Industry news

Disney+ ran its first-ever test of livestreaming capabilities this morning in the U.S., hinting at future changes to come for its on-demand subscription video service. For the test, the company didn’t try to tackle a massive event, but instead ran a livestream of the 94th Oscar nominations, hosted by actor-comedian Leslie Jordan and actor-producer Tracee Ellis Ross. The event was also livestreamed to Disney-owned Hulu, plus ABC News Live and the Academy Awards’ various owned platforms, including Oscars.com and others.

Read more –> TechCrunch

As reported by Adweek, it forecast that the shoppable livestream market in the U.S. would hit $11 billion this year, and will hit $25 billion by 2023. Another report from Garter Research said that 26% of senior marketing leaders are currently focused on livestreaming as a priority, and Garter expects that number will double over the next year and a half.

Read more –> Tubefilter

On the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” Drucker Mann touted the big numbers — 16.5 million views and 54 million minutes watched — as proof positive of what she’ll be selling for Conde Nast’s other blue-chip magazine brands, from a GQ Super Bowl party to Vanity Fair’s annual Oscar bash.

Read more –> Variety

France-born music streaming company Deezer has acquired a minority stake in UK-headquartered Driift, a producer and promoter of live streamed music events.

Read more –> Music Business Worldwide

UK-based ticketing, merch and streaming platform DICE has acquired Boiler Room for an undisclosed sum.

The news comes only days after DICE announced it had secured $122 million in investment led by venture capital giant SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, Billboard reports. Another of the investors is Future Shape, the company run by former Apple executive Tony Fadell, who co-invented the iPhone. Fadell is also joining the board at DICE.

The DICE funding came from SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, launched in 2019 to invest in technology start-ups.

Read more –> Resident Advisor

The magazine reports that nearly 15 million viewers watched the exclusive red carpet live stream hosted by guests Keke Palmer and Ilana Glazer for Vogue.com and the magazine’s Twitter account. That figure — which combines all global views of the video, both live on and VOD, and across Twitter and O&O — totaled approximately 54 million minutes of content watched. Vogue’s Met content pulled in more than 200 million views across all social platforms.

Read more –> Variety

The $21 million financing round was led by Greycroft Partners and SignalFire, with additional participation from Primary Venture Partners, Contour Venture Partners, Red Sea Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank.
Angel investors joining the round include music-industry luminaries Coran Capshaw, Bill Silva, Marty Diamond, and Larry Webman, Bay Area concert promoter Another Planet Entertainment, Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons, WIRED magazine co-founding editor John Battelle, and LionTree Partners.

Read more –> Pollstar

Verzuz, the popular livestream music platform created by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, has been acquired by Triller Network, the parent company of the app. The agreement marks the end of Verzuz’s relationship with Apple Music.

Read more –> Variety