Management Panel - How Can I Be Down (1996)

Management Panel - How Can I Be Down (1996)

[Chris Lighty, Steve Stoute, Dame Dash & Shakim Compere]

                        Music subscriptions services, which provide an alternative to purchasing songs on sites like iTunes, continue to gain in popularity. One example is Sweden-based Spotify, which is expanding rapidly across the globe and has now added another 1 million paid subscribers in the last three months.

According to figures reported by CNET and confirmed by Spotify, the company now has 24 million active users and 6 million paying subscribers across the world. Spotify is also growing rapidly in the United States, where it arrived in July of 2011 and is this week hosting musicians at its “Spotify House” at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

Despite the hype, the underlying economics of Spotify’s business model remain uncertain. The service is beholden to musicians and studios, which request a 70 percent cut, and it must contend with a growing list of competitors that include Pandora, Rdio and SoundCloud. Meanwhile, YouTube is expected to launch a subscription service of its own in coming months and even Apple is expected to get into the streaming game too.

This competition validates the underlying premise of Spotify — that people want access to a giant catalog of music instead of buying it piecemeal through iTunes — but the arrival of deep-pocketed rivals may hurt Spotify’s ability to compete in the longterm.

81% say same-day concert marketing is critical to drive awareness.

We recently surveyed 470 music venues around the world and their answers revealed that the majority of music venues sell most of their tickets at the door through walk-up traffic. Over eighty percent described day-of-show marketing and promotion as ‘important’ to driving that attendance.

While this may not come as a surprise to touring artists working to pack a house, these statistics suggest that consumers have a lot of choice when it comes to things to do on a Saturday night. And that many of them may be making their decisions about whether to go to the basketball game, the movies, or the concert, on the day of the event.

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Diddy keeps stacking that paper: The producer-rapper and Bad Boy Records founder tops Forbes'latest list of the richest hip-hop artists, which he also led last year. Diddy's net worth is estimated at $580 million, with much of his wealth coming from business ventures, including his partnership with Ciroc vodka.

This year's Forbes' list looks much the same as last year's report. Jay-Z came second, posting a net worth of $475 million with the continued growth of his Roc Nation label and management company. Dr. Dre held on to the number three spot with $350 million in net worth, thanks in large part to his Beats by Dre headphones.

Cash Money Records co-founder Birdman scored the fourth spot with $150 million in net worth, though he could have more than $200 million if it weren't for his co-ownership of the label with his brother Slim. G-Unit honcho 50 Cent came in at number five with $125 million, amassed through his varied approach to merchandise, video games and books following Get Rich or Die Tryin', as well as the 2007 sale of VitaminWater, in which he held a stake.