‘NOW PLAYING JAPAN’ Event Hosted by Billboard Japan & Luminate Sheds Light on New Music Trends

The second installment of “NOW PLAYING JAPAN,” a conference and networking event held by Billboard Japan and Luminate on domestic and international music consumption trends and marketing, was held at Billboard Live Tokyo on Sept. 18.

At this event, representatives from Billboard JAPAN and Luminate gave presentations on the latest music consumption trends in Japan and abroad. In addition, Tatsuya Hori of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry appeared as a guest speaker. Using the recently released “Report on the Music Industry’s Business Model for a New Era” as a basis, Hori explained the current status and challenges for Japanese artists to expand overseas. The following is a report on the event.

Presentation 1: Scott Ryan (Luminate)

Scott Ryan, Executive Vice President of Luminate, took the stage first to introduce the latest trends in music streaming: In the first half of 2024, global on-demand audio streaming increased 15.1% compared to the previous year, which is equivalent to approximately 300 billion new streams. Among countries in the APAC + ANZ, Japan has displayed a steady increase of more than 10% in streaming, while several countries in Southeast Asia have shown growth of 20-30%. He also touched on listening trends that vary by country, including preferred genres (in Japan, “jazz,” “rock,” and “soundtrack” are over indexing compared to other Asian countries), the #1 source of music discovery (streaming in Indonesia, SNS in the Philippines, and TV in Japan), and differences in engagement with “foreign content” (95% in the Philippines, 74% in Singapore, and 57% in Japan). He also explained a snapshot of Japanese Gen Z music listeners: 44% of Gen Z listeners encounter music via streaming, are 1.4 times more likely to listen to music shared by friends on SNS than Japanese music listeners as a whole, and 27% less likely to listen to music from overseas.　

Ryan concluded his presentation by giving three key points: “Streaming numbers are increasing globally, but the way people enjoy new content differs from country to country, so it is necessary to devise marketing plans and approaches accordingly”; “The way people encounter new music differs by region and generation, so for effective targeting, it is important to have smart information”; and “Streaming is still on the rise, and there are opportunities for growth on a global scale across regions.”

Presentation 2: Helena Kosinski (Luminate)

Helena Kosinski, Luminate’s Global Vice President, presented the challenges and new solutions for the industry in assigning key music data identifiers and metadata, including ISNI, ISRC and ISWC, with examples from Japan. While the assignment of music data identifiers is becoming more widespread in the industry, the importance of ISNI is not yet fully understood. In addition, there are cases where incorrect information is linked due to duplication of artist names and song titles, and where multiple identifiers are registered for the same song. Furthermore, songs having identifiers that are unknown to the rights holders is also an issue. As a result, there are many recordings that are not linked to the correct rights holders (lyricists, composers, etc.), and royalties are not being accurately distributed. In fact, it appears that 16.25% (approximately $120 million) of the royalties that were due to be paid by the MLC in 2022 have still not been distributed as of 2024.

As a solution to these issues, Luminate acquired Quansic, a service that collects multiple identifiers and consolidates them in one place, in February 2024 to improve the quality of metadata. Kosinski spoke about the importance and benefits of having correct metadata, with an explanation of this service. For labels, the benefits of having ISNI are “increased visibility and clarity of content on DSPs,” “increased promotional opportunities such as additions to official playlists (as songs with more complete metadata are preferred),” and “getting paid quickly and correctly”. In a test case conducted by Luminate, the number of streams also increased by 6-18%.

Benefits for DSPs through Quansic included improved search accuracy on the platform, support for artist names in other languages, and the ability to distinguish duplicate artists by adding more than twice as many new identifiers. For music publishers, the benefits include securing royalties from all the songs and recordings they manage, automatic recognition of new releases in their catalogs, and better predictability of future revenues. A test case for a publisher showed a 3-18% increase in streaming numbers. Kosinski concluded by giving “metadata is hard” and “fix the problem before you lose royalties” as key points, and urged a free evaluation with Luminate.

Presentation 3: Tatsuya Hori (METI)

Tatsuya Hori, Consulting Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), gave a presentation on “The Potential of the Japanese Music Market” based on the “Report on the Music Industry’s Business Model for a New Era”, which was released in July 2024 and attracted wide attention both within and outside the industry. The “content industry,” which includes music, is growing remarkably on a global scale. In Japan, overseas sales are comparable in scale to exports from the steel and semiconductor industries, and the high economic ripple effect has led to the recognition that this industry could become a key industry in Japan and drive economic growth. Based on this premise and the data used in the report, he indicated that the characteristics of the Japanese music industry are the “diversity and accumulation of music”.

He also noted that, since streaming has become the center of the global music industry, overseas expansion and digitalization are two sides of the same coin, and that it is essential for the music business to respond quickly to the digitalization of the industry. He also stressed the importance of creating an environment that facilitates the activities of creators who are engaged in production and distribution on their own.

Presentation 4: Seiji Isozaki (Billboard Japan)

Seiji Isozaki of Billboard Japan, gave a presentation on current trends in the world of Japanese music based on the Global chart data for the first half of 2024. In particular, he pointed out that compared to the first half of 2023, the share of Japanese music is increasing in the U.S. and South Korea, and that the share of new releases at the top of the charts is rising in line with the attention paid to anime and game releases. He explained the importance of understanding the market structure of each country and the importance of “increasing resolution” in order to create hits in Asia & globally.

In the U.S. and South Korea, “Artists who increased the number of streams per day and increased their market share” and “Artists who increased the number of streams per day and increased their market share in the corresponding countries” were respectively presented in comparison to the previous year. Names such as Azumi Takahashi, known for her singing in the “Persona” game series, PSYCHIC FEVER from EXILE TRIBE, and eill were mentioned.

Text: Haruki Saito, Maiko Murata