Exploration Weekly - Reservoir Goes Public on Nasdaq / Songwriter Fund Accepting Applications / Spotify Launches Car Thing

“Where there is love there is life.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Reservoir Holdings, which owns Reservoir Media, has gone public on the Nasdaq stock exchange via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) with a $788 million enterprise value, marking the first standalone publishing company to go public on a U.S. stock market. Golnar Khosrowshahi, founder & CEO of Reservoir, will lead the company alongside her current executive leadership team.

The Songwriter Fund offers emergency grants to songwriters in the form of pandemic relief. Directed by songwriters Autumn Rowe and Michelle Featherstone with management by Sarah Robertson, and backed by Songwriters of North America (SONA), the fund has distributed over $400,000 in grants to songwriters who have been hardest hit by COVID-19 - and is accepting donations for another round of relief funding, with applications opening on April 28.

Spotify recently launched its new music listening hardware and smart device for the car called the Car Thing. The new gadget’s anticipated retail price is $79.99, but is available for free for a limited time for select users, with Spotify only charging $6.99 postage.

Physical copies of the Music Industry Report - 2020 are now available to be sent via direct mail to you at no cost! If you are interested in receiving a free mailed copy, please email us your contact information to hello@exploration.io. Learn more about the comprehensive report here.

The MLC is almost ready to send out their first-ever monthly royalty payments to Members! Royalty payments are expected to be sent out sometime during the week of April 19th. This first royalty distribution will include royalties covering uses of your songs in January 2021 by DSPs operating under the new blanket mechanical license. Visit this page here to learn more about the timing and schedule of future royalty distributions.

In this newsletter:

Reservoir Leading Music Publishing Funds Onto the US Stock Market
Songwriter Fund for Pandemic Relief Accepting Applications April 28
Spotify is Officially a Hardware Maker Now, As Car Thing Arrives in the US
BPI Annual Report Shows Rap Continues to Boom in the UK
Report: Twitch Viewing Hours Have Doubled in Last Year
Amazon Spent $11 Billion on Prime Video and Music Content in 2020, Up 41%

Now, the details...
Compiled by Heidi Seo

Exploration Weekly - April 16, 2021

Reservoir Leading Music Publishing Funds Onto the US Stock Market

Reservoir Holdings, which owns Reservoir Media, is going public on the Nasdaq stock exchange through a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), estimating to a $788 million enterprise value. This marks the first standalone publishing company to go public on a U.S. stock market. Reservoir will form a business combination with Ross CH Acquisition II and when the deal is completed sometime in the third quarter, the combined company will be named Reservoir Media but with a new ticker, RSVR, according to an announcement issued by the music publishing firm Wednesday (April 14) after the close of trading. Golnar Khosrowshahi, founder & CEO of Reservoir, will lead the new combined company, with her current executive leadership team of president and COO Rell Lefargue and CFO Jim Heindlmeyer.

Songwriter Fund for Pandemic Relief Accepting Applications April 28

Directed by an all-woman team of songwriters Autumn Rowe and Michelle Featherstone with management by Sarah Robertson, the Songwriter Fund offers emergency grants to songwriters in need. With the backing of Songwriters of North America (SONA), the Songwriter Fund has distributed over $400,000 in grants to songwriters who have been hardest hit by the pandemic - and is accepting donations for another round of relief funding, with applications opening on April 28. To learn more about the fund or to donate, visit www.songwriterfund.com.

Spotify is Officially a Hardware Maker Now, As Car Thing Arrives in the US

Music streaming service Spotify is making music listening hardware and its first official product release is a smart device for the car called the Car Thing. Initially available for select US users, the new gadget’s anticipated retail price is $79.99, but is available at no cost for a limited time for those select users, with SPOT only charging $6.99 postage. In May 2019, Spotify confirmed that it was testing a voice-controlled, in-car audio device called the “Car Thing” with a small group of Spotify Premium users. According to a dedicated microsite launched by SPOT on April 13, the new voice-controlled device, which only works with a Spotify Premium account, will let you say “Hey Spotify” to ask for a song, album, artist, playlist, station, or podcast. It also features a dial to browse, select, play and pause content, a 4″ touchscreen and four preset buttons for shortcuts to your favorite artists, playlists, stations, and podcasts. The device connects to Spotify’s app on your smartphone and connects to your car stereo via Bluetooth, AUX or USB cable.

BPI Annual Report Shows Rap Continues to Boom in the UK

UK record industry trade group BPI published its annual “All About The Music” report this week, and among the many stats contained within it, rap and hip hop made up 22% of overall single track consumption in 2020, and 12% of album consumption - the latter helped by British acts Headie One, Nines and KSI. That’s up from 21.5% for single tracks and 10.8% for albums in 2019. Back in 1999, when the BPI first started crunching numbers for individual genres, rap made up just 3.6% of singles consumption and 2% of albums. Now it is the second best-performing genre, behind the pop category.

Report: Twitch Viewing Hours Have Doubled in Last Year

Online video firms Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet have published their latest analysis of the livestreaming industry, coming from a gaming perspective rather than music concerts. The report claims that people watched 6.3 billion hours of Twitch in the first quarter of 2021. That’s more than double the hours watched on the platform a year ago in Q1 2020 (3.1 billion). As for the amount of video being broadcast, there’s a strong pandemic effect to be seen. After staying relatively flat between Q1 2019 (119.7 million hours) and Q1 2020 (121.4 million), it grew to 264.9 million hours in Q1 2021. The report’s graph shows clearly the big spike coming in Q2 2020, as COVID-19 lockdowns took effect.

Amazon Spent $11 Billion on Prime Video and Music Content in 2020, Up 41%

Amazon spent a cool $11 billion on TV series, movies and music for its Prime services last year, an increase of 41% from $7.8 billion in 2019, the ecommerce giant disclosed in its annual report Thursday. The total content spending includes licensing and production costs associated with video and music offered to Amazon’s Prime members, as well as costs associated with digital subscriptions and content that the company sells or rents, the company said. Amazon also reported that the total capitalized cost of music and video content (which is primarily released) for the year ended Dec. 31, 2020, was $6.8 billion, up 17% from the year prior. For the full year 2020, Amazon’s revenue increased 38% to a record $386.1 billion, with the COVID-19 pandemic driving up sales for the company. Net income nearly doubled to $21.3 billion compared with net income of $11.6 billion in 2019.

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