This is rough. Who's my fav? The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, Dua Lipa or Spinal Tap. They're all special in their own way. No, I'm not drinking the Taylor KoolAid, although I too have been hurt...I have a fragile heart.
The sound of silence
The world’s largest record label, Universal Music Group (UMG), has started pulling its music from TikTok, after the 2 heavyweights failed to sign a new deal following lengthy contract negotiations.
There’s no love lost between the pair, with UMG citing TikTok’s lack of protections against AI in a scathing open letter, as well as deriding the app’s compensation rates for being “a fraction” of what other major social platforms pay. In response, TikTok slammed UMG’s “false narrative” and “self-serving actions”.
Universally labeled
TikTok users will no longer be able to soundtrack their videos with songs from UMG’s mind-bogglingly extensive catalog, with the work of Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Adele, The Beatles, and Drake, among others, being removed from the app.
With a presence in 74 countries, UMG makes up nearly one-third of the industry, spending big to sign artists to one of its 100+ labels. All told, the company accounts for nearly double the market share of competitor Warner Music Group, and greater than the combined share of all independent record labels.
The dispute brings to light the complicated economics of an industry that's been in an almost permanent state of flux, with 5 major format changes (vinyl, cassette, CD, download, and streaming) in roughly as many decades. Although TikTok’s power comes from its ability to popularize music from emerging artists, with songs trending on the app often breaking into the charts, it’s not been exactly clear how the power dynamic between social media behemoths like TikTok and artists, labels, and publishers has changed in recent years — but with UMG’s departure, we might be about to find out.
UsTube
While there’s a lot of talk about generational divisions in everything we do, from how we work to whether we switch subtitles on when watching TV, it turns out that there’s at least one great leveler across the age groups in America: YouTube.
According to a newly released Pew Research Center survey, which ran from May through September last year, the video-sharing platform is the most widely used social media for every generation surveyed. Indeed, a staggering 93% of US adults aged 18-29 said that they use YouTube’s site or app, as well as 92% of 30-44 year-olds and a still substantial 60% of over 65s admitting the same.
More generally, there are few signs of anyone becoming less addicted to their phones.
Indeed, most platforms saw significant rises in reported use amongst adults of all ages
since the last time Pew Research ran a similar survey in 2021. TikTok, perhaps unsurprisingly, has jumped furthest in that time frame, with 33% of US adults now reporting using the platform, compared to 21% just 3 years ago. Interestingly, Facebook and X (or Twitter, as it was then) were the only platforms to show declines across the surveys.
The Pew update comes as the CEOs of 5 large social media companies, including X’s Linda Yaccarino, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Snap’s Evan Spiegel, testified in Congress earlier this week, pressed with questions on how they’re tackling child safety issues on their platforms.
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