BONU$ OF PLAYLIST PLACEMENT STUDIED
Recent Spotify policy changes gave The Wall Street Journal a reason to look into the impact of appearing on playlists, particularly RapCaviar, Today’s Top Hits and New Music Friday. Turns out a recently issued study has answers.
University of Minnesota economist and music business specialist Joel Waldfogel and Luis Aguiar of the European Commission authored the JRC Digital Economy Working Paper Platforms, Promotion, and Product Discovery: Evidence From Spotify Playlists, which found that appearing on Today’s Top Hits leads to about 20m additional streams and can result in a royalty check of up to $163k. A song on RapCaviar can generate a royalty payment of between $60k and $84k.
The math is based on Spotify paying between $6 and $8.40 per 1,000 streams.
Among their findings:
- Being ranked #1 on the U.S. New Music Friday list raises a song’s streams by about 14m
- Being on the Global Top 50 list raises a song’s streams by about 3m
- U.S.-origin major-label songs get most of the benefit of the global lists, while New Music Friday lists have larger representation from domestic and indie-label music.
Here’s a link to the report. Warning: They use math you last saw on a chalkboard in the 11th grade.
