Why is Sony Music investing so much in podcasts?
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View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) http://hotpodnews.com/presents.... The fine print of innovation in the music business. This is issue #80, published on March 6, 2020. Happy Friday!
Apologies for missing last week — I was in Oslo and Stockholm for a work trip, and my schedule got ahead of me.
A few notes before moving on to today’s stories: * RIP SXSW. Damn. * I was interviewed for a piece in the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/style/spotify-top-fans-messages.html) about those Spotify “top fan” notifications and what they reveal about the streaming service’s data collection practices. (I got one of those notifications as a “top 1% fan” of KAYTRANADA, and analyzed its implications more anatomically on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/posts/34420587) .) * I’ve gotten a ton of new subscribers since the last issue! If you’re new to Water & Music, I’d love to learn more about how you came across this newsletter and/or my work in general — feel free to reply to this email and it’ll go straight to me.
Thank you so much for reading! :)
- Cherie Why is Sony Music Entertainment investing so much in podcasts?
Like Spotify, Sony Music Entertainment no longer wants to be known just as a music company.
Over the past several months, Sony Music has been investing aggressively in content that, at least on the surface, has nothing to do with music. Those investments include at least five different partnerships and joint ventures with third-party podcast production companies — Somethin’ Else (https://www.sonymusic.com/sonymusic/leading-uk-audio-producer-somethin-else-and-sony-music-announce-new-podcast-venture/) (U.K.), Broccoli Content (https://www.sonymusic.com/sonymusic-labels/acclaimed-podcast-producer-renay-richardson-launches-new-joint-venture-with-sony-music-entertainment/) (U.K.), The Onion (https://www.sonymusic.com/sonymusic-labels/comedy-leader-the-onion-and-sony-music-entertainment-announce-new-podcast-partnership/) (U.S.), Three Uncanny Four (https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/sony-musics-podcast-three-uncanny-four-productions-hires-1203297783/) (U.S.) and Neon Hum (https://www.sonymusic.com/sonymusic/sony-music-entertainment-announces-strategic-investment-in-leading-podcast-production-company-neon-hum/) (U.S.) — spanning topics including daily news commentary, investigative features, comedy/satire, politics and even family and parenting issues. There are also a few Sony-internal podcast projects underway, such as For Life: The Podcast (https://deadline.com/2020/02/for-life-the-podcast-companion-hank-steinberg-50-cent-abc-1202856446/) , which is based on the eponymous legal drama (https://www.thewrap.com/for-life-abc-releases-first-trailer-for-50-cent-produced-prison-drama-video/) on ABC and is produced in partnership with Sony Pictures Television.
But amidst its deluge of press releases, the company has remained weirdly quiet about one crucial question: Why??? Why is a legacy, nearly century-old musical institution suddenly deciding to be a newcomer to a content format with a rather Wild-West approach to business models, in a way that doesn’t really tie back to the institution’s existing core strengths and revenue streams?
Fortunately, I got to dig a bit deeper into these questions yesterday at the Hot Pod Summit (http://onairfest.com/sessions/hot-pod-summit) — which took place at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn for around 200 handpicked audience members from across the podcast industry, spanning everyone from independent producers to tech platforms and more corporate financiers, as part of the annual On Air Fest (http://onairfest.com/) .
Alongside Nick Quah (founder/publisher of Hot Pod (https://hotpodnews.com/) ), I co-moderated a panel about Sony Music’s podcast expansion that featured Christy Mirabal (VP of Marketing, Podcasting at Sony Music), Laura Mayer (Co-Founder/COO at Three Uncanny Four Productions) and Renay Richardson (CEO of Broccoli Content) as speakers.
Mirabal cited recent findings around overall growth in audio consumption, plus increasing awareness of podcasts specifically (see the latest Infinite Dial report (https://www.edisonresearch.com/infinite-dial-2019/) for details), as an opportunity for a label like Sony Music to expand and diversify its business into other kinds of audio properties beyond recordings.
But what stood out to me more was Mirabal’s emphasis on platforms, not just end-user consumption, in driving Sony Music’s decision-making. “The idea that the same players that are starting to coalesce in podcasting are also some of the biggest players on the music side definitely informed our decision to start a podcast division,” said Mirabal. “We know those players and how to work with them, and that’s a strength we can bring to the table.”
To me, this sounds like a diplomatic way of saying that Sony Music’s foray into podcasting is a direct — and in many ways competitive — response to Spotify. Click here to continue reading. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/34654188) Want to promote your album? Make a podcast about it
I wrote for Hot Pod (https://hotpodnews.com/the-new-hot-way-to-promote-your-album-make-a-podcast/) about why artists of all genres and at all career stages are now creating podcasts to promote their albums. (The piece is also now syndicated on Vulture (https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/musicians-starting-podcasts-spotify.html) !)
In June 2019, the Pixies launched their limited-series podcast It’s a Pixies Podcast (https://twitter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7175619f87bd6b29429572aa&id=bf4f61174f&e=28c2ad1b92) , which teased their album Beneath the Eyrie (https://twitter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7175619f87bd6b29429572aa&id=71208e64a8&e=28c2ad1b92) by dropping behind-the-scenes episodes week by week, leading up to the album’s official release in September 2019. Later that same September, Spotify Studios released the original podcast 21 Days With mxmtoon (https://twitter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7175619f87bd6b29429572aa&id=48a1cef1a0&e=28c2ad1b92) , which followed the titular YouTuber turned artist as she made her latest full-length album, The Masquerade (https://twitter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7175619f87bd6b29429572aa&id=f950073f37&e=28c2ad1b92) , from start to finish, using her song lyrics as entry points into ruminations on her identity, family, and career growth.
And just released last week, Asking for It (https://twitter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7175619f87bd6b29429572aa&id=5fb243bc45&e=28c2ad1b92) — a fictional podcast from Mermaid Palace (https://twitter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7175619f87bd6b29429572aa&id=f151a919a7&e=28c2ad1b92) and CBC Podcasts about a musician navigating queer romance and relationship abuse — takes a more experimental approach to the hybrid album-podcast approach, by contextualizing new music in a fictionalized rather than documentarian setting.
The women playing two of the main characters in Asking for It — Drew Denny (https://twitter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7175619f87bd6b29429572aa&id=d81cdb76f3&e=28c2ad1b92) , who plays Goldie, and Christina Gaillard (https://twitter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7175619f87bd6b29429572aa&id=c457cd00d8&e=28c2ad1b92) , who plays her bandmate KG — are also bandmates in real life, performing as HIPS, and made an exclusive, self-titled soundtrack for the podcast. The show itself incorporates not just this soundtrack, but also archival recordings from HIPS’s demos, rehearsals, and live performances as far back as 2012, as well as some original scoring from Gaillard.
“It’s exciting to think that people who wouldn’t seek out our music otherwise will learn about it because of the podcast,” Denny tells me, adding that the discovery also goes in the other direction. “People who like our music maybe don’t listen to podcasts, or haven’t listened to a fictional podcast before.”
The hybrid podcast-album release strategy is part of a wider trend of independent artists starting their own podcasts (https://twitter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7175619f87bd6b29429572aa&id=2daf3c2726&e=28c2ad1b92) , both to talk directly to loyal fans and to cut through the noise of an oversaturated music-streaming landscape. Click here to continue reading. (https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/musicians-starting-podcasts-spotify.html) Why Hollywood’s infiltration of Silicon Valley Matters
Last year, I got to fact-check the entirety of Forbes Senior Editor Zack Greenburg’s book A-List Angels: How a Band of Actors, Artists, and Athletes Hacked Silicon Valley (https://www.amazon.com/List-Angels-Artists-Athletes-Silicon/dp/031648508X) , which comes out next Tuesday (March 10, 2020).
In summary, the book explores how a growing number of celebrities, including Ashton Kutcher, Shaquille O’Neal, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber and Steve Aoki, are using their platform and celebrity to buy stakes in up-and-coming tech startups, instead of just pursuing traditional endorsement deals for cash. It’s an entertaining and engaging read that sheds light on the evolving value of fame, as well as on the deep financial connections between the music and tech worlds that everyday consumers might not see.
I want to highlight four higher-level themes from the book that I think demonstrate why Hollywood’s infiltration of Silicon Valley matters in the first place — particularly from an artist’s perspective.
The main questions are: * In a world where industry boundaries are blurring, how can artists learn from entrepreneurial activity outside of music to help expand and future-proof their own brands? * How will artists of all career stages define, and assert, their own value in the next 10 to 20 years? * How, if at all, will artists have an upside in the platforms that distribute their own work, instead of always playing catch-up? * And which kinds of artists will, and will not, benefit from this trend?
Click here to continue reading (members only). (https://www.patreon.com/posts/34608829) Good reads
Pex buys Dubset to build YouTube ContentID for TikTok & more (TechCrunch) (https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/05/legalizing-remix-culture/) I’m still processing my own thoughts on this acquisition — will probably write more about it next week — but I think it’ll be one of the most important ones of the year, especially in relation to rights management and short-form music content.
Can Fan Club Culture Exist In The Age Of The Stan? (Okayplayer) (https://www.okayplayer.com/music/stan-culture-fan-club.html) In my 2019 anti-predictions piece (https://www.patreon.com/posts/32499111) for the music industry, I wrote about how fan clubs didn’t come back, even though a lot of people still want them to. This article by Jaelani Turner-Williams is a good overview of why the phrase “fan club” might not even be relevant for modern-day music culture, in which fandom has become multiple times more scalable, more distributed, more influential, more fervent and, at times, more toxic.
The Labor Beat (Real Life Mag) (https://reallifemag.com/the-labor-beat/) Thought-provoking writeup by Robin James about the relationship between independent artists/creators and the highly corporatized gig economy, as well as at what point the emerging social model of “interdependence” rather than “independence” for artist communities falls short under capitalism.
23 Metrics That Matter For Record Marketing (Deep Cuts) (https://medium.com/@AmberHorsburgh/23-metrics-that-matter-229cfba81440) The ever-amazing Amber Horsburgh maps out nearly two dozen popular KPIs in music-marketing campaigns based on their predicted revenue and business impact, and breaks down when some KPIs might make more sense to prioritize over others based on the nature of the campaign. What I’m listening to
I saw a lot of incredibly talented artists at the by:Larm festival in Oslo last week, and am blown away by the magnitude and diversity of the Norwegian music market in general, in spite of the country’s size.
Here are some of my personal highlights: * boy pablo (https://open.spotify.com/artist/7wbkl3zgDZEoZer357mVIw?si=sMQjmCMzQFeJqLadlGU07g) * Emelie Hollow (https://open.spotify.com/artist/61pvU6ZLOF3bl0IOtbmME7?si=5tgTnD2GR-ica_cNBuE-gA) * Kongle (https://open.spotify.com/artist/6B6CU7w7klU9auHRkAfjmu?si=Bl-ihZbrRre-qzStyL_mOA) * Athletic Progression (https://open.spotify.com/artist/2BBIIe7eBYThLcIrZGZb3I?si=kDElfrvNSOupFwnPH5skZg) * Charlotte Dos Santos (https://open.spotify.com/artist/0INatsTiEOX0EJimNTQjSM?si=d6fEJuPnRBWwqg55j2byqw) * Safario (https://open.spotify.com/artist/38Ge46KyPYGGh1Bv6KULSD?si=sKtLscMYRWS_RL2wD-0CQg)
If you’d like to support even more thoughts and conversations on music and tech, I encourage you to become a paying member of the Water & Music ecosystem on Patreon (http://patreon.com/cheriehu?utm_campaign=Water%20%26%20Music&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter) .
For as little as $3/month or as much as $200+/month, you can access a wide range of perks including: * A closed, members-only Discord server, consisting of regular updates and analysis on the most important music and tech news * Exclusive essays and article previews * Updates on my book research * Monthly video hangouts with me
…and much more! Thanks so much for reading! ❤️
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