Though DIY global spread may seem like such a brave new world, it also is a natural feature when considering the instantly available nature of digital music. More than likely, this reflects the lack of incentives for major labels to advocate outside of their home markets. The territory-centric corporate structure of the major labels encourages local executives and staff to focus on domestic repertoire. While revenue may indeed flow from a foreign affiliate to their American headquarters, that same foreign affiliate will make more money per artist on their own primary (and local) artists. Thus, affiliate labels focus on their own culture, language and promotional networks, and even if one of their artists (American ones included), have a passion for their fans halfway around the world…the label might not be structurally motivated to dedicate resources to it, when one follows the money. DIY artists, while in command of significantly less resources, are free of these organizational constraints. We believe, even in this small sample of ten artists, that we begin to see hints of this dynamic play out across Spotify as a major difference in how major-label and DIY artists operate. // Majors for the Win: TV/Film Sync Licensing One advantage that major labels bring to their roster is access to huge, traditional media attention. Besides radio promotion, physical distribution and mainstream advertising (Times Square billboards are not cheap), another way this happens is via TV and film sync licenses. Basically, this is when an artist gets one of their tracks to play over credits or in-scene background music. Video games and commercials are also other pieces of this sectors that the IFPI estimates at 9.6% annual revenue growth globally in 2017. Out of the ten artists, there were 65 tracks total from our Tunefind dataset, with over 87% of the tracks were from the major artists. No contest for DIY artists in the TV/film licensing game: the majors have the networks networked. WMG’s Charli XCX (15), UMG’s Billie Eilish (14) and Halsey (12), and SME’s Khalid (8) took the top TV sync spots within this sample, while the DIY group’s best performer (DIY #4) in this sense only had four TV placements. From the network perspective, MTV appears to be both major-label and DIY-friendly, as two of their shows (Siesta Key and Scream: The TV Series) licensed from both groups, and had the most syncs from the DIY set (including reality dating show “Are You the One?” and “Undressed”). The majors also swept all six appearances for any late-night talk show, with all five appearing at least once and SME’s Khalid making a second appearance along with label-mate Normani (of Fifth Harmony) in April 2018.

Chartmetric’s TV/film sync data from Tunefind, shown here for major-label artist Halsey (CM link)

Halsey’s work apparently makes for great sync material, as she also has the most film placements (3), including 2017’s Fifty Shades Darker and Power Rangers. UMG artist Halsey backing 2017’s Power Rangers film by Lionsgate with “I Walk the Line” Though it only amounts to 2% of 2017’s global recorded music revenue ($.3B USD), sync licensing still represents a community of gate-keepers in the form of well-networked music supervisors, producers and showrunners. Chartmetric’s data, even in this small sample size, is so lop-sided that we believe this is a major-label advantage artists should be aware of. // Spotify Playlisting: It’s a Toss-Up The most obvious advantage a streaming platform can offer an independent artist is inherent promotional power. No need to “know the DJ” to get into the proverbial club, when you’re dealing directly with the club owner. In the Chartmetric artist profiles, under the Playlists section, you’ll see “Spotify Playlist Evolution”, which tracks the number of Spotify playlists and the total number of followers from them all across time.

Billie Eilish’s jump in Spotify followers in May 2018…triggered by a placement on its #1 playlist, Today’s Top Hits

In examining all ten artists in the past six months…there actually is no apparent pattern. (Sorry, folks.) Though it would be neat to see some kind of magic bump in additional playlists for the DIY artists after the April 2018 IPO, any artist’s playlist evolution is still tied to how prolific they are for that time period. DIY #2 got a 35+ playlist, 4M+ playlist follower bump in July 2018 after a New Music Friday spot, a friendly place for DIY artists However, the biggest jumps in followers (seen in the above left graph as the white-dotted blue line) tended to correlate with a Today’s Top Hits (the #1 most followed playlist), a Global Top 50 (#2 most followed) or a New Music Friday (can be territory-specific) placement. The only real pattern observable is that the majors skewed towards Today’s Top Hits and Global Top 50 spots, as a highly-prized and likely very political playground for the Big Three labels, while New Music Friday playlists seem to be much more open to the DIY artists.

No room for indie curators on Spotify’s Top 10 by aggregate playlist followers…a major advantage for the Big Three artist rosters.