How (and why) Billie Eilish won Glastonbury

Glastonbury returned to great fanfare after the pandemic-enforced break, which meant it was the first one since 2019. The music world has changed a lot since then, with streaming getting bigger than ever and TikTok now established as a cornerstone of the music business. Back in 2019, the standard thing to do was to look at how much Glastonbury boosted streaming numbers of artists who were on the bill, but in today’s world, it is the impact on an artist’s fanbase that is arguably most important.

The BBC and Glastonbury partnership is a fandom engine room 

Glastonbury plays an important role because it is broadcast (TV and radio) and streamed in the UK by the BBC, which means it is a rare thing in today’s on-demand world: it is a cultural moment. Due to the splintering of culture and the fragmentation of fandom, cultural moments in music have largely gone, replaced by the asynchronous paradigm that streaming enables. In the past, summers were soundtracked by hits that everyone knew, now algorithms and personalisation mean that everyone has their own summer hit. Meanwhile, streaming has turned music into a utility, more of a soundtrack to our daily lives than a cultural touchpoint. If streaming has turned music into water, then what we now need are glasses to drink it from. In the UK, Glastonbury provides a counterpoint to that dynamic, presenting a few days in which everyone, from casual viewers through to due hard music fans, can watch great music – music that is, crucially, often outside of what they would usually listen to. The reason this matters is because streaming algorithms deliver us more of what we like and, thus, narrows our cultural scope. The handpicked and diverse line up of Glastonbury, amplified by the expert curation and programming of a national broadcaster, breaks music listeners out of the algorithm cage. There are not many algorithms that would present Wolf Alice alongside Diana Ross. The Glastonbury / BBC combination thus presents a real-world evidence point for how genuine discovery can be brought back into music. It is not instead of streaming, but, instead, amplifying it. 

Finding new audiences

So much for the consumer case, but what about the artist case? What an artist (and labels) really want is not just a temporary streaming boost, but a long-term lift to fanbases. Big streaming counts are a great calling card, but, unless they are huge, they do not add up for most artists. And a weekend bump is only of any real value if it provides the footprint for a longer term fanbase lift. So, what really matters is how a one-off event drives fandom growth. But how is that measures? Well, it just so happens that MIDiA is currently building a fandom measurement tool that we are calling Music Index. Let us take a look at some of MIDiA’s Index data to show just how much impact Glastonbury has already had on some of the artists who performed there.

One of the key things we do with Index is create artist cohorts to enable comparisons across similar artists, with the top performing artist in each category indexed as 100 and the others against that base. So, we defined a Glastonbury cohort to track fandom and engagement impact across these artists. Looking at the top five artists in our ‘engagement’ metric (a hybrid measure that includes streaming, YouTube, etc.), the clear winner was Kendrick Lamar, with AJ Tracey being a close second and Wet Leg a not-too-distant third. These three artists all saw the biggest gains during and after Glasto.

The vast majority of established artists do not rely on streaming as their primary income, so measuring engagement is only part of the picture. Which brings us onto our next metric, ‘fandom’, another hybrid metric that captures a large collection of fandom and social behaviours. What is interesting here is that the rankings are very different, with Billie Eilish, who was not even in the ‘engagement’ top five, not only coming out on top, but way ahead of the rest. Unlike with engagement, the distance to second and third spots is much larger. Notwithstanding, Kendrick Lamar grabs another podium spot and also saw a stronger uplift than Megan Thee Stallion, though the latter was already more highly ranked before Glasto and remains ahead.

One of the key inputs into MIDiA’s Music Index is Wikipedia. It is a heavily underrated artist metric that is front of mind for music marketers. Wikipedia is so useful because it reflects a consumer’s desire to go further, to learn more about the artist. It is a fandom lean-in metric. Whereas a Google search may simply be geared to going and finding a track, a Wikipedia view is a first step towards a deeper level of fandom. The Wikipedia spikes for the Glastonbury artist cohort demonstrates a very clear pattern of spikes in line with performances, thus highlighting the huge benefit of a widely broadcast and streamed live performance in penetrating new audiences for artists. Beyond the bigger acts, Sam Fender and Yungblud both saw strong spikes following their performances, further evidence of the unique power of the broadcast and streamed event helping artists connect with new fans.

Taken together, the Glastonbury impact can be defined as follows:

• Kendrick Lamar might have gotten the biggest consumption bump, but Billie Eilish is likely the one who ended up with the largest long-term uplift to her fanbase
• The Glastonbury / BBC partnership makes a compelling case for the power of building artist reach to wider audiences via tentpole, live performances broadcast and online 

Artists in the UK understand just how Glastonbury can create career-defining cultural moments – just ask Sam Fender. But the case here should be less about Glastonbury itself and more about how the live / broadcast / stream model presents a global use case for reinvigorating cultural moments in the era of splintered culture.

If you are interested in learning more about MIDiA’s forthcoming Music Index tool (there is a LOT more to it than what was covered here!) then drop a line to stephen@midiaresearch.com

Live streaming’s second growth phase

Live streaming erupted in 2020 in the wake of the pandemic. As the year progressed, the market transformed rapidly from a bunch of bands playing guitar in their bedrooms to highly produced, ticketed shows with tens of thousands of viewers. New companies flashed into existence while older ones dusted of their websites and rode the new wave of demand and enthusiasm. Everything was going great – and then along came real life. COVID restrictions began to ease, vaccination rates rose and real life concerts were back. It almost did not matter that they were not yet back in full effect, because even a gradual return had caught the imagination of artists and their managers. Suddenly, the prospect of looking their fans in the eyes made sulking in front of a camera in an empty venue seem a whole lot less appealing. With the sting taken out if its tail, it would be easy to imagine the live stream sector going back into its pre-COVID shell. But it has not. Instead, the sector is laying foundations for longer term growth, as shown this week by Deezer’s investment in Driift, and Dice’s acquisition of Boiler Room.

Competition from IRL

Revenue from ticketed live stream concerts surpassed $600 million in 2020, and the market trajectory in Q4 20, combined with the pandemic outlook, suggested that the market was going to push on past $2 billion in 2021. But with IRL concerts and festivals making their comeback, the number of ticketed live stream concerts slowed in Q1 21 and only started meaningfully picking up again mid-way through Q2 21. Also, average ticket prices started to come down, likely in response to softening demand among audiences who were eagerly anticipating real concerts once more. Live streamed concert audience penetration stopped growing in Q2 21, but retains a solid base (as the data in a forthcoming MIDiA report shows). But IRL was always more likely rather than less likely to come back, so live streamed concerts were always going to have to plan for a hybrid future (by which I mean both hybrid concerts and co-existing alongside IRL concerts). If there was a surprise, it was just how quickly artists were willing to jump the live stream ship. 

The hype cycle

If 2020 was the Peak of Inflated Expectations in the hype cycle and the start of 2021 was the Trough of Disillusionment, then we are now in the period of slow, steady consolidation, where the real market is built out of the rubble of over-zealous hype. With so many investments made in 2020, there was always going to be a consolidation opportunity for those players with a sound, longer-term view. Mandolin, widely acclaimed during 2020, recently acquired indie focused platform NoonChorus. Then, this week, the next-gen ticketing platform, Dice, acquired long running dance music live platform Boiler Room.

Consolidation

While Mandolin’s move was straightforward consolidation, Dice’s is more disruptive. 2020 catalysed growth for Dice, with a neat positioning as an alternative to the big traditional ticketing companies that empowers venues with more control, as well as being the ticketing company of choice for many live stream concert providers. But with the acquisition of Boiler Room, Dice has just taken a leaf out of the playbook of the big, traditional ticketing companies – expanding across the value chain. However, as much as Dice will try to position the move as otherwise, it is now competing directly with many of its clients. Other next-gen ticketing companies focused on live streaming could be forgiven for seeing this as a great opportunity to differentiate and compete.

Investment

‘Value chain creep’ was already a defining feature of the live streaming vendor space in 2020, with many companies attempting to do multiple parts of the process rather than specialising. This looks great in investor presentation, but for artists and managers, it simply replaces the old boss with a new boss who looks just like the old boss. A number of companies forged a different path, focusing instead on producing high quality shows for artists. One such company was Driift, which this week received a strategic investment from Deezer, that had already previously invested in DREAMSTAGE. Deezer’s moves reflect an understanding that audio streaming and live streaming represent a strong overlap opportunity. Indeed, Deezer WAUs are more likely to watch live streamed concerts than other music service WAUs.

Long term, steady growth

2021 will go down as the year of adjustment for live streaming, following a year of exceptional circumstances in 2020. COVID catalysed secular growth but boosted figures higher than the natural level of the market at this early stage. The coming years will be characterised by steady continued growth, with hybrid and ‘pandemic proof’ solutions for venues, such as Live Nation fitting 60+ venues with Veeps capabilities. The live music sector did not experience the dramatic transformation wrought by streaming. Instead, the sector had to wait for the pandemic’s impact and the resultant COVID bounce for live streaming. Expect more investments and more consolidation as this market begins to set itself up for long-term, organic growth. 

Virtual concerts: A new video format

The global pandemic thrust the live music sector into chaos, with global revenues falling by 75% in 2020 compared to one year previously. The music industry was rocked by first-order impacts (no concerts, no fan engagement) and second-order impacts (many artists realising that streaming did not add up without live income alongside it). Necessity, though, is the mother of invention and an unprecedented period of innovation and experimentation followed, creating a whole new virtual concert ecosystem. One that presents great opportunity, but that also reflects the flaws of a hastily constructed industry – flaws that must be fixed for the sector to realise its ambition. Rather than the future of live, virtual concerts represent an entire new video format.

MIDiA’s new report ‘Virtual concerts: A new video format’ provides a comprehensive overview of the market with revenues, forecasts, demographics, vendor mapping and industry metrics. The report is immediately available to MIDiA clients. Here are some of the key findings. 

Live streaming of concerts is not new, but the combination of a complex rights landscape and resistance from the traditional live sector stymied the sector’s growth. The fact that technology itself was not the problem is well illustrated by the dynamic growth in live streaming in other content verticals, gaming especially. Since the pandemic’s first impact, there has been a rapid rollout of new live music streaming solutions and companies, enjoying varied success both commercially and creatively. Nonetheless, artists now have a vast array of options at their disposal and the rapid shift is well illustrated by the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl joking during his band’s December 2020 high quality, ticketed live streamed concert that the sector had come a long way from artists playing piano in their living rooms earlier in the year.

One of the most important changes was the strong shift in the latter part of the year from free streams to more professionally produced, ticketed events. From June to November 2020, the share of live-streamed concert listings on Bandsintown grew from 1.9% to 40.7%, while the total ticketed revenue in December was up 292% from June. The shift to paid is crucial, especially considering the #brokenrecord debate (arguably the most important second-order impact of the cessation of live music). Traditional live is a scarce, premium product that generates many artists the bulk of their income. Yet the start of the live streaming boom was all about free, an uncanny rerun of when music first went on the internet. With the current wave of COVID-19 worse in many countries than the first, 2021 is set to be another highly disrupted year for the live sector. It is crucial that live streaming can pick up some of the slack as a meaningful revenue driver for artists.

Overall, ticketed live-streamed concerts generated $0.6 billion in 2020 with a flurry of ticketed events in the last two months of the year, including end-of-year spectaculars from heavyweights as diverse as Justin Bieber and Kiss.

Live streaming though has a long way to go, illustrated by the fact that penetration is just 9% and audiences have an early adopter, younger male skew. In many respects live streaming was not ready for primetime when COVID-19 hit. Unlike sectors such as video conferencing and home fitness tech, which had become well established before, music live streaming was a bit of an industry backwater. A whole host of new entrants swept in to tap the new opportunity, while pre-existing ones that had been limping along pre-COVID, gave themselves a new lick of paint.

The vendor landscape is complex and increasingly fragmented. But most importantly, it is characterised by companies wanting to own as much of the value chain as possible and trying to achieve as much as they can before the giants of the traditional live sector get back on their feet.

Live streaming has vast potential – not in some binary live music replacement equation, but instead as a new video format. In fact, live streaming could be to live music what pay-TV is to sports, creating in the long run a market that is even bigger than the core business. But between now and then there is a lot of hard work to be done.

Why Rishi Sunak is both wrong and right

Earlier this week the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak suggested that creatives such as musicians who had seen income dry up during COVID-19 should consider retraining for the new ‘opportunities’ the lockdown economy is generating. 

The principle makes sense from an economic perspective, but it is just that – an economist’s solution to a cultural problem. A guitarist becoming an Amazon van driver or a Just Eat courier will certainly have the desired economic output (i.e. more economic productivity), but the cultural damage is potentially irreparable. Perhaps more importantly, however, it is throwing in the towel after the first round of the fight. 

A quick lesson from history

Culture is one of the most important outputs of society and the more developed a society is, the more it normally invests in that culture. A brief overview of history illustrates the point. The Roman Empire, one of the first great civilisations, was focused on warfare and expansion. It spawned some famous philosophers and orators, as well as great art (sculpture and mosaics especially). Yet warfare was the defining trait of the empire, and so the majority of the great figures we remember are the military generals and emperors. Fast forward to the Middle Ages in the same Italian peninsula and we had the Renaissance, ironically rediscovering the lost art techniques of the ancients. Although Italy in this period was dominated by warfare, and although there are no shortage of generals and petty princes to fill the history books, it is the art and culture that the period is best known for. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael are the great names of this era. There was no structured art marketplace, however; instead, rich benefactors (bankers, princes, generals) patronised them, subsidising their art. They did so often in the hope of immortalising their own names, but instead immortalised the artists. Art does not always pay for itself. Sometimes it needs a helping hand.

Small venues create national economic output; virtual ones may not

Now to be clear, I am not advocating that music should become state subsidised. Nor am I comparing the musical output of a bedroom musician with that of a renaissance master (though Kanye does think that he is ‘unquestionably’ an even better artist than even those Italian greats). The lesson to learn from history here is that in tough times, society benefits from supporting culture. If small music venues continue to fall like flies,smaller and emerging artists will be bereft of real-world places to perform and to build audiences. The music market will stagnate with new talent having one more hurdle to success put in its way. Live streaming will pick up some of the slack and may even become a valuable alternative for many artists. For the UK government, however, that will mean swapping the economic output of UK venues for that of predominately American technology platforms. That economic output will leave the UK economy – and at a time of trade uncertainty leading up to Brexit, to lose music, arguably the UK’s most culturally renowned global export over the last century, would be a weighty hit.

Artists need to experiment and innovate now more than ever before

This is bigger than national economic protectionism, and it is certainly bigger than the UK. To use that horrible management consultant phrase: change is difficult. We are cursed and blessed to live in interesting times. Technology has changed the recorded music business beyond recognition; now, because of the pandemic, technology is going to accelerate change in the live business as well. This process may be difficult, and it may be long, but it will result in a differently shaped music business in the mid-term future. Artists have an opportunity, even a responsibility, to innovate and experiment. Before COVID-19, live, merch, recording and publishing were – in varying degrees – the majority of the revenue mix for most artists. Live is unlikely to return to anything resembling normality until 2022. From this moment on, then, artists need to experiment with new models, new ways to engage with audiences and to generate income – whether that be writing for other artists on Soundbetter, making sound packs on Splice or Landr or selling digital collectibles via Fanaply. Artist income is more varied and sophisticated now than it was 10 years ago. The reality is that this trend is going to accentuate both in the lockdown economy and post-pandemic. 

However, new models take time to become viable. In this interim stage, if there is a role for state support, it is to provide artists and songwriters with the financial support and technical and business training to enable them to be winners in this new creative paradigm. Rishi Sunak was wrong to suggest that artists should retrain out of music. But he was right that they should retrain. They should retrain from being artists of the 2010s to artists of the 2020s, and that is where he should be providing support.

The Future of Live

The almost total cessation of live music has sent shockwaves throughout the wider music industry. Though live companies are clearly at the epicentre, labels and streaming services are the in the blast radius too as the gaping hole left in most artists’ income is causing them to question their other income sources, streaming especially – with both labels and DSPs in the sights.

Finding both near- and mid-term fixes for live are therefore crucial for the wider music industry and artist community. There is a big opportunity here that goes far beyond lockdown era. This is more than the future of games and music, it is in fact an alternative future for live music. It is the ultimate lockdown legacy.

MIDiA’s latest subscriber report ‘Recovery Economics: Music, Games, Live Streams and the Future of Concerts’ has just been published and subscribers can read it here. In this blog post I am going to highlight some of the key themes.

Live streaming’s teething pains

From a value chain perspective, Lockdown came too early for live streaming; it is under-developed, under-monetised, under-licensed, under-professionalised. Unfortunately, the live-streaming surge is showing all the signs of a goldrush with a lack of clear structure and the first signs of artist backlash, with some artists feeling that some platforms are relying on them to build their audiences while performing for free.

Furthermore, quality is patchy and artists are becoming concerned with the impact on their brand image. Saturation is another Achilles heel: with traditional performances saturation is negated by artists moving from one city to another. Live streaming has no geographical constraints so the effect of multiple performances is analogous to playing repeated concerts in the same small town.

Virtual concerts, not live-streamed concerts

Arguably the biggest single mistake the music industry made with music streaming was to think of it as a format rather than a paradigm. As a consequence, the (western) streaming services lack differentiation and true feature innovation. We must think of the live opportunity as something that goes beyond live streams. Live streams are just one part of the mix. The true opportunity is virtual experiences, that can range from 100 attendee super-premium intimate sessions, through mass scale ad-supported YouTube streams, to avatars performing in games.

If we start this journey thinking narrowly, the scale of opportunity will be constrained. And right now, the industry needs to get as many virtual event innovations going as it can, because it will have to continue to carry the baton for live for some time yet.

In a best case scenario COVID-19 recedes later this year and we have a small number of limited capacity concerts happening before year end. Alternatively, we may see recurring waves of COVID-19 denting consumer confidence with fewer people wanting to go to concerts even if they could. Either way, artists are not going to get most of their live revenue this year.

It is this post-lockdown opportunity that virtual events need to meet. But there is a lot of work yet to be done. The biggest problem to fix is monetisation.

Fans pay around 80 times more per minute for a real-world live performance than they do for listening to music on paid streaming services. The value exists in the shared moment. The problem with live streaming in its current manifestation is that it is abundant and is delivered in a ubiquitous format that is implicitly low value. If this sector is to become a serious income stream for artists then we have to stop giving it all away for free. What is needed is a sophisticated freemium monetisation model that can cater both to large free audiences and better monetise fans.

A set of principles for virtual events

There is also a lot more that can be fixed. Here are some meta principles that virtual events should adhere to:

• Scarcity (fewer gigs, geo-restricted – Laura Marlin has just announced geo-restricted live streams – let’s make that the trailblazer not an isolated initiative)
• Better production qualities
• More sophisticated monetisation (freemium, pay-to-stay, super premium / VIP etc)
• More sophisticated segmentation of types of shows (not all live streams are the same, but we currently only have a one-size-fits all product
• Better platform segmentation (e.g. big tech platforms can play the role of stadiums and arenas while off-portal destinations like artist apps can host smaller, scarcer, super-premium events)
• Better discovery (the equivalent of the TV EPG needs creating for virtual concerts, Bandsintown has made a decent start but much more needs to be done)
• Better alignment between what artists want and what the platforms want

The birth of a new industry

COVID-19 will likely be a mid- to long-term part of life, so the traditional live sector will face a ‘cost of confidence’ as portions of artists and fans alike will initially stay away. Virtual concerts (live streaming and generative virtual performances) can become an important component of the live music sector as it builds out of lockdown. But it will not get there without concerted efforts to fix the problems that currently define this nascent sector.

A new virtual concert value chain is starting to emerge that traditional live companies are not – yet – well embedded in. The future market will be one defined by both incumbents and insurgents. The big live companies will bet big on virtual but we’ll also see new types of companies like virtual booking agents and avatar agencies. The whole concepts of what a concert is and what a venue is, can be turned on their heads. Fortnite’s Party Royale island is now hosting regular live streamed concerts. With 350 million users, Fortnite can lay claim to being arguably the biggest capacity venue on the planet. This may be the birth of an entire new ecosystem.

Recovery economics

The lockdown lag will create a whole new set of economics across all industries. Driving a recovery during this transition period will require innovation and a willingness to downplay old ways of doing things. For music it will be about exploring new income streams to recast a new music business. The first step is for live streaming to have a product refit that delivers a genuine value exchange for fans if it is to ever get out of its free / charity / tip cul-de-sac and become a genuine income stream of scale.

If you are not yet a MIDiA client and would like to learn how to get access to this report then email stephen@midiaresearch.com

If you are a client and would like to talk to us about the themes covered in the report then schedule an enquiry via enquiries@midiaresearch.com

The Future of Music: A Vision of Post-Format

Formats have shaped and dictated the evolution of recorded music. The constraints that formats set have, in turn, become the creative frameworks within which music has operated. Now, in the internet era, formats are becoming a thing of the past – and yet the way in which music is made and distributed still conforms to the old physical world. It is time for a change in how we think about music, right from the creation process through to what a song actually sounds like. Here is a vision for what the future of music could be.

Bringing dead sounds back to life

When Edison invented the phonograph, a denigrator called it a machine ‘that brings dead sounds back to life’. Conditioned by the recorded era, it is hard for us to conceptualise a time when music only existed in the moment and was never heard exactly the same way twice. Nevertheless, this is a historical anomaly – a legacy of physical media. Songs became fixed, static and permanent because that was the only way we could squeeze music into little discs – mummified echoes of live performances.

Over time, as recording techniques and technology improved, the recorded song developed into its own art form, with multitrack recording, effects, synthesis and programming enabling the creation of sounds that could never be truly replicated live. Now, with physical media accounting for an ever-smaller share of music consumption, there is no need to adhere to its constraints. We have 14 track albums because CDs were designed to fit Beethoven’s 9^thSymphony; we have static recordings to serve legacy distribution models; we have three minute songs to fit radio schedules. All three straightjackets can be discarded. Here is how:=

• Write and produce for the medium: We are already locked into a process of music being designed for Spotify success, through so-called Spotify Core and with the industrialisation of song writing seeing songs stitching together the best hooks from multiple songwriters. Much of this can be reductive, dumbing down to the lowest common denominator.However, it is the execution and intent that requires attention, not the strategy. In fact, it needs pushing further – much further. TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Spotify are all dramatically different propositions with equally diverse use cases. So why would we expect a song to perform equally across each one? What video producer would create a meme for Netflix, or a two-hour movie for Snapchat? It is time to follow video’s lead and write for where the song is going to be listed to most. Lil Nas X when writing Hometown Road was focused on making something viral, something that would blow up on TikTok. The idea that songs should have fixed lengths, choruses, verses – all of this can now be played with in the mainstream in the way that it has been on the experimental fringe of music for many years. This time, it is to give listeners what they want rather than for avant-garde expression.
• Ditch / evolve the album: Just 16% of consumers listen to traditional albums and an even smaller 10% listen to full albums on streaming. 59% of consumers say they are listening to albums less because of streaming playlists. The album is not dead, but its addressable audience is far smaller. Now a new generation of artists is coming through who grew up with playlists, not albums, so do not even think in album terms. Of course, many artists, especially older ones, still want to write albums and they absolutely should do so. They should not, however, expect the majority of their audiences to listen to them in full. There will always be exceptions (Ed Sheeran, Adele etc.) but the direction of travel is clear. Artists and labels need to rethink what the album should be. We’re beginning to see artist contracts that stipulate numbers of tracks rather than albums. This is hugely positive and will enable far more creative freedom. Artists need to start pushing the boundaries, pulling every lever available (e.g. more tracks, fewer tracks, all tracks at once, over time, mixing in spoken word, images and video, EPs etc.). The only rule should be that there are no rules.
• Fill the space between recorded and live: Despite its ‘dead sounds’ origins, the recorded song is an established entity with established consumption patterns that is not going to disappear in any meaningful timeframe. But that does not mean that it has to be the only entity. Technologies such as live streaming, real time tipping, comment streams, virtual gifts and collaboration tools can be used to create music experiences that are neither live nor recorded, but something in between. Imagine an artist doing a pay-to-view live stream in the studio, with a set of beats in a shared folder that the audience can drop in and out but that only changes what they each individually hear. Then the guitarist starts cycling through a few riffs, and the viewers upvote their favourite one in the comment stream. Then as the keyboard player starts, listeners change the synth patch, but again just for their own stream. Think of this not as a blueprint for what the format could be, but an illustration of how to think about it. To create something that is unique, that exists in the moment and creates an indelible bond between artist and fan. 

This was not a definitive list of what post-format innovation needs to do but instead three principle areas of focus and illustrations of how to structure thought. Now it is time for creative artists, writers, labels and tech companies to pick up the baton and run with it. Standing still is of course an option, but in the increasingly competitive attention economy, if music does not up its game there can be no complaints if it loses share to video, games and social.

Why Stormzy as a Glastonbury Headliner Makes Sense Post-Streaming

This is a guest post from MIDiA music analyst Zach Fuller.

On the eve of Stormzy becoming the first Grime artist to headline Glastonbury, it is worth considering what this represents in terms of the link between the new streaming economy and live music.

The South Londoner’s slot is notable less for the now-obligatory controversy that greets any Worthy Farm headliner that isn’t an established rock band (as per Jay-Z and Kanye West’s turns at the festival), but rather should be viewed as a pivot in what the wider live audience ought to expect from the next wave of headliners. Those complaining that Stormzy is not headline material (although a number one album and single could easily suggest otherwise) seem to be missing the point in the transformation being undergone by the live industry – the headliners of yesteryear arrived in a completely different paradigm to the music industry of the present. Additionally, if people expect the live industry as it exists now to reflect modern music consumption, then they are sorely mistaken:

• Streaming and live genres are inverted: 20% of the top 25 Spotify artists (February 2019) are hip hop artists, compared to 12% of the top global touring acts. Meanwhile, rock represents just 12% of the top 25 Spotify artists but 28% of the top live artists. This disconnect between what people are streaming and what they are paying to see live is a potential fault line between two sides of the global music business. Live has always been a lagging indicator of taste, with artists’ live careers peaking later than their recorded careers. It is small surprise that the average age of the top 25 Spotify artists is 34, while for live it is 55.
• The festival boom points to the future: Listeners are less likely to invest in individual artists for an extended period of time, a trend caused by the increased choice among consumers that both downloads and streaming have facilitated. While festivals serve this audience better than individual shows, it could be argued that in the coming years, extended sets by a particular artist make less sense to someone who only streams a few songs by an individual act. The festival-goer’s desire for shorter sets may conflict with the artist’s desire for a longer show given the fee they are being paid. The current live show format of long performance sets looks divorced from consumers’ listening habits. Live venues are already preparing for this post-concert future, which bears greater resemblance to the variety act format so popular in Britain up until the early 60’s when the advent of rock gave rise to the traditional concert format.

The takeaway is that the live industry effectively must play catch-up with streaming if it is to have these types of headliners at all in the future. Even if Stormzy’s streaming numbers do not yet match those in the existing headline bracket, festivals NEED new artists to come through at that level if they are to keep the format together. Either festivals will break apart into niches (a trend already in process when reflecting on the British summertime festival calendar), or streaming acts will see themselves pushed into the big leagues early than anticipated

Do Not Assume We Have Arrived At Our Destination

Forbes has released its annual Celebrity 100, its list of the top earning media stars. The healthy share of music artists hints at the continued ability to build highly successful music careers. The presence of younger, streaming era artists like Drake and the Weeknd goes further, hinting at how streaming can now be the foundation for superstar commercial success. However, although the superstars are clearly making very good money from streaming in its own right, the dominant school of thought is that streaming is a conduit for success, helping drive artists’ other income streams, live in particular. The ‘don’t worry about sales, make your money from touring’ argument is an old one, but it is as riddled with risk now as when it first surfaced, perhaps more so.

Here are 2 key quotes from Forbes that encapsulate the way in which many artists are now viewing streaming:

“We live in a world where artists don’t really make the money off the music like we did in the Golden Age…It’s not really coming in until you hit the stage.” The Weeknd

“The reason the Weeknds of the world and the Drakes of the world are exploding is a combination of a global audience that’s consuming them freely at a young age [and that] they just keep dropping music…They’re delivering an ongoing, engaged dialogue with their fan base.” Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino

Both quotes imply that live is the place you’re going to make your money. They also argue that streaming can be used intelligently to engage fans because it is not constrained by old world limits such as shelf space and physical distribution considerations. In the old model, artists could go years between album releases, leaving fans hanging, while touring would often be a loss-leading effort to help sell the album. The roles are now reversed.

The rise of live music revenue in 2000s mirrored the decline of recorded music, replacing each lost dollar and adding another one on top. In 2000, recorded music represented 53% of the global music industry, that share is now just 38% while live went from 33% to 43%, though recorded music revenue is now growing again, winning back market share. On this basis, the ‘stream to gig’ argument makes a lot of sense. But things are never as simple as they first appear: 

• Not all live music revenue is created equally: On average, around just 29% of live music revenue makes it back to the artist (after agents, costs etc are factored in) while many artists don’t make any money on live until they’ve reached a certain level of scale. And that’s before considering that the top 1% of live artists (many of whom are aging heritage acts) account for 68% of all live revenue.
• Streaming has fewer middlemen: With streaming there can be relatively few middlemen (e.g. just TuneCore and the streaming service, though in practice many labels use 3^rd party distributors etc). Meanwhile in live there is a multitude of middlemen, many of whom are highly protective of their roles. In streaming, artists have a wealth of data and insights such as Spotify’s artist dashboard and Pandora’s Artist Marketing Programme (AMP). All of which means that artists have to share revenue with more parties in live and they also have less transparency than they do with streaming.
• Resselling is causing friction: All of this is without even considering the corrosive impact on live of ticket resellers such as ViaGoGo and GetMeIn. These business models are incredibly smart from a VC perspective, meeting huge market demand for a comparatively scarce product. But that doesn’t make them good for fans, the live business nor for artists. Most often, though not always, artists do not see a penny of resell revenue. It is money that is taken from music fans and sucked straight out of the industry. Artists lose out, fans lose out. Ticketing companies gain. All that hard work invested in building fan relationships goes out of the window.

The Tide Is Turning

More than all this though, the tide is turning. The 2016 results of Live Nation (parent company of Ticketmaster and one of the largest live companies) point to an industry that, while it is still growing, has cracks appearing. Revenue grew by 15% from $7.3bn to $8.6bn (more than the entire GDP of Haiti) but increased ticket prices drove much of the growth. Ticket prices were up 5% overall and by 10% in stadiums and other big venues. Revenue growth was also driven by in-venue merch spending (up 9%) and sponsorship and advertising (up 13%). Live Nation’s number of ‘fans’ was up 4% in the US but was flat internationally. To be clear, these are strong results for Live Nation but they also reflect a highly mature industry that is squeezing out every last drop of growth through price increases and additional revenue streams. And it is nothing new: Pollstar reports that average ticket prices increased by 22% between 2006 and 2015. Total live revenues grew by 37% over the same period which means that nearly half of all live revenue growth came from ticket price inflation.

Streaming Is Today, Not Tomorrow, Start Treating It That Way

All this comes with streaming revenue growing by $2.5m in 2016 (in retail terms) and overall recorded revenues growing by nearly a billion. The live music business has strong growth left in it, but that revenue is not evenly distributed, will likely slow in the near-ish future and has an underlying core spending trend that is largely flat. Streaming, on the other hand, is booming and will break the $10bn mark this year.

So why are superstar artists still looking to live to pay the bills. Firstly, it’s easier to make really good live money if you’re a superstar, and secondly, streaming still isn’t big enough yet for really strong streaming revenue. The Weekend’s 5.5bn cumulative streams (including YouTube) will have generated the artist around $4 million while if he’d instead sold 5 million copies of Starboy he’d have netted around $10 million.

Streaming simply needs more monetized users in the pot, especially paid subscribers. That will come but rather than just wait, more needs to be done now to help artists get more income from streaming, such as:

• Better rates for artists (many only earn 15% of the label share, which is around 70% of the $0.008 blended rate for freemium services)
• More ways for artists to monetize on streaming services (e.g. artist subscriptions, pay per view live streams and gigs)
• More artist-centric experiences

Add together all the pieces and you start to create an environment in which artists can see a more immediate direct return from streaming. That is how we get to stop artists simply viewing streaming services as a way to market their wares. It is great that streaming can play that marketing role but sooner or later, labels and artists need to focus more on streaming being the destination not just the journey. With so much market momentum, it is tempting to think of streaming as ‘mission accomplished’. In reality we’re just getting going. To move streaming to that next stage, much more work needs to be done and the time to do that is now, not when the market starts to mature (which will happen some time in 2019). It is not in the interest of streaming services to simply be seen as a tool for getting more bums on seats. Nor is it in the interest of labels as they only participate in a small share of live revenue. Is streaming going to become a bigger revenue stream than live for big artists? No, but it can be a much bigger source than it is right now, but only if the model evolves. If streaming cannot break out from its beachhead of being the discovery journey then it will never reach its destination.

 

Amazon Prime Live Events, More Than Just Gigs For Olds

Amazon today announced ‘Amazon Prime Live Events’, a series of smaller capacity gigs by largely heritage acts made available exclusively to Amazon Prime members in the UK. The first wave of artists include Blondie, Alison Moyet and Texas. Putting aside for a moment the obvious ‘it’s iTunes Festival for old people’ jibe, there is some sound strategic thinking underpinning the initiative.

The overlap between streaming and live has long been clear to streaming services (45% of live music fans are also streaming music users – check out MIDiA’s latest live entertainment report for more). It also presents a great opportunity to transform loss-leading streaming business into profit generators by monetizing the high value fans through ticket sales. However, no one has yet managed to realize the logical opportunity. Pandora’s full stack play with TicketFly, and Access Industry’s Deezer / Songkick play both represent potential at this stage, while other streaming services have made interesting announcements that soon disappeared from view.

Amazon might just be the one to make it work. It has quietly been building up its ticketing business for some time and because it sits on the same user dataset (and billing relationships) as Prime and Amazon’s 2 music services, it has an unrivalled ability to target and monetize.

Amazon Prime Live Events’ line up might not exactly be the cutting edge of edgy, exciting new music (Katie Melua rounds off the line up) but that is sort of the point. Amazon’s streaming music strategy is so interesting because it isn’t playing by the same rules as everyone else. Amazon is not competing for the same small group of 20/30 something music aficionados that the other streaming services are tearing chunks out of each other over. Instead it has its sights set on older, more mainstream music fans for whom the smartphone-centric music service offering has limited appeal.

This line up of gigs isn’t the end game, but instead the first step of what will likely be an increasingly joined up music strategy across Amazon’s various assets. The fact that 28% of UK live music fans are also Amazon Prime subscribers hints at where Amazon can go with this (overall UK Amazon Prime penetration is 19%). The fact that the gigs will be made available on Amazon Prime Video internationally further points to Amazon’s ability to join the dots across its increasingly diverse assets.

Throughout the first half of the 2010s Amazon was very much in the shadows of Apple and Google in terms of content strategy. Now not only is it giving them a run for the money in that arena, it is also making them pay close attention in terms of hardware and the home. What makes Amazon potentially the most interesting of the GAAF (Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook) is the way in which it combines customer data, billing relationships, content and services, infrastructure and consumer hardware. The 2000s was Apple’s decade. The 2010s are shaping up to be Amazon’s.

Ed Sheeran’s Ticketing Fiasco Shines A Harsh Light On A Broken Industry

Ed Sheeran has hit the news, bemoaning the inflated prices that tickets for his forthcoming tour are being sold at on ticket reseller websites. Some tickets have sold for as much as £999, compared to the original face value of £77. As the chart below shows, even the standard resold tickets are selling for up 5 times the original price.

Sheeran is in the fortunate position of being one of the most in demand artists of the moment, but the broken nature of the ticketing market is locking his core fans out of his gigs. It is just the latest example of an industry in dire need of change:

• Ticketing companies are playing double agent: Over the course of the last decade the live music market has grown almost dollar-for-dollar at the same rate the recorded business has declined. In 2000 live was around 30% of the global music business, now it is around 2 thirds. The live boom has long been seen as the good news for the music business, held up as evidence of value simply shifting from one part of the business to another, and the new way in which artists can build vibrant careers. The problem is that a) much of that growth has come in ticket price inflation, and b) most of the money does not make it back to artists. In fact, on average, artists only earn 14% of ticket sales revenue. Ticket resellers are a major contributory factor. Hiking up the prices and only distributing a small fraction back to artists, often in many cases (eg ticket marketplaces) nothing at all. The big ticketing companies are not merely passive observers, they are actively driving the reseller market, essentially acting as double agents and often cross promoting  reseller destinations they own. For example, Ticketmaster is also the parent company of Seatwave and GetMeIn. Though Ticketmaster’s reseller destinations do not bulk buy tickets, some independent resellers have teams of people that do exactly that.

• Resold tickets put gigs out of reach of core fans: Resellers argue that there is a market for high priced tickets. There is, but it is a different market than that of core fans. Many sports leagues have seen a ‘gentrification’ of crowds, with older, more affluent fans being the only ones that can afford inflated ticket prices. The result is more subdued crowds and less vibrant atmospheres. The same thing is happening to live music, with young fans being forced out in favour of older audiences. It might be good for the ticket resellers and venues and booking agents, but it is bad news for bands and fans. The presence of ticket reselling marketplaces actively encourages nefarious behaviour, with a whole segment of professional resellers that use technology such as bots to bulk buy tickets before real fans get their hands on the tickets. There is an opportunity, nay a moral obligation, for more connected action to be taken to eradicate this sort of behaviour.
• It is a problem that can be fixed, but it requires coordinated effort: Ed Sheeran’s camp has told fans not to buy from resellers at inflated prices. But Sheeran’s camp have to shoulder some of the blame.  The solution is as simple as it is complex. The simplicity is not to allow tickets to go to resell and to only admit fans whose names are on the tickets (which cuts out the ticketing marketplaces like Seatwave). But the complexity is that vested interests apply pressure to ensure this doesn’t happen. Nonetheless, action can be taken. Adele and her manager Jonathan Dickins took a bold stance last year, only allowing named ticket holders to attend some of her gigs. They even went as far as cancelling some resold tickets for other gigs. Mumford and Sons went one step further and booked Wembley directly, cutting out all the middle men.

But isolated action is not enough. Unless artists, managers and labels act together, to take a bold stance, change will not happen. And the losers then will be the fans.