ARTISTS' FINANCIALS MADE TRANSPARENT BY NEW APP (REPORT)

An app that brings transparency to artists’ accounting issues, showing acts their royalty earnings in real time, including streaming royalties, has been developed by Sony Music Sweden.

The app has been provided to the label’s roster acts, with a global roll-out expected later this year.

MBW posted the news, which originated with Swedish publication Weekend.

Former Spotify exec Michelle Kadir oversaw development of the platform, which pulls together key information for Sony Music Sweden acts. They’ll be able to view streaming volume across all platforms, airplay data and profiles by age/gender/location of their listeners. A “heat map” highlights the areas of the globe where the act is currently popular, useful info in terms of touring.

“Transparency has been the key word when we developed this,” Kadir told Weekend. The creation of the app was spurred by the realization that “the most important thing for an artist in today’s digital presence [is] to penetrate through the noise.”