U.K. Music Charts Both Favor Paid Streaming Now
In two of the biggest music markets in the world, getting a Number One record is not merely about the quantity of plays and sales now – but the quality of the play.Earlier this year, Billboard, which publishes the definitive album and song charts for the U.S. music industry,revamped its …
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