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✖ The pandemic has changed music education for good. These are the opportunities
And: UMG, YG, and Big Hit collab on VenewLive; South Korean #SOS; Police officers triggering copyright take-downs?; 74% of viewers only watch part of a livestream; Napster listing on LSE
Music EdTech should have a much bigger market size than it currently does. Online learning has exploded and music seems to be lagging behind in grabbing the opportunities. I dive into digital disruption in music EdTech and see where the opportunities are when it comes to:
Solo learning
app-based like Yousician or Ultimate Guitar, but also Netflix’s Sing On vocal analyzer
subscription-based like the i-Music School or Primephonic’s Ludwig
Teacher-based, interactive learning
Music school going online during lockdown
Online courses with the likes of Udemy
I explain why these opportunities haven’t been fully capatilized on and how we can increase music’s market size compared to the almost $350 billion projected for the global e-learning market by 2026.
👉 Read the article: The Pandemic has changed music education for good. These are the opportunities.
Courtesy of London Sinfonietta I invite all of you to learn Steve Reich’s Clapping Music this week:
TECH
🌌 Universal positions themselves for an ever more digital future: 1) they invested in VenewLive together with YG Entertainment and Big Hit Entertainment. The platform is powered by Kiswe and has hosted the now famous BTS livestream concerts from last year. Following on the heels of Live Nation’s acquisition of Veeps, this shows again how the major music companies are getting ready to keep livestreaming as a vector in their business plans post-pandemic. 2) The label renewed their licensing deal with TikTok, but more than that they have set up a partnership with the platform that will allow them to collaborate on digital marketing intitiatives, A&R, and user data.
🔊 It looks like police offers in Beverly Hills have been playing music loudly to trigger copyright take-downs of videos that people shoot of them while they’re on duty, making arrests, breaking up protests. Vice has more.
🖋️ Over in India there’s some pretty significant policy changes afoot that will effect any OTT player in the market. The Information & Broadcasting Ministry is looking to bring all audio-visual content under their purview. Questions abound about how this will potentially lead to censorship and how the major international platforms will look to conform, or not conform.
🏎️ We tend not to link to podcasts in MUSIC x, but in the recent Behind the Numbers over at eMarketer they discussed a very important question: have video games replaced music as the most important aspect of youth culture?
⛙ When MelodyVR bought Napster it raised questions about how the two would move forward. They will merge under the Napster brand and will get a listing on the London Stock Exchange. Evidently, the money raised will be used to build out the new Napster music service.
CORONA
📹 Livestreaming didn’t just explode during the pandemic: it’s created an entire new genre of music: video leading the music.
🇰🇷 Over in South Korea stages also need to be saved. Taking their cue from NIVA 70 indie acts will play gigs from 8 through 14 March in support of local venues.
💰 If we still need more data to support the significance of the music to the wider economy, get on over to the RIAA, who released a report on just this topic. A few choice highlights:
$170 billion is the annual value added by the music industry to US GDP
2.5 million jobs are supported through the music industry
Revenues in the music industry have a 1.5x multiplier on the broader economy
Download the full report here.
🤔 MRC Data and Billboard have released a follow-up to their ‘Covid-19: Tracking the impact of the pandemic’ study. Three of my take-aways:
A higher percentage of people are keen on a return to live, provided safety measures are in place and/or a vaccine has been sufficiently deployed
There will remain a demand for livestreamed content, and I specifically call this content, because it’s clear that people don’t want simple concerts but something more engaging. What’s more, 74% of the respondents say they only watch parts of livestreams
Interest in engaging with music is down a little bit, while personal improvement and wellness style apps and activities are up in engagement
⛺ Yourope, the European association of festivals, has asked for a clear reopening timeline including potential measures and access to a bailout fund. Basically, they just want some clear guidelines so festivals can start organising.
✍️ Today’s newsletter was written by Maarten Walraven.
Music
One way to get through a pandemic as a musician is to collaborate and that’s just what Emily Hall and Misha Law have done. Coming together every week and just improvise together. It’s culminated in this beautiful little record released on the always excellent Bedroom Community label.
✖ MUSIC x: founded by Bas Grasmayer and co-edited by Maarten Walraven.
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Regular insights about the future of music, media & tech. Team: Bas Grasmayer, Maarten Walraven.
"infamous" means famous for BAD reasons. I don't think the writer meant this sentence to be a bad thing, right? "The platform is powered by Kiswe and has hosted the now infamous BTS livestream concerts from last year." Can the wording be updated to avoid confusion?