#TheWeeklyRoundUp - 20.07.24

Global on-demand music streams up 15.1% in first half of 2024 (musically)

Research firm Luminate has published its mid-year report for 2024, with a raft of stats exploring the continued growth of the recorded music market.

The headline stat: 2.29 trillion. That’s how many on-demand audio streams there were globally in the first six months of 2024, up 15.1% from the same period last year.

The report zeroes in on North America for other stats, reporting that US on-demand audio streams were up 8% in the first half of this year to 665.8bn.

So, the US accounted for just over 29% of global streams, but that share is falling slightly – down from just under 31% a year ago.

One thing that hasn’t changed: the share of US consumption between current and catalogue music. It’s exactly the same as last year: 27.2% is current music and 72.8% catalogue.

Other trends picked out by Luminate in its repoort include Latin music being the fastest growing ‘core’ genre in the US, growing its share of on-demand streaming there by 0.51 percentage points year-on-year.

There were also small rises in share for rock, pop and country, although R&B / Hip-Hop (grouped together as one core genre in Luminate’s methodology) is still the biggest in terms of actual streams.

There is also some analysis of the environment for artists in the US. Luminate noted that 46 artists had more than 1bn US on-demand audio streams in the first half of this year, and 43 of them “had major distribution listed on their most-streamed track”.

Of those with between 10m and 50m streams in that period, 62.3% had major distribution, while of those with 1m-10m streams, 62.1% had independent distribution.

(Yes, there’s an important caveat here, which Luminate explains in its report. “Independent includes all distribution outside major labels or their owned entities” – our bold type. So some of the artists classified as ‘major-distributed’ are exactly that: independent, just putting their music out through the majors’ distribution arms.)

The trend picked out by Luminate here is that independent-distributed artists are increasing their share of each tier of streams: up 0.6 percentage points in the 1m-10m streams tier, up 2.3 points in the 10m-50m tier; up 1.8 points in the 50m-100m tier and so on.

---

TikTok’s Live Music Expansion Continues With Eventbrite Partnership: ‘Millions of People Can Now Easily Discover and Attend the Best Events’ (digital music news)

Ahead of a quick-approaching divestment deadline in the U.S., TikTok is continuing to expand its live events presence, this time with an Eventbrite partnership.

The ByteDance-owned platform unveiled the tie-up via a brief release, and under the straightforward pact, TikTokers “can add Eventbrite links directly to” videos, thereby enabling fans to buy passes in-app.

Of course, that could set the stage for material commercial results fueled by casual fanbases, and the involved parties touted the potential advantages of plugging events to the massive audiences at hand.

Regarding availability, the integration option is already live “in all countries where both TikTok and Eventbrite services” operate, per the companies. However, one can only promote public in-person happenings that have paid tickets and are scheduled to take place within 90 days (180 days for music events).

“We’re giving creators a simple way to jump into trending conversations and bring online communities together in real life through events they’re passionate about,” Eventbrite chief product officer Ted Dworkin elaborated in a statement. “With this partnership, millions of people can now easily discover and attend the best events in their cities, right from where the conversation is happening—on TikTok.”

Looking to the bigger picture, the union means TikTok has, in just the past seven or so months, staged its own concert event and scored deals with Eventbrite, Ticketmaster, AXS, and CTS Eventim alike.

Importantly, TikTok’s music-driven expansion initiatives aren’t confined to an apparent ticketing and live entertainment buildout.

Far from functioning like a business that could be forced to shut down in the world’s largest economy in six months, TikTok has during 2024 quietly eyed music-content investments, brought its Commercial Music Library to Adobe Express, and debuted an artist-focused series, to name some.

In short, especially now that the Universal Music licensing showdown is in the rearview, TikTok’s industry relevance is arguably greater than ever. Time will tell how exactly (and whether) the point factors into the service’s ongoing legal challenges against the forced-sale law.

But specifically on the music side, TikTok’s stateside shutdown, as explored by DMN Pro at length, would have an unprecedented impact on all manner of artists and companies. Against this backdrop and amid a steady stream of music features and initiatives from YouTube Shorts, a recent study suggested that fans themselves may be embracing TikTok alternatives.

According to Luminate’s mid-year report, a number of U.S.-based “music listeners” started using Shorts during 2024’s second quarter – so much so that its reach in the category topped 30 percent and approached that of TikTok. Nevertheless, TikTok’s own share remained flat year over year, suggesting that short-form enthusiasts could be getting their video fix from multiple platforms.