A Little Knowledge... #7

📬 BULLETIN NEWS: UMG confirms Deezer deal to explore new economic models

We already knew that Deezer had signed on to become the second music streaming service working with UMG to explore new payout models – UMG said so in this month’s quarterly earnings call. Now it’s official, with an announcement this week:

• “UMG and Deezer aim to develop new methods that holistically reward recording artists and songwriters for the value they create and to reimagine and update the engagement model for Deezer’s users and the artists they love” was how they put it.
• Deezer was famously an early advocate of ‘user-centric’ payouts, although its efforts to launch a pilot in France were stymied by the unwillingness of one or more (depending which rumours you believe) major labels to take part
• UMG has reservations about the user-centric model, but is thought to be keener on exploring ‘bonus pools’ of royalties for artists that are driving most value for the streaming services, and ‘superfan tier’ streaming subscriptions.
• This seemingly chimes with what Deezer is working on. This week's announcement mentions “super fan rewards, in-app livestreaming and VOD concerts” as some of the projects already in the pipeline
• Two questions remain: with two mid-tier DSPs on board, will UMG be able to enlist any or all of Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and YouTube Music for its new mission? And what will the response be of rival major labels and indie licensing agency Merlin to its partnerships?

Music Ally archive: Deezer

🎓 LEARN: Digital Strategy Assessments - optimising an artist's online presence

In today's landscape, an artist’s digital presence can say a lot about their career stage, and a simple Google search can easily add – or remove – credibility from their project. Digital Strategy Assessments are a "digital health check", and are part of every good marketer’s toolkit. They should also be executed regularly. So how do you do that? 

Our Digital Strategy Assessment course explains...

• An artist’s digital presence needs to be "fully optimised", which is when you're easily discoverable across the web, when traffic is sent to your current priority destinations, and when you're getting the most from all the platforms you're on.
• How to structure and develop a digital health check as well as how to improve your artist’s credibility on social media by correcting common mistakes and inconsistencies.
• Optimisation: how to improve your artist’s performance with good SEO, on websites, on key social media platforms, and the most popular DSPs.
• Fan data is vital - so how do you collect it efficiently in order to analyse it and spot trends and opportunities?

Your lead instructor for this module is our digital marketing strategist, Louise Cartier, who has deep experience coaching artists around identity and branding (and is an artist herself).

Click here for more info.

🤔 A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA...

And finally… our daily Bulletin newsletter is loved by subscribers for its instant industry analysis - but secretly, the part they like most is the ‘A Little Something Extra’ section at the bottom of the email. Here's a few of the best recent links and a couple of Knowledge extras:

• Kiss hit ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’ gets the spaghetti western cover it’s always needed
• When British football-highlights show Match Of The Day was sucked into the culture wars, right-wing news channel GB News made its own version. It didn’t go well
• Would Weezer’s ‘Blue Album’ be better if it were performed entirely by two friends trying to sing everything from memory? Find out here!
• Fancy a road-legal car called "The Beast", that's fitted with a 27-litre engine from a tank? Yours – for £72k.

This is only a glimpse into this week's newsletter – subscribe for FREE to The Knowledge and every Friday it’ll arrive in your inbox, with:

🎓 Exclusive 50% discounts on selected courses in our LEARNING HUB 🛠️ The best new platforms in TOOLS, 😵 💫 Some great and/or strange music in SOMETHING 4 THE WEEKEND, 🕰 A look back in TIME MACHINE, 🎧 The Music Ally Focus PODCAST, and 🤔 more links to our favourite unusual stuff in A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA.