The owner of music-industry trade magazine Billboard is acquiring Nielsen Music, the companies said, uniting the leading music-consumption tracking entity with the purveyor of the charts it powers under one roof.
The transaction comes as data is taking on an increasingly outsize role in the music industry.
Nielsen Music is the music industry data, analytics and software business of Nielsen Holdings NLSN -1.20% PLC. While long the trusted bearer of data across the record business in the U.S., it is facing competition from Spotify Technology SA and Apple Inc.’s Apple Music. Both of those streaming companies offer record labels data, analytics and charts, and do so on a world-wide basis—something that is rising in importance to labels as the industry becomes more global, thanks to streaming. Nielsen’s data is for the domestic market only.
Valence Media, Billboard’s parent company, expects Nielsen Music to continue to collect data from retailers and digital service providers and serve up various reports to clients, mostly music companies.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How do you think traditional music sales tracking companies can compete with new services provided by the likes of Apple Music and Spotify? Join the conversation below.
Until a decade ago Nielsen Music and Billboard were both owned by Dutch media company VNU NV. Nielsen Music’s consumption insights, which include physical sales, digital downloads, streaming and radio airplay, have fed the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, Billboard 200 albums chart and several other genre and airplay charts since 1991, when what is now Nielsen Music was known as SoundScan. Before that, Billboard ranked album sales based on less-reliable reports from retailers. SoundScan introduced a process of counting album sales based on bar-code scans during checkout. It later began counting downloads from Apple’s iTunes Store and others, and more recently, it added streams from digital service providers to the count.
“Having these two entities under the same roof isn’t just nice to have but critical,” said Deanna Brown, president of the division of Valence that includes Billboard. “There’s never been a more important time in the music business to be both agile and have the opportunity to evolve with consumer trends and consumption habits and industry needs.”
Streaming now accounts for 80% of all music consumption in the U.S., according to Nielsen Music. Not only are streaming services generating the bulk of the record industry’s revenue, Spotify and Apple Music offer robust data and analytics to artists and labels quickly and on a global basis. As streaming has made the business more global, by allowing fans virtually anywhere in the world to discover an artist, record labels say world-wide data has become essential.
Nielsen Music says it has begun testing collection and distribution of global music data. Billboard plans next year to launch a chart ranking the top 100 songs across the world, and regional charts later on.
While competition among data sources is heating up, Nielsen Music remains essential to labels as it provides comprehensive industrywide data, according to record labels. Streaming services tell labels only about their own music on each respective platform. And while various digital service providers have begun their own charts, Billboard’s charts have remained the industry standard.
In addition to music trade Billboard, Valence Media’s properties include studios MRC Film and MRC Television, live-event broadcast producer Dick Clark Productions and entertainment trade magazine the Hollywood Reporter.
Write to Anne Steele at Anne.Steele@wsj.com
Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
"Music" - Google News
December 18, 2019 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/2txShlr
Billboard Parent Buys Nielsen Music - The Wall Street Journal
"Music" - Google News
https://ift.tt/34XrXhO
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Billboard Parent Buys Nielsen Music - The Wall Street Journal"
Post a Comment