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Payola: 39% of Premium audio music streams are passive


KillingYourCareer

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The article was posted in German on IFPI Schweiz (Switzerland)'s website, so I'll provide a translation!

Quote
Weighting of streams [for the national charts] takes into account how pronounced the listener's decision was in relation to playing an audio track. An analysis of usage data from the largest streaming providers showed that an average of 61% of the reported views are of active, e.g. actively decided by the listener (as of May 4, 2020). Accordingly, all streams are weighted down to 61% for the charts, which together with the current unit conversion rate [1:175, Premium streams only] results in a rate of 1:285.

What they're saying is: as of 2020, 61% of Premium audio streams were actively selected by the user, while the remaining 39% comes from spam, automatic plays and pre-made playlists. Surprised?

 

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My Spotify always autoplay Sasha Sloan or Lauv :skull: :skull: 

Edited by Sept
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1 minute ago, Cain said:

That's actually less than I thought :skull:

I assumed most people just pick a playlist and press play

Picking a playlist is an active action. Autoplay of tracks/pre-made playlists and spam aren't!

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Just now, KillingYourCareer said:

Picking a playlist is an active action. Autoplay of tracks/pre-made playlists and spam aren't!

Idgi, what's the difference between playlist and pre-made playlist?

Edited by Cain
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5 minutes ago, Sept said:

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My Spotify always autoplay Sasha Sloan or Lauv :skull: :skull: 

Do you live in South-East Asia? Those acts tend to have unexplainable numbers over there, maybe we know why.

 

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Just now, Cain said:

Idgi, what's the difference between play and pre-made playlist?

For example, if you want to listen to TTH, you go there out of your will and play it. That'll be an active play. But when TTH ends (or any other playlist/album) and the autoplay starts, that's passive. I reckon most people just let the autoplay do its thing once what they were listening to is done.

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1 minute ago, KillingYourCareer said:

For example, if you want to listen to TTH, you go there out of your will and play it. That'll be an active play. But when TTH ends (or any other playlist/album) and the autoplay starts, that's passive. I reckon most people just let the autoplay do its thing once what they were listening to is done.

Ah okay yeah that, people tend to praise that stuff though mostly, like 'oh I found new music I really like cause Spotify made me listen to songs based on that one song I already liked' or atleast that's what people used to say

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1 minute ago, Cain said:

Ah okay yeah that, people tend to praise that stuff though mostly, like 'oh I found new music I really like cause Spotify made me listen to songs based on that one song I already liked' or atleast that's what people used to say

Yeah, that option mixes popular songs with more obscure stuff you might like based on your taste. The "passive" also includes blatant spam (i.e. stans leaving their account streaming a song on repeat 24/7).

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I don’t mind passive songs after I listen to an album. I’m usually pleasantly surprised and I skip songs that sound terrible from the start.

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Is it really "payola"? Who tf is paying for Louis Tomlinson, Madison Beer and all the new/flop artists to get into my auto-plays when I've never listened to them before? I never get relevant or big artists that are usually accused of "payola". 

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i mean, you can always skip a song you don't like when it comes up on autoplay lmao (???) however it is shady when songs that sound nothing like what you were listening to come up, at the end of the day autoplay is supposed to play music they think you might like based on what you were listening, right?

Edited by ninasayers
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Another reason why anyone boasting about their fave having huge streaming numbers compared to another artist are really fooling themselves. 

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How does it work?

Because for example after streaming an album in full on Spotify some other random songs start playing right after (they’re usually the same genre as the album I just listened to) and I usually keep listening because I always discover some new songs. Does that count as “passive streaming”? 

Edited by Enzolorenzo
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You can turn off autoplay if you don't want to contribute to the payola.

 

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3 hours ago, Enzolorenzo said:

How does it work?

Because for example after streaming an album in full on Spotify some other random songs start playing right after (they’re usually the same genre as the album I just listened to) and I usually keep listening because I always discover some new songs. Does that count as “passive streaming”? 

Yeah, that's what they're talking about. For me, the songs are usually by lesser known artists and I usually skip immediately if I hate the music or voice, it doesn't take me long to realize. 

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I thought the percentage was higher tbh

 

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5 hours ago, KillingYourCareer said:

For example, if you want to listen to TTH, you go there out of your will and play it. That'll be an active play. But when TTH ends (or any other playlist/album) and the autoplay starts, that's passive. I reckon most people just let the autoplay do its thing once what they were listening to is done.

Apple Music doesn't have that. Once the playlist is over it's quiet. 

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