“Dirty Little Secrets”: Investigating the Unfair Realities of the Music Streaming Industry

For outsiders, the music and streaming industry is often a closed book. A new documentary series, which is now available in the ARD media library, now promises insights into the Spotify system and the music industry. In the three-part investigative series TV-Termine informiert." onclick="document.getElementById("entry_titel").innerHTML="Dirty Little Secrets";entry_id="s47581";jump("layer_benachrichtigung");return false;"> “Dirty Little Secrets” well-known musicians – including Peter Maffay, Rocko Schamoni, Balbina, Markus “Maeckes” Winter and Chefket – sit down at a table and talk openly about how little they earn with streaming. A research team headed by moderator Julia Schweinberger discusses small and large secrets of the music industry.

While international superstars can make a good living from music streaming, the situation is very different for the majority of artists. The musician and writer Rocko Schamoni, for example, earns just 200 to 300 euros a month through streaming. The key here is the distribution key. Because the more often a song is streamed, the more it is worth. This is also a reason why many songs of the last few years are less than three minutes long. Playlists determine which artist is heard how often and who earns how much.

The second part of the documentary deals with “ghost music” on Spotify. In a playlist curated by Spotify, the reporters come across musicians who don’t even exist, although their accounts are verified. Such fake artists were invented by a few musicians and small labels. A single artist stands behind more than 100 personalities under whose names he publishes his music, which is sometimes listened to millions of times.

Smudo from the Fantastischen Vier knows: The less money artists make with streaming, the more important the live business becomes. The ticket provider Eventim dominates the German and European market and has bought numerous competitors as well as concert and festival organizers since going public in 2000. According to research for “Dirty Little Secrets”, Eventim is also growing past the Federal Cartel Office. Smudo tells how he lost his booking agency to Eventim, even though the Federal Cartel Office had prohibited a takeover.

The Bavarian Radio production was written and directed by Friederike Wipfler, Julia Schweinberger, Lennart Bedford-Strohm and Anne Brier. Sammy Khamis is in charge of the research, the editors consisted of Pia Dangelmayer, Astrid Harms-Limmer and Verena Nierle.