What can we expect from the music industry in the year 2016?

2016 has arrived, and as the New Year comes, now is the time to look upon how the music industry might work in the following year.

Here are some of the trends that will rule the music industry in 2016.

Pandora goes global

This move was quite overlooked by its competitors, but this was definitely one of the most important moves by the company. Though the issue is still contingent in court, the planned infrastructure will help Pandora become an interactive service like Spotify. It will also help Pandora serve other markets apart from the United States. If Pandora achieves the set target, it might become a potential competitor to Spotify.

Vinyl will continue to grow

For the past five years, vinyl has been seeing double digit growth. The same will continue in 2016. This was achieved due to increased pressing plant capacity brought about by newly manufactured presses. Though sales are expected to increase in 2016, it will also see a saturation of the market. 2016 might be the last year vinyl sees growth revival. This vinyl music trend might see its halting in the year ahead.

Amazon Prime Music might move ahead

Amazon Prime Music was introduced as a minor add-on to a Prime subscription. Amazon is quite serious toward its music streaming, and the company owns the entire infrastructure that will be needed for launching a mainstream music-only service. Amazon might take the big leap in 2016. Along with this, Amazon is also trying to become a full-fledged record label. It has already started by offering occasional Amazon Acoustics. Amazon might tap this brilliant distinction and lead the market with it.

Conversion to the streaming premium tier will remain slow

It seems like paying for music is something people still avoid, despite predictions that hordes of free tier streaming subscribers would convert to the paid premium tiers of their various services, or at least that new customers would pay the nominal amount. But in spite of the entry of Apple Music and the introduction of YouTube Red, the number of new paying subscribers was less than expected. There has been a consistent argument about how these paid services will change the music industry. The overall users might increase in 2016, but the streaming services won’t see an increase in paid subscribers. What the streaming services should plan c is to differentiate both the segments. Free subscribers will need a push so that they prefer paying for the premium segment.

Facebook might institute its version of Content ID

Content creators have always complained about the low rates in terms of royalty rates from YouTube. The fact, however, is they do get paid. There is a fingerprinting feature on YouTube that flags a user-generated video using copyrighted material. If anyone wants to use a song, Content ID will sniff it out and alert the owner of the Copyright. Facebook is trying to catch up in terms of video viewership, but it still does not have anything that is similar to Content ID. Facebook might introduce its fingerprinting feature in the year 2016.

These are just predictions, and it will be fun to see how the upcoming year works for music industry.