Report: Spotify to demonetize lowest-streaming tracks

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music As news about Spotify’s new payment model has torturously dribbled out — details have been leaked through sources, with little official comment from the company — it’s not surprising that controversy has accompanied it. Streaming royalty models are deeply complicated and Spotify, the world’s largest paid streaming service by a long measure, has borne the brunt of the world’s frustration with the low royalties that most artists and especially songwriters receive from digital service providers.

If you’re a fan of Zack Snyder (and lord knows, there are plenty of you guys online), then you’re well aware “Rebel Moon” arrives on Netflix in December. Many will take notice of its impending release, as a new Snyder film seems to generate a lot of buzz amongst fans and non-fans alike.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Trevor Noah is entering his next act as a podcast host. The former host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” launches his deep-dive interview show, a Spotify original podcast, next week. In each episode of the new podcast, Noah will have an extended discussion with a single guest.

Steven J. Horowitz Senior Music Writer Spotify has announced its 2023 Capsule Collection, featuring exclusive merchandise from Peso Pluma, Daft Punk, Rosalía, Tyler, the Creator and Tems. Each week, a different artist will release a new merch package.

Silent Hill: Ascension, an interactive horror series from Genvid Entertainment and Konami Digital Entertainment, is launching tonight with the hope that a broader streaming play will get its start on Halloween.

Jungkook, a member of K-pop boyband BTS, has broken the record for the fastest song to reach 1billion streams on Spotify.Today (October 31), Spotify announced on Twitter that Jungkook’s debut solo single, ‘Seven’ featuring Latto, became the fastest song to reach 1billion streams on the streaming platform on Monday (October 30).On October 30, Jung Kook's "Seven (feat. Latto)" became the fastest song to reach 1 Billion streams in Spotify history.

Mach-Hommy has added “No Golden Calf” (feat. Tha God Fahim) — a song that was previously only available on wax, tape, or disc — to streaming.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Five Nights at Freddy’s” scared up $80 million at the domestic box office in its first weekend of release, above Sunday’s already-huge estimate of $78 million. Universal and Blumhouse released the film, which landed simultaneously on the parent company’s streaming service Peacock. With Monday’s final figures, “Five Nights” has tied Disney’s 2021 Marvel adventure “Black Widow” ($80 million in theaters and $60 million on Disney+) as the biggest opening weekend for a day-and-date streaming release.

Spotify has revealed that Taylor Swift has broken two new records on the streaming platform.The singer released her re-recording of ‘1989’ on Friday (October 27), the fourth album in a series of re-recordings. It follows an ongoing dispute between the superstar and Scooter Braun, former owner of her previous label Big Machine Records – read here for a refresher of the situation.Since ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ was released, Spotify has said that Swift broke two new records.

Taylor Swift continues to make history with her music and this time 1989 (Taylor’s Version) has broken a record that the singer and songwriter set herself.

Taylor Swift continues to prove that she is in a class of her own!

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic On the day of the release of “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” Taylor Swift set a Spotify record in becoming the artist with the most streams in a single day in the streaming service’s history, according to a statement from Spotify on Saturday on X. The company added that, on top of that, “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” had set a 2023 record as Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day so far this year. Spotify did not release overall numbers for the album or Swift’s total as an artist, as is its custom when announcing records being broken.

It’s a BIG day for Taylor Swift!

Meghan Markle is zeroing in on a “make or break” new podcast deal.

Spotify have announced that less popular tracks won’t earn any royalties whatsoever, despite the company reporting better-than-expected third-quarter profits and subscriber gains.The Swedish streaming service gained an extra 6million paying subscribers from June to September, bringing its total to 226million. This exceeds its forecast that their paid subscriber levels would pass the 224million mark.Despite these gains, however, Billboard reports that Spotify is restructuring its royalty system and plans to de-monetize tracks that had previously received 0.5% of Spotify’s royalty pool.” The plans will reportedly be implemented early next year.The changes in the royalty system are set to benefit more established artists and labels, while the biggest difference from the old system is that a track will need to reach a minimum number of annual streams before it starts generating royalties.Spotify is reportedly also planning to crack down on “fraud” and will issue financial penalties against distributors and labels it deems guilty of this.

For editorial questions, please contact Sharareh Drury at [email protected] Head of Global MediaSpotify Boynton oversees paid media, influencers and integrations at Spotify, which aims to connect with audiences through authentic storytelling and community-driven initiatives. For instance, Spotify’s Fuego Mixtape takeover recently gave users the chance for their selections to be featured as the Fuego playlist of the week. “The challenge is that the world moves so fast,” says Boynton.

Spotify gave an early peek at its two-week-old Audiobook rollout with chief executive Daniel Ek telling investors, “It’s early days, but we feel good.”

Whitney Cinkala Variety and Spotify will host the 2023 Entertainment Marketing Visionaries Dinner on Thursday, Oct. 26. The invite-only dinner, held in Los Angeles, will bring together top entertainment marketers from the film, TV, music and technology sectors.

Revenues at Spotify jumped by 11% last quarter as the audio giant was able to stem the flow of operating losses from Q2.

Spotify by Sony, including Gravity Rush, Shadow Of The Colossus, Soul Sacrifice and more.The SIE Sound Team account on Spotify is the one-stop shop for the soundtracks to a selection of the most acclaimed games on PlayStation, such as Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Bloodborne, Demon’s Souls, The Last Guardian and more.With this recently released lot, fans will be able to listen to the soundtracks to Echochrome, Fantavision, Freedom Wars, Gravity Rush, Patchwork Heroes, PoPoLoCrois, popolocrois: a new departure, PoPoRoGue, Shadow Of The Colossus, Soul Sacrifice, What Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord!? 1 & 2, White Knight Chronicles, White Knight Chronicles 2 and Wild Arms (as pointed out by X user AniPlaylist).At the time of writing, these have not appeared on any other streaming services like Apple Music, so it might be a matter of time before the aforementioned soundtracks become available elsewhere.For fans of Shadow Of The Colossus, it is a boon that they no longer have to rely on YouTube to listen to the soundtrack, which is one of the highlights of the reflective experience of playing the game.In Jack Richardson’s exploration of Team Ico’s original action adventure for NME‘s Remastered column, he argued that the emptiness and minimalism of the game’s direction is specifically haunting in a way that is unique to the medium.“Games have two stories: the one that takes place in the game and the story of us playing it. There’s certainly an artistry behind combining these two as closely as possible, but it’s not a necessary goal,” he said.“When we play Colossus, we’re constantly challenged to interpret what’s going on as we do it.