| At the end of last year, I asked about 50 of the smartest people in media to answer some questions about the state of Hollywood. It was a pretty good way to take the mood of the industry at a moment of great anxiety, and I figured we'd do the same with the music business ahead of the Grammys. As before, I polled about 50 people from all across the industry and the globe about streaming, live music, NFTs and everything in between. Thanks to those of you who responded, and good riddance to those of you who didn't! You've just started a new label and can sign any act in the world. Whom do you sign and why? Top answer: Taylor Swift Runners-up: Rosalia/Harry Styles/Bad Bunny (tie) The argument for Swift: "No one has been remotely close to as big for as long. She will sell stadiums and have a built-in, massive audience for the rest of her life. " The argument for Rosalia: "Her music is forward thinking, accessible, global, and good. And because she's the rarest, most valuable thing in music - a female pop star." The argument for Styles: "Pop always lasts the longest and he's the best at it. English superstars last forever." The argument for Bunny: "He's young, diverse and the voice of a generation. He's your base, he's your star and he will recruit for you." What is the most important platform for breaking a new artist: YouTube, Spotify playlists, radio play or TikTok? Top Answer: TikTok Runner-up: YouTube The argument for TikTok: "TikTok generates the most awareness at scale. The amount of time that young people spend on Tik Tok discovering everything from recipes to new travel locations to new music is massive." The argument for YouTube: "YouTube allows you massive reach via the recommendation algorithm and the one billion daily active users, yet also allows for you to gain deep resonance with your audience given the ability to world-build and convey a clear aesthetic perspective in a music video." How much should Spotify cost a month? Top answer: $15 Runner-up: $20 Almost everyone thinks Spotify should be more expensive but can't agree on the right price. There is one person who thinks Spotify should charge less and a couple who think it should cost $25 a month. Will the music business ever be as big as it was during the CD boom (adjusted for inflation)? Top answer: Bigger (about 90% of respondents) The argument for bigger: "When streaming penetrates Africa and the developing world. And it will be better because the CD boom was primarily driven by older customers, not new fans." The argument against: "The numbers aren't there. Music is healthy, records are coming back but it's not enough." What emerging business/format will make the most money for musicians? Top answer: Direct-to-fan businesses like NFTs and merchandise. Runners-up: Virtual concerts, synthetic media, artificial intelligence The majority of people offered some variation on the same theme. Some kind of innovation in direct-to-fan businesses like NFTs, merchandise or fan clubs. The argument for D2C businesses: "Everyone is laughing right now at Web3/Blockchain but I'm long-term bullish on the idea of a cross-platform fan club system that can drive meaningful new revenue for artists. Imagine Amex points for music that can help drive more revenue and engagement across the entire ecosystem." Your star artist is going on tour this summer. You can charge less than $100 a ticket (like Ed Sheeran), $100-$150 (Harry Styles), $150-$200 (Elton John) or $200+. What do you do? Top answer: <$100 (Sheeran) Runners-up: $150-$200, $200+ The argument for <$100: "Use the live show to garner as many new fans as possible, and execute a smart, exciting [merchandise] campaign that drives a significant amount of profit. Focus on VIP packages, live streaming in some cases, any ancillary opportunities to make touring financially successful. 2023 will be a really tough year for consumers. Ticket prices have to take that into consideration to get people in the door." The argument for $200+: "Concerts are your one opportunity to exert pricing power in the modern music economy, and I'd much rather rely on charging people who care more money than hoping to get as many streams as possible on platforms I don't control. " True or false: Live Nation is a monopoly. Top answer: Yes (about 70%) The argument for yes: "In practice or in terms of what you can get away with before Congress? False in actuality. True in practice." The argument against: "According to the Justice Department, false. At least so far. If someone produces a new smoking gun that shows Ticketmaster threatening venues with the loss of Live Nation talent, it's a different story fast. " What was the savviest catalog acquisition of the last few years? What was the worst? Savviest: Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac Worst: Justin Bieber, Dylan, Bruce Springsteen The argument for Dylan: "The work ultimately transcends time and musical tastes and will be a songwriting roadmap and cultural signifier for a time and place in history for decades, if not longer. And I swear I'm not a mega fan! But it's like acquiring the great American songbook as performed by one man." The argument against Dylan (and Springsteen): "People overpaid for those mega premium artists with mature fanbases." What country other than the US will produce the biggest stars over the next decade? Top answer: UK Runners-up: South Korea, India The argument for South Korea: "No one understands stardom and how to build parasocial mythology like the companies exporting K-pop to the world." The argument for India: "It's come up once a week over the past 3 months. Something is happening." What will be the first industry job replaced by artificial intelligence? Top answer: Accounting Runners-up: Nothing, playlist editor The argument for nothing: "No job will be replaced. AI will augment every existing job but not replace any." Who is the smartest executive in the music business? Top answer: Lucian Grainge Runners-up: Daniel Ek, Irving Azoff, John Janick (tie) The argument for Grainge: "Smartest, or most effective? Probably Lucian for both to be honest." The argument for Azoff: "He always has the play, deep relationships, feared and loved." Make one prediction about the year ahead in music. "Music will continue to move away from monoculture and more towards niche." "Financial institutions and sponsors who have invested in music will see a significant adjustment in valuations, volume of transactions and even possible some pullback from the sector." "This will be the year that music marketing moves past TikTok." Name an artist that few people know about today but everyone will know about by the end of the year. The top answers: New Jeans, Fred Again. Showtime will now be known as Paramount+ with Showtime. Matt Belloni has a longer eulogy (hard paywall), but I want to make just a few observations. - Paramount makes almost all of its money from cable networks that are in decline. It would be happy to jettison many of those networks and focus its capital on its studio and its streaming service. But it can't just do that. It needs some of the profits, and it's hard to find a buyer for declining assets.
- It never made a lot of sense to have Paramount+ and Showtime as separate entities when they both commission premium TV series. So Paramount is yanking shows off the service and writing them down. We can now call this pulling a Zaslav.
- They are keeping the Showtime name, presumably so that they can retain their deals with pay-TV providers.
The biggest losers of the streaming wars have been Showtime and AMC Networks. They were trying to challenge HBO in premium TV but didn't have the same brand cache or library. Netflix and Amazon came along and supplanted them in just a few years. FX survives, but largely as a division of Hulu. And HBO is still going strong. This week in tech: The return of the MarkThe world's largest technology companies all reported financial results this past week, and the picture wasn't pretty. Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc. posted results Thursday that show an economic slowdown is throttling demand for everything from electronics and e-commerce to cloud computing and digital advertising. Apple's sales fell more than analysts predicted during the holiday quarter, slammed by slack purchases of iPhones and Macs. Amazon's revenue was trimmed by soft consumer demand for products sold online and slowing growth in a once-booming business that provides remote computing power to companies. Alphabet's results missed estimates after customers curtailed orders for ads that appear alongside online search results.
You can read the full analysis. It is worth noting that Amazon still generated sales of $149 billion in three months and YouTube is going to be just fine. There was one bright spot, however. Meta Platforms Inc. aka Facebook! Shares in the company jumped the most in almost a decade as Mark Zuckerberg hailed 2023 as the "year of efficiency." The No. 1 movie in the world is…Not the one I said last week! I gave credit to China's The Wandering Earth 2. But the biggest movie in China over the Lunar Near Year holiday was actually Zhang Yimou's Full River Red. Netflix's password crackdown is nearA lot of people freaked out when details of Netflix's plan to crackdown on password sharing leaked this past week. According to a help page, people will only be able to use an account in one household and will need to connect to that account in that household once every 31 days or risk being shut out. The company says this was a mistake and these rules only apply in a few Latin American countries, where the company has been testing its approach. Vulture posted a good explainer breaking down what people can expect from Netflix when it starts cracking down on password sharing more broadly. Users in Latin America are already canceling the service, which Netflix has warned would happen. The real question is this: Will Netflix convince/force enough people to pay for their own account to offset any cancellations? The company thinks it will. Deals, deals, deals - One of Atlanta's best music companies just raised more than $25 million.
- Qatar is investing $150 million in Peter Chernin's entertainment company.
- Netflix doubled sign-ups to its lower-priced streaming tier last month.
- Spotify posted its best quarter of user growth on record. Shares spike more than 20% as a result. (I am told that a lot of these new customers came from India.)
Two new podcasts for your earsMy colleague Thomas Buckley did a bunch of reporting for Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure, a new podcast about a family hawking bleach as a medical cure. And Tim O'Brien hosts Crash Course, a new podcast that explores the past, present, and future of the sports betting boom. (You can find this special miniseries of the Crash Course podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.) I am going to end with my Grammy ballot, not that anyone asked my opinion. Album of the Year: Un Verano Sin Ti, Bad Bunny This was, quite literally, the album of the year. Record of the Year: Break My Soul, Beyonce A banger from start to finish. No song brought people more joy last year. Song of the Year: The Heart Part 5, Kendrick Lamar This is a really weak category, so why not give the award to the 21st century's Bob Dylan? Best New Artist: Wet Leg A new rock band that released not one but two catchy singles? | 
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