March 2021

Spotify promotes ‘equity for women in audio’

08/03/2021

Spotify promotes ‘equity for women in audio’ on International Women’s Day by launching a new campaign, EQUAL, to demonstrate its commitment to fostering equity for women in audio and celebrating their global contributions. The campaign will include partnerships, activations, new content experiences, and on- and off-platform support on local, regional, and international levels. It will also call on users to actively take control of their listening habits, making sure they play more women creators, no […]

UK National Album Day returns for 2021

08/03/2021

UK National Album Day returns for 2021 on Saturday, 16th October and its theme will be Celebrating Women in Music, shining a light on the huge contribution made by women to music and album making. National Album Day also reveals the Top Ten women album artists since the start of 2000 according to Official Charts Company data, with Adele named the best-selling women album artist of the century. The list also features such icons as Amy Winehouse, Kylie, Madonna and Britney Spears. […]

Entertainment was UK’s fastest growing leisure sector in 2020

07/03/2021

Entertainment was UK’s fastest growing leisure sector in 2020 with retail spending on music, video and games up 18.8% as leisure plunges 30%. The combined music, video and games market grew faster than any other leisure sector in 2020, according to figures revealed by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) in the ERA Yearbook. Retail spending increased by 18.3% to a record £9.26 Bn while the overall leisure sector – everything from hobbies, sport and eating […]

Female artists represent less than 10% in some genres

07/03/2021

Female artists represent less than 10% in some genres according to Deezer streaming data revealed for International Women’s Day (8th March 2021). Female artists represent a small proportion of the top 100 charts for electronic, hiphop and rock music. Just 4% of the top 100 streamed electronic artists are women with hiphop (7% of the top 100) and rock (also 7%) falling short when it comes to gender diversity. The streamer said that it ‘wants […]

BTS are 2020 IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year

07/03/2021

BTS are 2020 IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year according to IFPI’s recently published Top 10 Global Recording Artists 2020 chart. The Global Recording Artist of the Year Award is calculated according to an artist’s or group’s worldwide performance across digital and physical music formats during the year, from streams to vinyl, and covers their entire body of work. The award was announced at the culmination of the IFPI Global Artist Chart, which counted […]

Listening on mobile devices set to surpass traditional radio in US

06/03/2021

Listening on mobile devices set to surpass traditional radio in US according to recent research from Edison Research. The findings are from their Share of Ear reports based on a nationally representative study of Americans aged 13 and older and their listening habits over a 24 hour period. Listening on a mobile device now accounts for 30% of all time spent listening to audio – an increase of 67% since 2014.Listening on a mobile device has been growing […]

SoundCloud introduces fan powered royalties

06/03/2021

SoundCloud introduces fan powered royalties, a new pay model for independent artists making a more equitable and transparent way for emerging and independent artists to earn money on SoundCloud. Fan-powered royalties are a new model of payouts that is driven directly by an artist’s fan base. With this move, each listener’s subscription or advertising revenue is distributed among the artists that they listen to, rather than their plays being pooled – benefiting rising independent artists […]