Future of Live Music Still Very Digital; Songtradr Adds Tunefind; Uptick in Spotify Premium Subscribers

Live-streamed concerts likely to stay as industry earned $610 million last year on the virtual presentations, more money than made from downloads.

Thedallasopera.tv debuted with a recital by mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and "Vanished," a three-part art film with tenor Russell Thomas, countertenor John Holiday and music by Gluck, Monteverdi and Janácek.

Spotify now boasts 158 million premium subscribers and 356 million monthly active user. That’s a 21 percent and 24 percent year-over-year increase. The company is continuing to focus on podcasting.

As music companies and creators explore new ways of sharing their music and connecting with audiences, particularly through live-streaming, they must also rethink building and monetizing fandom.

Tunefind attracts over 30m unique visitors each year.

First-quarter advertising revenue at Pandora rose 29 percent to $312 million, with the company citing "strong monetization" and the acquisition of Stitcher.

Spotify is raising the prices of some of its subscription plans in some countries, but Deezer has come out with criticism of the timing of the latest tranche of increases.

The music sector’s strength helps sony’s profits at the end of Q4.

Voice-based audio streaming apps take centre stage on user-generated platforms.

Spotify's Car Thing auto audio streaming device is in limited release.

Music and travel go hand in hand.

Australian music licensing platform Melodie has launched its enterprise API tool in the hopes of streamlining the music selection process for creative platforms.

✉️ Send story ideas & feedback to: jeff@platformandstream.com

⭐️ Support Platform & Stream by sponsoring an issue sent to our 2200+ subscribers every weekday.