Hollywood Torrent: Will India and Indonesia pay for music?

Hollywood Torrent From FOLLOW US SUBSCRIBE   Good afternoon from Los Angeles, wherever you may be. I just got back home after a few weeks in New York, where I spent a lot of time talking to music industry executives (in between talking to advertising executives).  The dominant narrative in music for the past few years has been how paid streaming saved the music business. Record sales, in decline for the better part of 15 years, have grown four years in a row. Here's the sales trajectory, courtesy of the IFPI: But this talk has obscured a geographic divide typical of self-centered Americans and Europeans. While streaming is popular everywhere, paid streaming is only popular in the US, Western Europe and parts of Latin America. Though Asia, the Middle East and Africa are home to the majority of the world's population, they only account for about 10% of Spotify's customer base. Tencent Music Entertainment, the dominant music company in China, makes six times more money from what it calls social entertainment than from subscriptions. ByteDance, China's most valuable startup, has set out to change that. The company, valued at $75 billion last year, is working on a paid streaming service focused on emerging markets — poorer countries where paid music services have yet to garner large audiences. It's already secured rights from some of the biggest music companies in India, for example. ByteDance is hardly the only company trying this. Spotify has expanded across Latin America and South Asia. YouTube is already huge in India and Indonesia, though its paid music service is not. There are oodles of local players in Asia.  But ByteDance has one trick most of those other companies don't: TikTok, the video service that was the #1 social media app in India in the first quarter of 2019. People already use songs in their videos on TikTok, and the app is responsible for the #1 song in the world right now. ByteDance could include links in those videos to the paid service (if you want to listen to the full song).  YouTube thought this would be its advantage, but most people associate YouTube with free. It still got to 15 million customers. ByteDance shouldn't have this problem. It's new music service isn't supposed to be named after TikTok. There isn't a world where 100 million people in emerging markets pay $9.99 a month for a Spotify-clone. But there is a world where 100 million people pay $1 a month. That would be better for artists and music groups than the current state. — Lucas Shaw   Old white dudes get their day at Disneyland Chris Palmeri has a great story on how Disney's new "Star Wars" land will bring an older generation of visitors to the theme park. Doug Ridley, a 47-year-old criminal-defense attorney, "often dons a stormtrooper uniform with his fan club and plans to be one of the first guests at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge when the attraction opens at Disneyland on May 31. It won't be cheap. Besides reserving two $800-a-night Disney hotel rooms that weekend in Anaheim, California, he plans to spend lots more on lightsabers, build-your-own droids and other souvenirs, likely busting his annual travel budget." "Last year we went to Ireland for the summer," Ridley joked. "This year we're going to Galaxy's Edge for the weekend." Magazine writers cash in on peak TV Magazine writers have joined the diverse list of professionals — showrunners, actors, stylists, crew members, caterers — who are benefiting from the phenomenon known as Peak TV. As Netflix, Amazon, Disney and AT&T compete to own the future of TV, they have set off an inflationary boom in TV production. In 2018 the number of scripted TV shows neared 500, more than double the amount produced a decade ago. Along the way, the number of magazine articles optioned by TV studios and streaming services has soared, and so have the prices. Articles that studios used to pay $5,000 or $10,000 to option are now going for $20,000 to $50,000. A few have even sold for north of $100,000. And that's just for the right to develop the article into a TV show. The #1 movie in the world is… "John Wick 3." The action sequel grossed $57 million during its opening weekend in North America, and has eclipsed $150 million worldwide. "John Wick 3" has already grossed nearly double what the first film grossed during its entire run, and will surpass the second one this week. That bodes well for the "John Wick" TV show. Twitter is big in Japan Japan is Twitter's second-largest market in the world. The micro-blogging service is more popular in Japan than any other Western social media platform, ahead of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. "Japanese businesses often create Twitter accounts before making their official websites; students use the service to chat with friends and follow their favorite bands; Anime-fans post their Twitter handles with QR codes on business cards that they exchange at events; and Japanese monks use it to post videos." Why is this? Selina Wang offer one theory: "Twitter fills a void in Japan, allowing people to be more outspoken." Netflix's uneasy relationship with advertising Netflix will feature Coca-Cola's "New Coke" in several episodes of season three of "Stranger Things," a marketing stunt pairing the world's largest paid online TV network with the largest soda company. The new season of "Stranger Things" is set during 1985, the same year Coca-Cola unsuccessfully tried to foist a new formulation on consumers Netflix has built a video business worth more than $150 billion by giving its users an advertising-free alternative to cable and satellite. But the company has begun to experiment with ways of working with large corporations without selling traditional ads. The week that was The finale of "Game of Thrones" was the most-watched episode of TV in the history of HBO. Critics didn't love the way the show ended. Whitney Houston is coming back as a hologram. The estate of the late pop singer has sold a 50 percent stake in its assets to a New York company that will exploit her name and likeness. TV networks are asking for massive increases in advertising rates despite declining ratings, per Brian Steinberg. The head of the Federal Communications Commission blessed Sprint's merger with T-Mobile. The union of the #3 and #4 wireless carriers in the U.S. must still pass muster with other regulators. Popular video game streamers can make$50,000 an hour to play new games. Spotify is testing a voice-controlled device for automobiles called "Car Thing." The device plugs into an in-car power outlet, and is intended to test how Spotify customers behave in the car. An Amazon TV show and a Kristen Wiig movie have moved their production out of Georgia, the first two projects to do so after the state passed a law restricting abortion. The Weekly playlist Newly in love with K. Flay, an Illinois singer/rapper whose second album got two Grammy nominations. She bookends a New York playlist that also includes new Chance the Rapper, a Rainbow Kitten Surprise b-side and a couple throwbacks.    You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg newsletter Hollywood Torrent. 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