Spotify launches analytics for music publishers

Streaming giant Spotify was already offering analytics for labels and distributors, and - separately - for artists and their managers; now it added to its offer Spotify Publishing Analytics, which aims to provide music publishers with daily streaming analytics for their works on its service, but also the chance to browse the data by songwriter and see how works have been performing on playlists.

Spotify is pitching this as "the first music streaming analytics tool built specifically for publishers" - even if there already are companies like Socan, Kobalt and Songtrust offering useful tools to publishing clients. By the way, Spotify's new tool is the first example of dedicated publishing analytics from a streaming service itself. And a very important point is that the daily updates are a very handy intstrument, especially for publishers used to getting streaming data retrospectively, after collecting societies have processed it.

The new tool is launching in what Spotify describes as a "limited beta" with an online form promising "let us know you're interested and we'll reach out when we're ready to onboard more publishers". The company has been working with several publishers to fine-tune the analytics before release, including Reservoir and BMG.

As "Music Ally" writes:

launching analytics for publishers may also play in to wider industry debates: those about whether publishers (and by extension songwriters) should get a bigger share of streaming royalties - the question of the value of the song versus the value of the recording. Daily data on how many streams their songs are generating could bolster the publishing industry's resolve to challenge labels on this point in current and future licensing discussions. Spotify would sensibly rather keep out of this battle's fray, but its new analytics may well have a role to play nonetheless.