There's a new music streaming service in town – and it promises to pay artists a lot more

[What Hi-Fi?]

Presto Music is a new music streaming service focusing on jazz and classical records which pays artists by the second rather than per stream.

There's a new music streaming service in town – and it promises to pay artists a lot more : Read more

 

[djh1697]

No support by Roon, yet?

 

[manicm]

No support by Roon, yet?

I would think if your playback device is Roon Ready like most NAD BluOS devices then its compatible by default.

 

[Hifiman]

‘One listen to the album on Spotify, for instance, generates £0.135 for the artist, whereas the same record played through Presto Music will recoup £1.058.’

Neither streaming service will remain in business for long if these are truly the rates paid to artists!

 

[DougM]

‘One listen to the album on Spotify, for instance, generates £0.135 for the artist, whereas the same record played through Presto Music will recoup £1.058.’

Neither streaming service will remain in business for long if these are truly the rates paid to artists!

I assume they must have been off by a factor of 100. You obviously can't pay £15 for a month of music, then have one hour of listening cost the company £1. You'd have spent your monthly in 2 days.

Edit: checked their website, where they really do seem to be claiming to pay about 1/2£/hr for music they are getting paid 15£ per month. They would start losing money at 30 hrs/month, which seems crazily low to me. Do their listeners really stream so little?

 

[jjbomber]

‘One listen to the album on Spotify, for instance, generates £0.135 for the artist, whereas the same record played through Presto Music will recoup £1.058.’

I don't think Vivaldi is too bothered about it!

 

[chrisoreilly]

I assume they must have been off by a factor of 100. You obviously can't pay £15 for a month of music, then have one hour of listening cost the company £1. You'd have spent your monthly in 2 days.

Edit: checked their website, where they really do seem to be claiming to pay about 1/2£/hr for music they are getting paid 15£ per month. They would start losing money at 30 hrs/month, which seems crazily low to me. Do their listeners really stream so little?

Hi Doug,
Like almost all music streaming services we pay around 70% of our revenue through the rightsholders. That means the more music is listened to, the less per play gets paid back, but the service always keeps around 30%. On our current usage for us that's working out at around 40p per hour going back to labels (the Vivaldi album cited here is 2hr 27 mins - hence over £1 for one album play)
Most of our customers also own CD, Download or Vinyl collections so not all their listening is happening through streaming. Some also subscribe to other services as well but find for classical our experience is so much better it is worth an extra subscription for that. Also, classical consumers are less likely to have playlists playing from dawn til dusk. Classical music really suffers on major platforms as usage is diluted by listeners of other genres who typically consume a lot more music. Also, some classical works have very long tracks, which only count as a play on major services.

 

[Hifiman]

Hi Doug,
Like almost all music streaming services we pay around 70% of our revenue through the rightsholders. That means the more music is listened to, the less per play gets paid back, but the service always keeps around 30%. On our current usage for us that's working out at around 40p per hour going back to labels (the Vivaldi album cited here is 2hr 27 mins - hence over £1 for one album play)
Most of our customers also own CD, Download or Vinyl collections so not all their listening is happening through streaming. Some also subscribe to other services as well but find for classical our experience is so much better it is worth an extra subscription for that. Also, classical consumers are less likely to have playlists playing from dawn til dusk. Classical music really suffers on major platforms as usage is diluted by listeners of other genres who typically consume a lot more music. Also, some classical works have very long tracks, which only count as a play on major services.

I hope your business model works out for everyone involved.

 

[Richard Brand]

Presto Music is a new music streaming service focusing on jazz and classical records which pays artists by the second rather than per stream.

There's a new music streaming service in town – and it promises to pay artists a lot more : Read more

I'd like to think you discovered Presto after I pointed out its omission from your review of streaming services! Presto's biggest advantage for classical music lovers is that it understands classical music, which rarely comprises playlists of songs, or even as your article now says, tunes.