Reading list
Fat beats: The RIAA’s mid-year report on the U.S. music market is out, and it has label execs breaking into song. Revenue was up 18% YoY, to $5.4 billion, 80% of that coming from streaming. At that pace, Music Business Worldwide notes, revenue should top $10 billion for the year, a threshold the industry hasn’t cleared since 2007. The dark cloud in the silver lining? According to Nielsen Music’s mid-year report, growth in streaming worldwide is slowing. Read the full RIAA report here (pdf).
To binge, or not to binge?: That is the question for OTT video providers. Netflix introduced binge watching six years ago when it began releasing full seasons of its shows all at once. Since then, it has become central to Netflix’s value proposition. But Disney has decided to stick to the tried-and-true pattern of linear TV by releasing one new episode of its shows per week for its much-anticipated “Netflix-killer” OTT service, Disney +. Who’s right? According to some new research by Civic Science, a surprisingly (to me at least) high share of U.S. users — more than a third — say they prefer a weekly schedule to all-at-once. A smaller slice — 14% — say they like the “light-binging” model of release a few episodes at a time.
Sleeping with the enemy? Three major publishers — France’s Le Monde, Germany’s Axel Springer and Sweden’s Expressen — are among a group European publishers that have signed up to create original video content for Facebook Watch. Variety has the details here. Facebook’s director of news partnerships for the EMEA regaion Jesper Doub said the partnerships underscore Facebook’s “support for the news industry in Europe,” something many in the news industry in Europe may not have noticed.
Not fooling around: Speaking of Facebook, it continues to make enemies on Capitol Hill. In an interview published by Willamette Week, the alternative paper in Portland, Ore., Oregon senator Ron Wyden doesn’t mince words. “Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly lied to the American people about privacy,” Wyden says. “I think he ought to be held personally accountable, which is everything from financial fines to—and let me underline this—the possibility of a prison term. Because he hurt a lot of people.”