Universal Music Group head Lucian Grainge, whose company’s announced a bolstered Amazon Music deal. Photo Credit: Luke Harold
Universal Music Group (UMG) and Amazon Music have officially finalized an expanded deal that they say “marks a new era in streaming.”
The major label and the Amazon-operated music platform revealed their bolstered pact today, as the former continues to lean into a much-touted “Streaming 2.0” initiative. That initiative has coincided with slowing subscriber-revenue growth at Universal Music and elsewhere; plateau worries are now making way for concerns of outright subscription declines in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Amazon Music itself lost subscriber ground in 2024, according to DMN Pro preliminary estimates, and Universal Music Group is targeting aggressive paid-streaming growth through 2028 despite the aforementioned slowdown.
Enter the Universal Music-Amazon Music tie-up, which the involved parties rather directly emphasized will prioritize “artist-centric principles” and, in turn, “exclusive content with UMG artists.”
Late last year, UMG first introduced the first version of its ‘artist-centric’ payout model with Deezer before spreading 1,000-play payment thresholds on Spotify. The details of the Amazon Music iteration aren’t being spelled out, though it’s plausible that songs receiving less than 1,000 plays in a year won’t receive recorded royalty payments from Amazon Music in the future — just like Spotify.
On the content front, the parties stopped short of disclosing exactly which exclusive content they intend to roll out. But they did highlight a top-level goal of exploring “new and enhanced product opportunities.” The latter will simultaneously “benefit artists” and “enrich” the fan experience – presumably referring to as-yet-undefined superfan undertakings.
Perhaps most interesting of all, WPP-partnered UMG is poised to collaborate with the Amazon Music Live organizer as the service spearheads “further innovation in audiobooks, audio and visual programming,” besides fresh livestream shows to boot. Probably not coincidentally, Amazon Music Unlimited in November added a monthly audiobook to its core offering.
Lastly, on the fraud-protection front, the businesses also touched on plans to zero in on curbing “unlawful AI-generated content” as well as “fraud and misattribution.”
(It still remains to be seen exactly where its millions in royalty payouts stemmed from, but a massive alleged streaming-fraud scheme came to light when criminal charges were handed down over the summer. At least according to Spotify, it promptly flagged the relevant works and streams, therefore paying out less than 1% of the sizable sum in question.)
In a statement, Universal Music head Lucian Grainge didn’t hesitate to bill the Amazon Music agreement as one component of the previously noted “Streaming 2.0.” Additionally, UMG is set to work towards “accelerating growth of their service,” the acquisition-minded exec spelled out.
And in remarks of his own, Amazon VP of audio, Twitch, and games Steve Boom likewise pointed to forthcoming efforts to forge stronger “artist-to-fan connections” via exclusive content and more.
“UMG has always been a collaborative partner to Amazon Music, and as we continue to invent and introduce more artist-to-fan connections through our product and exclusive content, we’re redefining what it means to be a streaming service,” Boom communicated.
“We’re thrilled to expand our relationship with UMG which will enable us to partner on meaningful new ways for artists to deepen their engagement with fans around the world, while working together to protect the work of artists, songwriters and publishers,” the longtime Amazon Music higher-up finished.
Heading into 2025, it’ll be interesting to see exactly what these superfan projects entail – on top of keeping an eye out for Spotify Deluxe and moves from the many superfan startups (like FanCircles and Mellomanic, to name a couple) that scored raises during 2024.
