Jay-Z Returns To Spotify Music

Rap icon Jay-Z brought his music discography back to the world’s largest streaming platform Spotify, leaving Tidal subscribers scratching their heads. The service he bought for $56 million in 2014 has struggled to gain any real market share against major players like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

The NBA’s Highest-Paid Players 2019-20

At $92 million, including salary and endorsements, James is the NBA’s highest-paid player for the sixth straight year. It is a record haul for an active basketball player. Nike is his biggest backer, and the company is naming a new research lab at its Beaverton, Oregon, corporate campus after James.

The four-time NBA MVP added a pair of endorsement deals in 2019 with Rimowa luggage and Walmart, which joined Coca-Cola, Beats By Dre, Blaze Pizza and NBA 2K in his sponsorship stable. He also has a budding digital media company, Uninterrupted, and a production firm, SpringHill Entertainment, which will release a sequel to the 1996 Michael Jordan vehicle Space Jam in conjunction with Warner Bros. in 2021. All of the off-court work is worth an estimated $55 million for James this season.

Stephen Curry comes in at No. 2 on the earnings list this year and is expected to generate $85 million this season, including $45 million off the court. Under Armour represents nearly half of his off-court income.

Curry’s $40.2 million salary from the Golden State Warriors is the highest in the history of the NBA; he’s in the third season of the five-year, $201 million contract he signed in 2017. Curry’s production company, Unanimous Media, has a development deal with Sony Pictures. Unanimous’ first movie, Breakthrough, was released in April, with Curry playing a role in marketing the Christian-oriented film, which grossed $50 million on a $14 million budget.

Durant has the NBA’s second-biggest annual shoe contract after James’ at an estimated $26 million this season. His total earnings from his playing salary and endorsements is $73 million. Nike sells more KD shoes in China than in North America, according to Durant’s business partner Rich Kleiman.

Like James and Curry, Durant has his own production company, which is co-producing a new basketball-themed drama, Swagger, that is inspired by Durant’s youth basketball experience and will air on the Apple TV+ streaming service.

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Spotify Shuts Down Its Uploading Program

Spotify is shutting down its direct upload program, which allowed artists to upload music to the streaming service without getting a third party involved.

YouTube Raises Its TV Prices

The Google-owned service, not to be confused with the free version of YouTube, also announced that it's adding Discovery channels including Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and MotorTrend. 

YouTube TV, a live TV streaming service designed to replace a traditional cable TV package, will raise its monthly price from $40 to $50. Subscribers billed through Apple will have to pay $55.

YouTube TV is one of a handful of new subscription options aimed at cable TV cord cutters who want to stream live TV channels such as ESPN, TNT and CNN, as well as local channels including ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC.

Apple takes a 30 percent share of subscription revenue made through iOS apps or iTunes, with that cut dropping to 15 percent if the app holds onto the member for subsequent years.

YouTube TV's official twitter feed says current subscribers will see the increase in the first billing cycle after May 13. Unlike DirecTV Now, which allows subscribers to keep the older, lower pricing if they don't cancel service, there's no so-called grandfathered pricing with YouTube TV.

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Netflix Prices Set To Rise

Prices for its popular standard plan, which allows streaming on two devices at the same time, will be increased to $12.99 per month from $10.99. The company's top-tier plan, which allows streaming on four screens in high definition, will be raised to $15.99 from $13.99 per month, while fee for its basic plan will rise to $8.99 from $7.99.

Netflix is raising monthly fees for its U.S. subscribers by between 13 percent and 18 percent, the video streaming pioneer's first price increase since 2017 as it spends heavily on original content and international expansion.

Time Warner Inc's HBO Now streaming service charges $14.99 per month, while Hulu's no-advertisements plan is priced at $11.99 per month.

Netflix has been pouring money to bolster its original content, which boasts award-winning shows such as "The Crown", "Black Mirror" and "Wild Wild Country", to fend off intensifying competition from players such as Amazon.com's Prime Video service and Hulu.

The company is expected to have a debt level of $8.33 billion in 2018, according to Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Co, which owns 15,019 shares of Netflix.

"With Netflix frequently tapping the debt markets on several recent occasions, the price hike could help ease concerns with a growing deficit on free cash flow to fund a likely continued escalation in Netflix's content spending, which likely topped $13 billion in 2018."

Roku Streaming Service Now Challenging Amazon Prime

Roku just unveiled new streaming TV changes that sound a lot like what Apple is planning. The change gives Roku's media partners a chance to include ad content inside of the Roku app instead of leaving it inside separate apps where fewer viewers can see the ads.

The Roku Channel, a separate section of the Roku user interface on TVs with Roku software and Roku products, will soon let users subscribe to paid content from Showtime, EPIX, Starz and a handful of other, lesser-known networks. Customers will be able to see all of the shows and movies available on those platforms before they subscribe, and can access the movies and TV shows from other devices, such as phones and tablets. They'll also be able to pay for all the services through one bill paid to Roku, instead of a separate bill for each service.

But there's a lot of missing content in Roku's new offering. HBO, Hulu and Netflix aren't available. Those apps are still available outside of "The Roku Channel," but users will need to navigate to the home screen and away from "The Roku Channel," which is clearly where Roku is going to try to keep its users' eyeballs.

The move also sounds similar to what Apple is planning. CNBC reported in October that Apple will mix its free original content with subscription channels inside of the TV app , which is available on iPhones and iPads. Apple may introduce its service as soon as this year.

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SiriusXM Acquires Pandora

SiriusXM is acquiring Pandora in an all-stock deal. The move comes as radio grapples with digital competition from streaming music, apps and podcasts. SiriusXM and Pandora have announced acquisition plans before the stock market opens.

SiriusXM, which previously invested $480 million in the music streaming service, is now acquiring it outright in an all-stock deal worth $3.5 billion. The satellite radio company says it intends to maintain the Pandora service and brand.

On-demand audio continues to shake up the radio business as SiriusXM said it reached a deal.

Marvel Developing TV Shows

I know this is going to make many Marvel fans happy! Disney is going to lean on the Marvel Cinematic Universe to give its upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service a superhero-sized jolt when it launches next year.

As it ramps up competition against Netflix, Disney is planning on making its upcoming ad-free service the only place to stream its movies as well as those from its subsidiaries Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm.

Source: Marvel Developing TV Shows Featuring Loki, Scarlet Witch for Disney Streaming Service

Aside from its ambitious Marvel plans, Disney's streaming service will become a prime hub for remakes and reboots of familiar IP. In February, the company announced that The Muppets would be rebooted for the streaming service.

Drake Breaks All Apple Music Services

Drake’s Scorpion is skyrocketing on the music charts and shattering Apple Music records, including becoming the number one album on the Apple Music charts in 92 different countries almost instantaneously and becoming the fastest-growing album ever on the service.

Drake's Leaving Young Money For Apple

Drizzy’s fifth studio album garnered more than 170 million streams on Apple Music. 10 of the most-streamed songs on the service came from Scorpion, which not only broke Drake’s own record, it was the most streams in a 24 hour period on any streaming service ever.

Drake Tops Elvis

More Life previously held the record with 89.9 million streams in a day. What’s your favorite song on Scorpion?

Growing Your #Spotify Presence With #Streambeet

This means that musicians need to be sure to enhance their presence on Spotify, and that’s what Streambeet is here to help you with. Their organic Spotify promotion services seek to get you organic Spotify plays, Spotify followers, grow your Spotify monthly listeners and overall organic Spotify promotion. They also help get you featured on genre-specific Spotify playlists, allowing listeners to discover your tracks amidst other similar tracks from your musical niche.

Streambeet is a cost-effective service which help artists grow their Spotify plays and Spotify followers in exchange for a very reasonable fee. They have pricing structures that differ depending on the size of promotion you desire. Their service will continue promoting you until your numbers are reached or will continually run until you acquire the amount of Spotify plays, Spotify followers or Spotify monthly listeners you paid for.

The music industry is continually changing, with CDs taking over from tapes, iTunes taking over from CDs, and now Spotify taking over from iTunes. Streaming platforms such as Spotify allow users to stream your tracks without technically owning a copy of them, making the music-listening experience more affordable, easy, and enjoyable for everyone.

Why American Independent Internet Radio May Go Extinct

The new performance royalty rates that internet radio will pay artists and record labels were released on December 16 and many small and mid-sized internet-only broadcasters are now fearing.... While there was a modest increase on the fee paid for each song played, the bigger concern is what’s missing.

Learn About Tidal Music @TIDAL

TIDAL is the first music service with High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos and Curated Editorial, expertly crafted by music journalists. Apple is exploring the possibility of buying Tidal to boost its Apple Music streaming service, eyeing Tidal's strong affiliation with subscriber-attracting major artists such as Jay Z, Beyonce, and Coldplay.

Drake's Leaving Young Money For Apple

Rumors are, that Jay J may be picking up a new entertainer. Sources say, Drake plans to leave Young Money for The Roc Nation. Really: Who did not see that one coming. Its not yet official, but the deal may involve Young Money receiving close to $50 MILLION for the rights to Drake.

Rumors about Drake switching up management team has been flying around all this week and even him considering to leave Young Money. It has been confirmed that Drake and Pharrell will be a part of Apple's brand new streaming service!

Itunes To Shut Down All Music Downloads

An Apple executive has officially announced that all iTunes MP3 music downloads will be terminated by early 2019. Apple Music executive and Beats creator Jim Iovine announced today that paid downloads on the iTunes platform will be phased out in an attempt to shift users toward Apple Music's online streaming.

Spotify Hit With Big Lawsuit

The lawsuit comes after the Sweden-based music-streaming service agreed in May to pay more than $43 million to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit brought against it by songwriters who accused the company of not licensing or paying them for use of their music.

Apple Sued Over Unpaid Royalties

The main sale and attraction of streaming services is that they pride themselves in how much they pay for artist royalties. However, Apple has recently received a new lawsuit over unpaid royalties for independent artists. The lawsuit contradicts the value that they promise to artists.

Best Digital Media Apps To Have Your Music On

The Wrap-Up Magazine.com has been looking for the hottest digital media websites online for artist to promote their music. Digital media are any media that are encoded in a machine-readable format.

Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified and preserved on computers and androids. Take a look at some of these websites below to submit your content to today. Find Out How!

Drake Still Breaking Records

With Drake set to pick up where he left off as the undeniable king of music streams, with the release of his More Life playlist on Saturday, March 18, comes the timely announcement that the Toronto rap star is officially being recognized as the first artist to ever earn 10 billion streams on Spotify.

Drake's last studio album in and of itself accounts for a decent chunk of those plays, having topped 2 billion streams by its own merits. He's also got several heavy hitter singles that have helped him arrive at the remarkable plateau, including "Once Dance," which has 1 billion plays all on its own.

By now there is little doubt that his career corresponding with the rise of music's new system of consumer metrics, is becoming a theme synonymous with Drake's work. One year ago he released Views and benefited as all news Drake, on every platform from Instagram to Youtube and the bevy of hip-hop publications online indeed garnered the page clicks and impressions to give it one of the longest chart-topping streaks in Billboard history. Now comes his More Life project, which would likely have been called a mixtape only the year before last, but is being branded a "Play List," which in marketing terms legitimizes the music streaming business.

While Views was released as an Apple Music exclusive, Drizzy's camp announced this week that the new project will be streamed across platforms, which might actually empower it to dish units in a faster manner than Views did, although it doesn't have the power singles that the last album had, behind it. ["Hotline Bling" completely broke the internet and truly took meme/vine generated singles popularity to new heights].

While nobody sharing in the company of having 10 billion streams is quite an achievement, Drake has actually been Spotify's top guy for nearly a year already, ever since it was announced that he had surpassed Justin Bieber as the service's most streamed artist ever, back in May of 2016.

Lima's Music Industry Leader

The Wrap-Up Magazine is proud to present their artist Gansta-Marcus of Lima, Ohio as the music industry leader in the city. Will all his hard work and dedication he puts into social media, his career is still taking a rise to exposure.

Gansta-Marcus continued to adapt to the digital world in 2016 and guarantees that there's much more chaos and innovation to come. His pervasive presence of music streaming is completely changing for 2017 with his introduction to the swag revolution.

Gansta-Marcus age of streaming music has arrived in full force. The era of streaming music is upon us. We believe that by 2021, one billion people worldwide will be paying for streaming music. New research suggests that while Spotify is reducing music sales, the streaming service is a revenue-neutral platform for the recorded music industry.

Stream Millions of songs by clicking one of the images below.

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• Spotify vs. Apple Music vs. Amazon Music Unlimited: Which Is Best?
• Sprint takes 33% stake in Tidal, plans to offer it to its 45M users
• Sprint Corp (S) Buys 33% Stake in Jay Z's Tidal Streaming Music Service

Sprint To Buy Parts Of Tidal

TIDAL has sold 33% of its stake to mobile phone carrier Sprint, a deal worth roughly $200 million. JAY Z and all of the original owners will remain with a stake in the streaming service and the app should be broadcasted to all 45 million of its customers soon. Also, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure will join the TIDAL board of directors.