Exploration Weekly - YouTube Paid $6B+ to the Music Industry / BMI Annual Revenues Up Record 16% / Gaana Goes Subscription-Only

Aaron Davis -



YouTube has reported that the company paid more than $6 billion to the music industry between July 2021 and June 2022. This is a $2 billion increase from the $4 billion in payments from last year. YouTube’s global head of music, Lyor Cohen, stated he expects a combination of ads and subscriptions to be the “#1 contributor of revenue to the industry by 2025”.

According to BMI’s annual report, the performance rights organization saw a nearly 16% jump in annual revenues to $1.573 billion for the fiscal year ended on June 30, 2022. BMI also distributed and administered its highest amount ever to songwriters, composers and publishers - an increase of more than 10% from last year’s distribution.

Reuters recently reported that Indian music streaming app Gaana is going subscription-only for its users in order to avoid closing down. They further reported that Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel may have been interested in Gaana at one point.

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Exploration Weekly - September16, 2022

YouTube Says It Has Made $6 Billion in Payments to Music Industry

YouTube said it has paid more than $6 billion to the music industry between July 2021 and June 2022, representing a $2 billion increase from the $4 billion in payments the company announced last year. User-generated content accounted for 30% of the payouts to artists, songwriters and rights holders, the company said. In a separate blog post shared on Tuesday, Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s global head of music, said he wanted a combination of ads and subscriptions to be the “#1 contributor of revenue to the industry by 2025” and pointed to YouTube’s efforts to monetize across formats, including short-form and live videos.

BMI Posts Record Revenue on Strong Digital Growth

BMI posted a nearly 16% jump in annual revenues thanks to strong growth in video streaming, according to the group’s annual report published on Tuesday. The performance rights organization said its revenues rose to $1.573 billion for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2022, up from $1.361 billion in fiscal 2021. BMI said it distributed and administered $1.471 billion — its highest amount ever — to songwriters, composers and publishers, an increase of more than 10% from last year’s $1.335 billion. Revenue from digital sources, which contributes $572 million, or almost half of BMI’s domestic revenue, grew by 35% from fiscal year 2021, with notable increases from subscription video services like Netflix, Disney+ and others. International revenue grew by 13% to $382 million, making BMI the world’s no. 1 in public performance revenue and royalty distributions for the seventh year in a row.

Tencent-Backed Indian Music App Gaana Goes Subscription Only

The Tencent-backed Indian music streaming app Gaana is going subscription-only in a bid to save itself. Reuters reports that Gaana switched to a subscription model for its users to avoid closing down. The app has failed to secure new investors or find a potential buyer, according to an internal email. According to Reuters, Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel may have been interested in Gaana at one point. Gaana competes directly with Airtel’s Wynk, Spotify, and other music streaming services. The Indian music streaming market is expected to be worth $700 million in 2022.

2,000 Artists and Creatives in Ireland to be Paid Basic Income of $330 Per Week Under New Pilot Scheme

A total of 2,000 musicians, painters and writers in Ireland are set to receive a weekly basic income of €325 ($330) per week under a new scheme to be piloted by Ireland’s government. The artists were picked anonymously from over 9,000 applications and those that were chosen will receive the weekly grant over the course of the three year-scheme, according to a press release from the Irish government issued on September 8. The Basic Income for the Arts scheme will support 707 visual artists, 584 musicians, 204 artists working in film, 184 writers, 173 theater actors and artists, 32 dancers and choreographers, 13 circus artists and 10 architects. It was created following a recommendation made by the Irish government’s Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce to explore measures to ease the impact of COVID-19 in the arts sector. The chosen 2,000 artists will take part in a three-year research program to assess the impact of a basic-income-style payment on the arts sector, the Irish government said.

Tencent Music Confirms Secondary Listing on Hong Kong Stock Exchange

Tencent Music Entertainment – the Tencent subsidiary that operates the Chinese web giant’s music services – has announced that its shares will start trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange next Wednesday. It’s a secondary listing, as the firm’s shares already trade on the New York Stock Exchange. The Tencent Music company operates three streaming music services in China – QQ Music, Kugou Music and Kuwo Music – as well as the popular karaoke platform WeSing and various other music ventures. New York will remain Tencent Music’s primary listing even once its shares start trading on the Hong Kong exchange next week.

“Sounds on Shorts” Boosts Music Discovery from YouTube Shorts

YouTube’s TikTok-style Shorts feature is growing rapidly: up to 30bn daily views and 1.5 billion monthly viewers according to the company’s latest stats. Now YouTube is forging a deeper link between Shorts and its YouTube Music service with a feature called ‘Sounds on Shorts’. It’s a button at the bottom of every Shorts video that shows viewers other clips using the same audio. If it’s music, they can also visit a ‘sound pivot page’ to see what the track is and who it’s by. What’s new is a playlist called ‘Sounds from Shorts’ to which viewers can now add those tracks for later listening. It works the other way too: YouTube Music users can manually add tracks to the playlist so they’re available to use in their Shorts clips later.

Random Ramblings

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  • Bad Bunny tops Artist 100 for 6th week, ties The Weeknd for most time at No. 1 in 2022.
  • How rock and the royals jostled for Britain’s cultural identity during the Queen’s lifetime.

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