The first ever Apple Music Awards took place on December 4th, 2019. The award show  streamed on Apple Music from the Steve Jobs theater in Cupertino, California. The show awarded the most popular artists of 2019. The award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year went to Lizzo, who had a number one song on the chart with “Truth Hurts”; Song of the Year was awarded to Lil Nas X for his hit song’ Old Town Road’. However, the biggest winner of the night was Billie Eilish who has graced the year with one of the top-selling pop albums. Eilish took home the award for ‘most streamed artist’.

Apple has had a very interesting year. The media giant released their newest iPhone (iPhone 11) and on November 12th they delivered their Apple streaming service which has had a ton of success. This award show does raise a few eyebrows due to how quickly it came after the announcement of the Spotify music awards. What makes both of these award shows interesting is that they give the awards out by determining who has the most streams. This week the Billboard charts announced that they will count YouTube streams toward the Billboard 200 chart as well.

It is clear that times are changing and the internet/ music world is finding more ways to adapt to the world of streaming.

 

 

 

Source: https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/343732/cable-news-networks-impeachment-hearings-fewer-t.html

Over the past week President Trump’s impeachment hearings have been the center conversation for all news outlets and late-night talk shows. Though many have deemed the hearings boring and not worth watching. Many people have been tuning into them. The hearings began last Tuesday,  and since then all of the stations airing the hearings have seen a spike in ratings.

The impeachment hearings are continuous, so all cable news networks have cut their advertising and commercials down almost 60%. The hearings air on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday . For all cable networks the weekday is the most important time for commercials and advertising. However, the increase in viewership has been able to make up for the drop in advertising.

Unlike regularly scheduled programming the hearings do not have a set run time. This means that networks aren’t certain about the amount of time they have to cut out in order to air the full hearing, nor are they aware of the time in which they can begin airing advertisements again. Viewership within news networks that have aired the impeachments hearings have risen from 40% to 45% versus daytime periods in the past few months.

 

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/11/is-tiktok-threat-national-security/

Over the past year Tik Tok has become a popular social media app. The mini-video app mimics Vine, a popular video app that ended in 2016. In 2016 Tik Tok was created by Douyin and ByteDance two China based app developing companies, the app only took 200 day before it was offered to the public. Since its launch the app has continued to grow harnessing over 500 million users ranging in ages 18 to 24. However, The company’s growth has raised some privacy concerns that have many users and developers wondering how safe the app actually is.

Tik Tok has now caught the attention of the  Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The reason that CFIUS is investigating the app is still unclear, but the major issue that put the app on the governments radar was the Chinese government having access to U.S user data. The data that U.S users are giving through the terms of use agreement could give ByteDance more information than normal, If Byte Dance is required to report that information to the Chinese government, many U.S TikTok users could be put at risk

The apps developers censored the Hong Kong protests. Actions like these could make the app a threat to national security. Worst case scenario is that CFIUS could request or demand divestment, which it has done in the past with  apps such as Grindr and PatientsLikeMe. Divestment would mean that Byte Dance  might have to sell off Tik Tok venture. Selling off the apps venture could prohibit international expansion, or making the app unavailable in this country..

 

 

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/roku-stock-jumps-10percent-as-company-adds-apple-tv-app.html

Back in 2018 many tech minds considered Roku one of the biggest TV tech Platforms of our time. Though the streaming device has had a couple of rocky months it has managed to bounce back. Roku was one of the first TV Tech platforms to bring our online streaming services to our televisions.

What made the  Roku service convenient is that consumers only had to buy a device, in an era where subscription services were on the rise. Roku devices come in a variety of sizes, some devices look like a small cable box and others look like a flash drive. The Roku device price ranges from $30 to $100.00.

This week Roku released the news that it would be adding Apple TV + to it’s current streaming channels. This announcement caused Roku’s stock to rise 10%. News such as this build up the anticipation for the long-awaited streaming service. Though we know the release date and some of the new shows being streamed on the platform, there is still an element of mystery surrounding the streaming service. So far we have only heard of 7 shows that will be exclusive  to the platform, but we haven’t heard much about the other releases on the service. Apple TV + will be available on Roku and other streaming devices on November 12, 2019.

 

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/28/spotifys-barry-mccarthy-says-podcasts-are-growing-in-importance.html

Spotify’s CFO Barry McCarthy claims that Podcast will be as important to the company as streaming is for Netflix. This is new frontier for the music-only streaming company. Within the last year Spotify bought two major podcast distribution companies; Gimlet Media and Anchor . The company decided to spend $ 400-500 million to acquire podcast. Not only will listeners be able to listen to their favorite podcast on Spotify, but they will also be able to tune into Spotify original podcast.

This new shift for the company is possibly due to many musicians not wanting to have their music streamed on Spotify due to the streaming revenue issues for artist. The streaming service is already the most popular music streaming service, however after 13 years and over 96 million subscribers the company finally gets to make money with podcasting. According to The Verge  and Spotify’s financial review, this is the first time in the company’s history that the operating income, net income, and free cash flow were all positive.

Similar to my previous post about Google and Amazon, I believe that Spotify is trying to win the music streaming battle against all of the other streaming services. Spotify’s true competition is Apple Music. Both of the services come at the same $5.99 price (for students) and they both are  popular within the same age group. Now it’s only a matter of time to see which music streaming service prevails in the streaming world and which does not.

 

On October 15, 2019 Google release the Pixel 4. This is the fourth phone by the company and apparently the best release they have ever had. In the past there have been rave reviews about the phone regarding certain capabilities such as the camera and battery life. However, the newer version of the phone is being praised in more areas than two.

Google has become a media giant and an internet staple for the past 15 years. Though the company began releasing devices 6 years ago they continue to expand as a media company . In a world where we are competing with Apple and Amazon the strive to be outstanding in the media an tech world is becoming harder. Over the past 10 years Google has been searching for ways to be the biggest player in the tech world. The company’s Google Glass didn’t match its projected result. In 2011 the company bought the streaming website YouTube, which ended up being a great decision.

This raises the question of who’s going to be the biggest media company of this generation, are we still deciding or have one of these companies already won the race.

 

source: https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-bundle-of-apple-music-and-apple-tv-plus-hits-a-snag-record-label-skeptics-ft-report/

Like many other streaming service Apple TV plus is going to hop on the bandwagon by offering a bundle deal with their own, Apple Music. The other popular streaming service known for doing this is Spotify. Spotify  offers a similar bundle deal with Hulu. Students who have a subscription to Spotify are offered Hulu for only five dollars a month which is a great deal considering that regular subscriptions for both of these services are over ten dollars,

Apple TV Plus streaming’s service is said to be priced at only five dollars a month, not only is this less money than all of its competitors but the entire bundle will be offered at that same price. This price isn’t exclusive to students, it will apply to everyone with a subscription. This system would essentially give you more ‘bang for your buck’.

Though this sounds like a good deal one record label is having an issue with Apple offering its music services for such a low price. The problem is that the label feels this sort of shift would lower profit. Not only for them but for Apple as well.

Apple declined to comment on this complaint, however being that the company is worth one-trillion dollars, I don’t think money would be an issue. More importantly, both of the streaming services are owned by the same companies, unlike their competitors. Hopefully Apple TV Plus is able to last in the streaming market.

 

Source https://www.wsj.com/articles/vice-media-in-final-stages-of-talks-to-acquire-refinery29-11569947137

Vice Media is on it’s way toward becoming an even bigger brand. The multi-platform media company has decided to buy Refinery 29. Refinery 29 is another digital media platform that caters to young women, delivering a multitude of news from political to pop culture. The deal has not yet been finalized but many business experts strongly believe that this deal will go through, and could be very beneficial to the Vice Media brand.

Vice Media is concerned with building it’s “digital footprint” Though the platform is doing well on it’s own, with content like Vice News on HBO and its own channel with the company name they feel that there are still ways in which this brand can become bigger than what it is now. Vice Media has chosen to combine with Refinery 29 in order to take the brands majority-female audience, as well as it’s streaming content and licensing.

The other big reason why Vice Media wants to accommodate more digital platforms is because they are aware of their current competition. The digital company is force to compete with platforms like Facebook and Google. In order to be able to run in a race with these two powerful media giants they have to acquire as many similar companies as they possibly can. They also need to reach a larger audience domestically as well as internationally.

Though I didn’t see this coming I think that this merge could be great for the brand.

Source:https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/23/20879545/emmy-awards-2019-winners-amazon-netflix-apple-disney-hbo-commercials-streaming-wars

https://www.economist.com/prospero/2019/09/23/the-emmys-reveal-a-fragmented-television-landscape

On Sunday night the 71st annual Primetime Emmy Award show took place at The Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California. The show that was once based on awarding television shows for their greatness and creativity now finds itself awarding not only  broadcast television shows, but mostly streaming shows. HBO, Amazon and Netflix are the services that ended up taking most of the awards home. The shows that were heavily awarded were “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, and of course HBO’s “Game of Thrones”. After all was said and done, HBO took home nine Emmy’s, followed by Amazon winning five, and Netflix winning four.

Though streaming sites took over the show, they took over the advertising as well. Over the 3-hour long special there were multiple ads for Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, Disney+ and the upcoming Apple TV Plus streaming services. The question here is, how long will it be before schedule TV programming is no longer a source for our entertainment.It seems as if many subscribers prefer the “binging” method of receiving there entertainment as opposed to waiting for the shows to premier each week. In this era of television we now have to focus on what’s next.

Netflix made over 9.6 billion in revue last year alone. Which says that this is a constantly growing industry. We won’t truly understand the impact of streaming services until we have an idea of how many of these service will last the test of time.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/20/tech/instagram-hiding-likes-user-reaction/index.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-instagram-youtube-killing-like-subscribers-2019-9

In the past month many social media platforms have been considering taking likes off of content that we posts. That’s right, the picture that you took several times, to get that great angle will never show all the likes you received (and deserved)  . The more important question is how will this change social media?

The reason that these companies want to rid likes is due to the likes becoming a quantifying sign of self worth. In a discussion with some of the Instagram developers the decision came about because they believed that likes are ‘a kind of digital one-upmanship on social media and making users feel bad’.

Though many of us can understand why the site wants to eliminate the feature, many Instagram-based brands are wondering how this change will effect them and their user engagement. Though the likes will be taken away, this will not take away the algorithm. This means that the kind of posts you like will still be suggested to you, and the related content with the most like will be suggested to you first.

We have no idea as to when the change will take place, but hopefully it has positive effects.