Tencent’s stronghold over the music business // Decoding 8tracks’ demise // Why media predictions are music predictions

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                January 10, 2020

            Tencent’s stronghold over the music business // Decoding 8tracks’ demise // Why media predictions are music predictions

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http://hotpodnews.com/presents....
A Newsletter about Big Ideas in Music and Technology, by Cherie Hu
This is issue #73, published on January 10, 2020
Happy Friday! Hope you're all enjoying your new year so far. :)
Nearly 200 new subscribers have joined us since the previous issue (https://us20.campaign-archive.com/?u=3d1b6946215346237ceeb999b&id=23e728f86f) , which is super exciting. If you're a new subscriber, I'd love to learn more about how you found Water & Music and what you're looking to get out of this newsletter. Just respond to this email and it'll go straight to me!
A few notes before moving on:

This week's newsletter structure looks a little different from previous ones. I've published three substantial articles over the past few weeks — about Tencent's new equity in Universal Music Group, 8tracks' shutdown and what the music industry can learn from media-industry predictions for 2020. Each of those articles has its own preview section below, with the opportunity to click out to their full versions if you're interested in reading more. Hopefully this allows for a better reader experience than just scrolling through a long essay in your inbox. Let me know what you think!

Next week, I'm going to be publishing a special newsletter takeover with Trapital (http://trapital.co/) , an excellent newsletter about the business of hip-hop. Trapital's founder Dan Runcie and I will each be writing our own takes on the concept of the "fantasy record label" (think fantasy sports, but for label rosters), and whether we think they'll gain any traction in the music industry in the near future. I'll be publishing Dan's take on this newsletter next Wednesday; to read my take next week, you can sign up for Trapital here (https://trapital.co/) . (I previously did a newsletter takeover with Amber Horsburgh about music and smart speakers (https://mailchi.mp/11b7f22688eb/the-next-wave-of-music-innovation-voice-smart-speakers-geolocation-iot?e=3f7f76baf3) , and it was awesome!!)

Please follow Water & Music on Instagram (@water_and_music (https://www.instagram.com/water_and_music/?hl=en) )! I'll be posting a bit more there this year.
Tencent proves record labels and streaming services depend more on each other, not less

In my first freelance piece of the year, I wrote for NPR Music (https://www.npr.org/2020/01/08/794515696/chinese-tech-giant-tencent-wants-a-piece-of-the-worlds-most-successful-record-la) about the biggest takeaways from Tencent's newfound equity stake in Universal Music Group.
For me, the most important takeaway is that this news contradicts one of the most widespread music-tech narratives of the past five years — namely, that streaming companies want to decrease their reliance on major labels (and vice versa) in order to improve their bottom lines. In a world where no one can quite agree on whether content or tech is king, streaming services and music rights-owners are actually more tethered to each other than ever.
Case in point: As part of my own research, I created the above graphic in an attempt to visualize the somewhat incestuous relationships among labels, streaming services and tech conglomerates. I posted it first on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/posts/32893192) , then decided to share it publicly on Twitter (https://twitter.com/cheriehu42/status/1213930916596334599) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6619753923366400000/) , to unexpectedly viral results.
Click here to continue reading. (https://www.npr.org/2020/01/08/794515696/chinese-tech-giant-tencent-wants-a-piece-of-the-worlds-most-successful-record-la)
Decoding 8tracks' demise, and what it reveals about the future of music streaming
Over the winter holiday, music-curation 8tracks announced that it was going to shut down at the end of 2019.
In a lengthy, revealing blog post (https://blog.8tracks.com/2019/12/26/to-everything-there-is-a-season/) , 8tracks’ founder/CEO David Porter outlined the company’s tumultuous history — from its early successes with Tumblr and StumbleUpon, to its difficulties in competing with Spotify on music discovery, to its struggles in paying the proper performance royalties to SoundExchange, to its two failed attempts over the course of four years to find a buyer, leading to its eventual shutdown.
While many publications covered the announcement, I was surprised at how few of them offered deeper analysis on what Porter's blog post — which offered a level of transparency that is so, so rare in the music and tech worlds these days — revealed about the state of the streaming sector going into 2020.
I decided to write out that analysis myself on my Patreon page. I broke down my piece into four main themes: the decline of music collection as a behavior, the centralization of music curation, the unsustainability of an ad-based streaming model without scale and the stubborn, but perhaps justifiable, obstacle of royalty payments for music startups.
Click here to continue reading. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/32727650)
Media predictions are music predictions: Lessons for the music industry from Nieman Lab
On my Patreon page, I published a longform essay about what the music industry could learn from Nieman Lab (https://www.niemanlab.org/) 's latest Predictions for Journalism (https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2020/) package.
For the uninitiated: every year, Nieman Lab, a media trade publication, recruits several leaders, strategists and entrepreneurs from across the journalism sector to write about what they think will be the most important trends and themes for the coming year. Their 2020 predictions package is their biggest one yet, and I think there are several important takeaways to parse for the music industry, spanning podcasts, audience development, localization vs. globalization and the evolution of streaming services like Spotify.
Why did I write this piece? In my opinion, music is media. As a journalist who writes about music, I’ve long taken the stance that “music companies” and “media companies” are very much playing the same game when it comes to building businesses and audiences online — to the point where that industry barrier between “music” and “media” might no longer make sense (https://twitter.com/cheriehu42/status/1214401539986640897) .
Click here to continue reading. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/32879325)
Good reads
The New Ticket Scalpers Are Young, Unashamed, and Very Online (The Atlantic) (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/discord-scalpers-harry-styles-ticket-resale-verified-fan/602647/)
Young, everyday fans are getting their hands dirty in the secondary ticket market — but they're not scalping, nor are they using bots. Instead, they're paying for access to private Discord groups for intel about the highest-value tickets, and the best manual techniques for nabbing them.
Old Musicians Never Die. They Just Become Holograms. (New York Times Magazine) (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/magazine/hologram-musicians.html)
Companies are making plans to put droves of departed idols on tour — reanimating a live-music industry whose biggest earners will soon be dying off.
Wanted: A Home for Three Million Records (New York Times) (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/nyregion/Archive-of-Contemporary-Music-NYC.html)
The Archive of Contemporary Music is losing its space in TriBeCa.
7 Reasons Why Video Gaming Will Take Over (Matthew Ball's blog) (https://www.matthewball.vc/all/7reasonsgaming)
Not that you didn't know this already — but this is a must-read from investor and entertainment strategist Matthew Ball. Gamification is everywhere.
What I'm listening to
Mirrorland (https://open.spotify.com/album/2JtlTPzThXs3Pvz8V2iBIB?si=0fujNzU6SBuoiH8aIEi51A) — Revisiting this wacky but excellently-crafted album by EARTHGANG. Favorite tracks: "Blue Moon" and "Stuck."
"Good News (https://open.spotify.com/track/3ClBKQkKoaUQ6UOhe2xlJK?si=KfIgbhkyTMSxj0PQghuVoQ) " — the new single from the late Mac Miller's upcoming posthumous album, to be released on January 17. It's a downtempo, relatively quiet song, but I'll admit that it was a bit difficult for me to listen to it, now that it's clear what the rapper was going through at the time. The accompanying music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIHF7u9Wwiw) also offers a trippy, sweet tribute.
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