For Streaming Music of the 2000s, the recording industry was struggling to save itself. By 2014, with digital singles decimating album product sales, in conjunction with the rise of unlawful file sharing, revenues strike an all-time low. The future of labels looked bleak. But around that same time, streaming was beginning to pick up steam, and the sector was plotting a new long term for itself. It was a future built on data. Similarly, the shift toward cloud-based libraries shown new issues by marking the finish of music ownership; consumers would no longer keep physical albums, or even scroll through documents on their mp3 players. But on the other, streaming provided labels an unprecedented opportunity to learn about their listeners-who and where they were, what songs they skipped, what gadgets they listened on and more. “We understood from the beginning the need for data as the business model shifted from possession to intake via streaming,” says Dennis Kooker, president of global digital business and U.S. Digital streaming gives labels new equipment for observing how fans interact with its artists’ music. Predicated on data from the RIAA.

Figures reflect select media types and could not add up to 100 because of rounding. Today, more than 60 million people purchase streaming subscription programs. It helps that Sony Music oversees main labels like Columbia, Epic and RCA. Through them, it has usage of a massive portfolio of hit-making artists and millions of dedicated fans. A lot more impactful is usually what Sony can do with the data. By carefully tracking its vast amounts of streams, sights, loves, tags, clicks, shares and purchases, and by pairing that data with info from newsletters, social mass media sites and surveys, the business creates an in depth behavioral profile of the listening audience and may use that to find new listeners, tailor tours and target the next generation of followers. “We can do this in the most macro feeling for the globe, and we can do this in the most micro feeling for a single city,” says Kooker. Despite a tough start to the web era, the music sector is currently rebuilding itself.

Sony Music-and indeed, recording as a whole-is riding on four years of healthy development. Below, five innovative ways the music industry is normally using data to serve artists and develop business today, at Sony and beyond. At Sony, streaming offers ushered in a fresh period of data transparency for both employees and artists. While Sony Music workers have their own internal analytics tools, musicians gain access to data through the Artist Portal, available through desktop in addition to app. The Portal allows performers to move deep into audio streams, video sights, album and track downloads, tags and shares of their music. They are able to sort listens by song, region or time frame and filter for specific streaming solutions or listening gadgets. Some artists may not wish the granular look, and that’s good, says Kooker. But those who do can use the info to target audiences within their songwriting, touring or public campaigns. “Our objective is to provide our performers with as very much relevant data around viewers, market trends and commercial opportunities as possible,” says Kooker.

In the analog period, artists were often in the dark about their income. Royalty payments came only one time or two times per year, therefore musicians had to hold back to observe what they’d produced. But this past year, Sony Music introduced “real-time royalties” and “money out” features to its Artist Portal. Right now musicians can see immediately how much money they’ve received from streaming services and various other digital partners. Better yet, they can draw down money anytime. They no longer have to wait before end of a royalty period to become paid. For an improved watch of where each dollar is normally coming from, artists may also kind the royalties by region, source or time period. “All of the data that’s available is targeted at super-serving our artists and marketing transparency,” says Kooker. Performers still generally make far more cash from touring than they perform from streaming or album product sales, so it pays to reserve shows in towns where the fanbase is most fervent.

While tour schedules aren’t necessarily handled straight by record labels, a band’s touring manager could analyze geographic hearing data to find dense pockets of fans. If indeed they discover streaming hotspots in New Orleans and Seattle, for instance, they could upgrade the season’s tour with more dates in the U.S. South and Pacific Northwest. In another situation, a label may use data to set artists together predicated on overlapping lover profiles. If, for instance, an up-and-arriving artist routinely views her biggest spike in streams late at night in cities, then she has a good chance of winning new fans by joining the costs of a more set up artist with the same fanbase of city-dwelling evening owls. In age CD singles, labels had been expected to predict in advance which tracks were probably to end up being hits. But streaming provides leeway to adjust the strategy predicated on listener preference. “We can use usage patterns of early lover engagement with tracks to help inform decisions of which tunes we should focus on for playlist strategies and expanded promotion campaigns,” says Kooker.