How can music platforms make money is close to a turning point?

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Text | Wang Bingling

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Recently, Audiomack launched a new feature called "Supporters" (Supporters), allowing fans to directly support their favorite music or albums. This also creates new revenue streams for musicians. Currently, Warner Music Group has participated in the "Supporter" function as the first major record label partner.

Audiomack is a music streaming and audio exploration platform founded in 2012 that allows musicians and creators to upload their own music and broadcasts unlimitedly, and has recently surpassed 20 million monthly active users worldwide.

Not only "tipping", but also identity

According to Audiomack, fans can buy "support badges" ranging from $1.99 to $249.99 through the "Supporter" feature. Once purchased, as an acknowledgement of the fan's contribution, the fan will receive a virtual badge that can be shared, and its name will be displayed on the supported song related page. Musicians can also reach out directly to his supporters on Autobimack, or offer limited-edition gifts.

If musicians want to participate in this feature, they must apply for the Audiomack Monetization Program or upload their own music to Audioomack through Audiomack partners such as Warner Music, DistroKid, Amuse, AudioSalad Direct, etc.

Regarding this revenue, after the app store charges a fee, the musician can get 85% of the remaining part. If you pay through a mobile app, the App Store (Apple or Google Store) fee is 30%, and if you pay via the web, the fee (Stripe) is 3.3% + $0.3.

For the new features introduced by Audiomack, in addition to helping musicians earn reward revenue and help fans and musicians build a deeper connection, it also helps fans establish identity - the first, newest and most rewarded fan names will be displayed on the "tipped" song or album page.

Audiomack's fees are slightly higher than those of Patreon, which specializes in tipping creators (with a fee of 5%-12%). But even at a rate of 30 percent of the app platform fee, musicians get 59.5 percent of the fan tips on Audiomoc, which is much higher than the streaming platform's less than ten percent share.

In the context of the epidemic, Spotify also launched a donation function last year, allowing fans to donate to musicians. Foreign media CompleteMusicUpdate (CMU) commented that the incident was "a bit off". Because although the move was originally intended to help the musicians, the whole thing seemed more like a charity act, and for the money raised, the musicians had to choose between "giving themselves" and "guiding fans to the charity".

MIDiA Research believes that the music business is approaching a turning point in the way it makes money. Middle-waist and tail musicians will soon realize that no matter how the royalty structure is changed, streaming can't bring in enough revenue.