What has 60 million unique visitors a month? The MTV, VH1 and CMT platform combined according to Hypebot where I took this post from. And with a deal Spotify just signed with the Viacom entities, it sure looks like game and match for the big time streaming service.
Hypebot: “If winning the battle for streaming music supremacy is about partnerships, Spotify scored a major victory today. MTV,VH1,and CMT today announced a significant marketing deal that makes Spotify the preferred streaming music service across all the MTV/VH1/CMT music sites and apps. Collectively they deliver 60 million monthly unique visitors who can now play Spotify-powered full tracks and playlists there.”
According to Van Toffler, President and CEO of Viacom’s Music Group, “Spotify offers a killer music streaming service, our brands offer distinctive voices, unique content and the stories behind the music and altogether, it makes for a mighty potent combination for fans.”
Also, if I may please continue cutting and pasting from Hypebot, “MTV/VH1/CMT will program curated Spotify playlists for some of its popular franchises including MTV’s “Teen Wolf,” VH1’s “Love and Hip Hop,” CMT’s “Party Down South,” the “MTV Video Music Awards,” the Grammy Award winning “Unplugged,” Palladia’s coverage of “Hangout Music Festival” and more from their archives. About 150 playlists are available at launch.”
OK, now that’s out of the way, what do we make of it?
It seems to me Spotify have settled themselves after last years somewhat stalled growth (and I still think they have passed on the older generation before they had to), are back to taking over the world of streaming by storm. And I believe this is a future of music distribution (which is what we are discussing, of course), however I keep on going back to some obvious things. Let’s call prime music worship for the majority something like 15 – 30, High School to marriage, pre-kids and mortgage, etc. In those years a Spotify makes sense, but even those raised on streaming might balk at ten bucks a month and be sick of Youtube. Maybe they wanna buy 20 songs and a coupla albums a year, $50 tops.
Why would they want to stream? They’d want ITunes or even CDs.
Yes, Spotify will probably win the streaming wars but will that end all music buying? Stay tuned.
