Rebecca Day

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Snap One’s domestic local branches are “key to supporting our growth strategy,” said the company’s first 10-K report since going public in July. Snap One dealers we canvassed at the Home Technology Specialists of America spring meeting this week wondered how that growth strategy would affect them.

Nearly half of U.S. broadband homes subscribe to four or more over-the-top video services, with streaming now the primary way consumers view TV content, said Parks Associates analyst Paul Erickson on a Thursday Future of Video webcast. But service stacking is starting to slow, as viewing bumps up against an “inevitable point of subscription overload from having a finite amount of time and budget to spend on watching video,” Erickson said.

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Despite persistent supply chain constraints, the Home Technology Specialists of America had a 23.7% jump in purchases from HTSA vendors in 2021, after a “mid-20s” bump in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Executive Director Jon Robbins told us at the buying group’s spring meeting here.

Musicians are turning to the gaming industry for additional revenue opportunities, said Evan Heby, Tipalti senior marketing manager, on a Digital Media Wire webcast Friday. He cited rapper Travis Scott as one of the first musicians to host a concert on a gaming platform, “expanding an artist’s audience in a really natural way," by connecting with fans via other avenues fans are interested in.

Digital commerce accounted for 31% of discretionary dollars spent by consumers in Q4, said Ryan Williams, Comscore’s head-client insights, on a Thursday State of Retail webinar. About 20% of Q4 dollars were spent via desktop, 11% on smartphones and tablets.

Spotify paid out more than $7 billion to the recording industry last year, more than other services “and more than any single retailer in history in a single year,” blogged CEO Daniel Ek Thursday. Major label streaming services “are healthier than ever,” said Ek, noting publishers earned over $1 billion from Spotify for the second straight year. Some 100 Spotify professional artists protested in Los Angeles this month about the music streaming service's payouts and priorities, the Los Angeles Times reported. Grammy Award-winning songwriter Kennedi Lykken, who has written for Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande and Britney Spears, said her last royalty check from Spotify totaled $432. “I’m not ungrateful, but I can’t live on that," she said. In 2021, over 1,000 artists generated more than $1 million from Spotify alone; 50,000 generated $10,000-plus, Ek said. Spotify generates more than a fifth of global recorded revenue, he said, saying multiplying those amounts by four gives an estimate of “how much the artist is generating beyond just Spotify.” Ek compared the music publishing business to the “hyper-competitive worlds of film or sports,” noting, “it’s difficult to make it in music. I get that." The streaming service's published royalty fixtures "show that Spotify is improving on the music industry of the past, and more and more artists are able to stand out in the streaming era,” Ek said. Among Spotify artists generating $10,000 or more from the service, 28% “self-distribute,” and 34% lived in countries outside the top 10 music markets, he said, noting the industry is “less concentrated” today than in the CD era when a quarter of sales went to the top 50 artists. At Spotify, 12% of sales come from the top 50 artists, he said. The service has paid out over $30 billion since its launch, he said.

The safety and security of Amazon customers "is a top priority,” emailed an Amazon spokesperson Wednesday to our questions on package thefts in New York being committed by Amazon delivery imposters (see 2203220057). “Any information that we receive about impersonators is thoroughly investigated and routed to law enforcement as appropriate.” Amazon said most deliveries make it to customers without issue, and the company put in place measures to ensure packages reach customers as intended, such as Amazon Key in-garage delivery, package pickup lockers and order tracking to let customers know when packages will arrive. A New York neighborhood community thread this week said a person wearing an Amazon vest was “buzzed in” to a locked lobby and took packages from the building’s mailroom. Another post noted a page showing how to order a vest resembling Amazon employees' vests on Amazon.com.

Supply chain constraints are not expected to moderate until 2023, said Snap One CEO John Heyman on a Q4 earnings call Tuesday. The company had expected in late fall that its supply chain issues would start to ease in second-half 2022, but “inflationary pressures,” events in Ukraine and a resurgence of COVID-19 in China, with resulting plant shutdowns, “have caused us more recent concern and those things have rippled through the supply chain,” Heyman said.

Amazon delivery personnel were cited in a Nextdoor New York City community thread this week on growing incidents of package thefts. Thieves are stealing packages from the lobbies and mailrooms of unattended apartment buildings with intercom systems. One community member referenced a person wearing an Amazon vest who was “buzzed in” to a locked lobby by a building resident who assumed it was an Amazon delivery person. Instead, the person “carried all the packages that were in the mailroom out with them.” Another member noted “you can make and buy an Amazon Employee looking vest on Amazon” and gave a link to the page. A third Nextdoor member complained of Amazon employees “banging on doors and yelling” to get buzzed in to make a delivery. “Amazon needs to resolve this because no one should buzz an Amazon employee in except the person expecting a delivery,” he said. Amazon didn't respond to questions.

IKEA introduced a Bluetooth speaker with Spotify Tap, saying Tuesday that the Vappeby is the first speaker to offer the feature. Spotify launched Tap in September in headphones, highlighting Samsung, Microsoft Surface, Bose, Skullcandy and Jabra as brands offering the feature, which allows users to launch a listening session with one tap. Users can begin streaming from where they left off, and another touch advances the stream to the next song. Vappeby, which doubles as a rechargeable, portable lamp, is not part of Ikea’s line of Sonos-enabled Symfonisk products that include speakers ($119 each), a frame speaker ($219) and speaker-lamps ($229). The Vappeby is due in stores next month at $64.99. IKEA didn’t respond to questions on product positioning differences for the Sonos and Spotify product lines. The Vappeby has a handle and is IP65-rated for water resistance, it said.