Africa’s music industry is undergoing a transformation driven by innovation, global interest, and the rise of local talent. In a panel hosted by Tuned Global, experts from across the sector gathered to discuss the opportunities and challenges shaping the continent’s music streaming landscape. Speakers from Tuned Global, Warner Music Group,  MTN's super app Ayoba, Sewasew Multimedia, and African Music Summit offered deep insights into the forces reshaping how African audiences access and enjoy music.

*This article was first published here on Hypebot.

In our current app-based world, niche streaming services that primarily serve one market, ethnic communities, or genres are fighting a hard fight against established global or larger regional players.

Yet, we may be at a crucial moment when market dominance may be seriously challenged by the little guy.

The catalyst: AI agents and their impact on music access and engagement, including, but not limited to, search and discovery.

In recent years, music therapy has gained recognition as a valuable tool in healthcare, offering tangible benefits for mental, emotional, and physical well-being. 

Tuned Global CMO Virginie Chelles hosted a panel at The Wallifornia Music + Tech 2024 event highlighting the cutting-edge developments in music therapy. She discussed the synergy of music, technology, and artificial intelligence to deliver unique therapeutic outcomes. 

This panel consists of: 

Nicc Johnson: CEO Music Health, an AI-driven music intervention technology transforming one-on-one dementia care with tailored music-based interventions that support both the caregiver and care recipient.

Oleg Stavitsky CEO Endel, a technology that creates personalised sound environments to reduce stress, improve sleep, and boost productivity.

Haley Harris CMO Biomedical Music Solutions, delivers personalised music to precise areas of the brain responsible for walking and balance. 

Gary Jones, CEO Medi Music*, an AI-based music neuroscience solution that dispenses music via our Digital Drip™, which dynamically creates playlists to mimic the human brain's physiological response.

This blog post explores key insights from industry pioneers who are redefining how we perceive and utilise music as therapy.

Scores of venues across central Sydney — Australia’s biggest metropolis —opened their doors to the music, tech, film and entertainment extravaganza from Oct. 15-22, completing SXSW's first expansion out of Austin, TX. After 7 days, roughly 300 performances (nearly 40% of which were international) and upwards of 600 speakers, the inaugural SXSW Sydney is done and dusted.

The likes of Chance The Rapper, Nicole Kidman and Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker were among the guest speakers who donned a SXSW Sydney lanyard and brought star power to the show.

This article was initially published on Billboard, which was there to soak it up. Check out three of their highlights.

Layering music into web3 and the metaverse is a complex task with lots of moving parts. Those parts can quickly devolve into technical and legal quicksand.

With those pitfalls in mind, Digital Music News published this pocket survival guide in collaboration with B2B Streaming technology provider Tuned Global.

As companies continue to dip into the metaverse, complex implementation questions are quickly surrounding the use of music.

Part of the reason is simple: just like real life, listeners want their virtual abodes to feature their favourite music.

The metaverse wouldn’t feel ‘real’ without it.

Never heard of Plern?

Here’s how an upstart Thai streaming music platform quickly topped 1 million app downloads despite heavy competition from Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music.

The Tuned Global-powered platform launched just a few months ago.

Digital Music News published an in-depth case study following an interview with Asawin ‘Ant’ Rojmethatawee, EVP of Music Streaming Business at GMM Grammy and head of Plern.

The drone industry has grown exponentially in the past few months, with the market size projected to be $63.6 billion in the next four years.

This growth is expected to occur because of its increased usage in agriculture, construction, mining, telecommunications, law enforcement, and, more recently, music entertainment.

More specifically, drones are being utilized in a lot of music events, as seen during One Republic and SZA concerts earlier in the year.

Below are some ways drones signify the future of music events.

The commercial potential of music streaming is steadily rising worldwide.

In 2020 alone, the IFPI announced that music streaming generated US$13.4 billion; that’s 62.1% of global revenue from recorded music that year.

In addition to standalone streaming services and telcos with built-in streaming apps, music is also increasingly being integrated into different verticals such as gaming, fitness and social media.

These developments make music streaming a potentially lucrative opportunity – not just for mainstream international services such as Spotify and Apple Music, but also for niche services in emerging markets where there’s still a lot of room for growth.

Music streaming may be a global phenomenon, but regionality still matters, and the demand for localised services is higher than ever.

I recently spoke with Tuned Global’s Chief Revenue Officer, Spiro Arkoudis, about the challenges and opportunities of launching streaming services in emerging markets. He shared some of Tuned Global’s insights from working in different regions across the globe.

Streaming is today’s predominant form of music consumption, with 443m users of paid subscription accounts worldwide — with some analysts predicting as many as two billion by the end of the decade.

The two biggest services, Spotify and Apple Music, offer some 70 million tracks – with Spotify reporting that 60,000 new tracks are being added daily to its service.

With so many tracks being released every day, a considerable challenge for those running streaming services is navigating release timeframes, and ensuring that track metadata is correct.

DSPs expect to have new releases available almost instantly – while having to exercise considerable care in preventing pre-release leaks.

Let's understand how a reliable Music Content Delivery Technology can solve their problem.

The fitness space has been going through a significant transition since 2018 with the emergence of connected devices targeted at the home exercise market. The lockdown experienced in 2020 accelerated this transition with the advent of live and on-demand classes to groups of fifty plus. The benefits for all are clear, no more travelling to the gym or struggling to book a class and a much larger audience.
But what about the music? User experiences vary from no music at all to a request for users to select a playlist on Spotify, to instructors playing music without licensing, generating a significant business risk.

Let’s dig through the challenges and solutions around music and streaming in the digital fitness industry.