Welcome Back Thursday…

July 6, 2017Uncategorizedgmtartaglia@aol.com

*** Editor’s Note: After being out of the country for the past few weeks I’m excited to get back to my blog. Hopefully you survived my summer hiatus and will enjoy some fresh posts! ***

THE GOLDEN AGE OF AUDIO IS UPON US: Over the past few years a theory has emerged that streamed music consumed on mobile devices will increase overall consumption of audio. Now we’re starting to see evidence of this surge, thanks to a new Buzz Angle Music study. Over the first six months of 2017 US music consumption has increased 10% over the same period in 2016. The key to making this calculation is a formula which equates consumption across different platforms called Total Album Project Units (TAPU). Under TAPU one purchased album is equal to 10 downloaded songs, and is equal to 1,500 streamed song plays. By combining all three of these consumption paths into this standardized weighting formula we now have a sense of overall music consumption, which allows for the YoY comparison. As you can see in the graphic and link below the growth in music consumption is being completely driven by streaming, which is no surprise to anyone who works in this sector. Expect to see this trend line continue over the next several years as we enter the Golden Age of Audio. BuzzAngle-Music-2017-Mid-Year-U.S.-Report

Kayne Sours On Tidal: When Jay-Z and some business associates launched Tidal in March’15 they had the stated intention of paying artists the royalties they deserved and give listeners a premium streaming experience. Ironically, those royalties payments are at the heart of a new dispute between Tidal and Kayne West. The attached Music Business Worldwide link outlines the Louis Vuitton Don’s claim (yes, that’s one of Kayne’s many self-given nicknames), that Tidal owes him $3M for royalties related to an exclusive release of his latest album. Further complicating matters is the fact that Kayne owns 3% of Tidal, since he was one of its 15 founding artists. Are you confused yet? Not sure if this will devolve into a lawsuit on either side. Regardless, it’s sort of a PR black eye for the streaming platform which was supposed to be the most artist friendly of all.

Pandora Gets It’s Data Cloud On: Finally today, I know this came out last week but it’s important to highlight Pandora’s new partnership with Oracle’s Data Cloud. This arrangement is significant since it will link exposure to an audio ad directly to sales results. The first application of this partnership will be focused on Auto – Oracle will quantify sales metrics of Pandora listeners who’ve heard a specific ad and then made a purchase of the advertised vehicle. This will unlock an important attribution tool for the Auto EOMs who have been trapped in last-click-attribution-hell with the lower funnel endemic publishers like Cars.com, Autotrader, etc.. Besides Auto, you can imagine how this data arrangement could be used in other categories like Retail, QSR, and Financial Services. The term “foaming at the mouth” is used by an industry insider to describe the potential market demand in the attached AdAge link. This feels like the first of many Audio + Data = Results stories we’ll see over the coming months.

Have a great Thursday guys!