Deezer strengthens support for French festivals
Streaming platform Deezer has pledged its “renewed and strengthened support” to French music festivals this summer under its “Live the Music” banner.
The Paris-headquartered company will continue to work with events such as We Love Green, Garorock, Eurockéennes, Vieilles Charrues, Rock en Seine, Rose Festival, Delta Festival and Golden Coast to curate “unique and immersive” festival experiences.
Promotions include the live version of its “Shaker” feature, which turns a collaborative playlist into a mini-festival with an exclusive dance floor and customised merch, and live music and party series Purple Door, where fans experience their favourite artists in an intimate and exclusive setting.
The streaming service also regularly brings its award-winning Giant Karaoke, after-parties and unique fan activations to events at Paris La Défense Arena, as well as organising exclusive concert series Deezer Sessions Live.
“We’re excited to be back this summer season to create even more unforgettable shared moments”
“Deezer is proud to support festivals in France,” says Deezer CMO Maria Garrido. “We strongly feel that festivals are social and cultural experiences in their own right, uniting fans through live music experiences and creating a sense of belonging.
“For years, we have been committed to offering festival-goers unique and immersive experiences, connecting them in new ways with their favourite artists and with other fans. We’re excited to be back this summer season to create even more unforgettable shared moments.”
The reinforced commitment comes after rival platform Spotify said last December that it was withdrawing its financial support from two French festivals in response to a new tax imposed on streaming services in the country. The so-called “streaming tax” was announced by president Emmanuel Macron’s government following “several months of consultation”, and will require subscription streaming platforms to make a contribution of 1.2% of their turnover in France.
The tax will directly finance France’s National Music Center (CNM), which was created in 2020 to support the wider music industry. Platforms that turnover less than €20 million a year will be exempt. However, Spotify said it would no longer support the Francofolies de La Rochelle and the Printemps de Bourges festivals as a result of the proposal.
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Spotify partners with Bandsintown
Spotify is partnering with live event discovery platform Bandsintown to help boost concert and festival discovery.
The link-up will see Bandsintown event listings directly integrated into Spotify – driving better engagement and potentially stronger sales for their live events worldwide.
Bandsintown and Spotify say they are teaming up to bridge the gap and ensure every artist gets their deserved spotlight, with Spotify having increased impressions for live events across its platform by 10x in the last 12 months alone.
“Bandsintown is on a mission to help artists get discovered and sell out shows”
“Bandsintown is on a mission to help artists get discovered and sell out shows,” says Fabrice Sergent, co-founder and managing partner of Bandsintown. “With Spotify on board, we are bringing artists and fans closer in a world where every show counts, and every fan matters.”
The free Bandsintown for Artists platform gives artists full control of their event listings, providing a more complete and accurate pipeline of data to Spotify. By linking their Spotify profiles and publishing their shows on Bandsintown, artists can instantly amplify their reach through Spotify’s live event listings on the platform, including across artist pages, the dedicated Live Events Feed, and the Now Playing View.
“Our partnership with Bandsintown reinforces our commitment to help artists connect with and monetise their fanbases,” adds Jon Ostrow, associate director, growth & discovery, live events at Spotify. “With more concert listings and data directly sourced from artists, this integration gives artists more control to update their tour schedules on Spotify and ultimately improves the fan experience of discovering and purchasing tickets,”
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Spotify pulls out of French festivals over tax row
Spotify has announced it is withdrawing its financial support from two French festivals in response to a new tax imposed on streaming services in the country.
The so-called “streaming tax”, which comes into effect in 2024, was announced by president Emmanuel Macron’s government following “several months of consultation”, and will require subscription streaming platforms to make a contribution of 1.2% of their turnover in France.
The tax will directly finance France’s National Music Center (CNM), which was created in 2020 to support the wider music industry. Platforms that turnover less than €20 million a year will be exempt.
As a result of the proposal, Spotify says it will no longer support the Francofolies de La Rochelle and the Printemps de Bourges festivals from next year onwards.
“Following the announcement of the implementation of a tax on music streaming in France, we regret to announce that Spotify France will stop supporting the Francofolies de la Rochelle and the Printemps de Bourges, from 2024, financially and through activations on the ground,” says Spotify France MD Antoine Monin on X.
The CNM is currently funded by a 3.5% levy on ticket sales for shows, a contribution from the state to cover operating costs, and support from rights management organisations.
Monin says the Swedish streaming giant, which campaigned for a voluntary contribution instead of the tax, will focus its attention on emerging artist initiatives the Chantier and the iNOUïs, adding: “Other announcements will follow in 2024.”
“France does not encourage innovation and investment”
The announcement of the streaming tax, which is intended to generate €15 million next year, was welcomed by groups including French live association Prodiss, whose director Malika Séguineau described it as “the only device which allows the CNM to be provided with sustainable and balanced financing”.
“We are delighted that the government has taken this decision, supported by deputies and senators,” added Séguineau. “After long months of consultation and discussions, we must now look to the future, with a fully operational CNM from 2024 serving the ambition for the music industry.”
However, the move was criticised in a joint statement by giants Apple, Deezer, Meta, Spotify, YouTube and TikTok, which claimed they had reached an agreement to raise a voluntary contribution of more than €14m in 2025.
A Spotify spokesperson slammed the proposed tax as an “inequitable, unjust and disproportionate measure”, with Monin warning the firm would “disinvest in France and will invest in other markets”.
“France does not encourage innovation and investment,” he told Franceinfo. “France will no longer be a priority for Spotify.”
France is the world’s sixth largest recorded music market according to the IFPI, generating €920m in recorded music revenue in 2022.
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Prodiss backs French ‘streaming tax’ proposals
French live association Prodiss has welcomed the introduction of a new tax on music streaming services in France to support the wider sector.
The move, which comes into effect in 2024, has been announced by the government following “several months of consultation”. It will directly finance the National Music Center (CNM), which was created in 2020 to help the music industry’s various stakeholders, including labels, publishers, venues and promoters.
“The tax contribution of subscription streaming platforms and free content sharing platforms will be 1.2% of their turnover in France,” reads a press release from the Ministry of Culture. “Platforms with a turnover of less than €20 million will not be subject to this new contribution, which is expected to bring in €15 million in 2024.”
According to Tous Les Festivals, the CNM is currently funded by a 3.5% levy on ticket sales for shows, a contribution from the state to cover operating costs, and support from rights management organisations.
Prodiss director Malika Séguineau has backed the move, saying it is “the only device which allows the CNM to be provided with sustainable and balanced financing”.
“We are delighted that the government has taken this decision, supported by deputies and senators,” says Séguineau. “After long months of consultation and discussions, we must now look to the future, with a fully operational CNM from 2024 serving the ambition for the music industry.”
“France will no longer be a priority for Spotify”
However, the announcement has been criticised in a joint statement by giants Apple, Deezer, Meta, Spotify, YouTube and TikTok, which claim they have reached an agreement to raise a voluntary contribution of more than €14m in 2025.
According to the IFPI, France is the world’s sixth largest recorded music market, generating €920m in recorded music revenue in 2022.
“We take note of the government’s decision, which does not take into account the efforts made by many platforms including Spotify,” a Spotify spokesperson tells AFP, via Euronews. “This is a real blow to innovation, and to the growth prospects of recorded music in France. We are evaluating the follow-up to be given to the implementation of this inequitable, unjust and disproportionate measure.”
In addition, Spotify France CEO Antoine Monin describes the tax as “a monumental strategic error which goes against the issues of economic, cultural and European technology”, and warns the firm will “disinvest in France and will invest in other markets”.
“France does not encourage innovation and investment,” he tells Franceinfo. “France will no longer be a priority for Spotify.”
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Ticketek secures Spotify partnership
TEG-owned ticketing, data and analytics firm Ticketek has become a ticketing partner for Spotify’s Live Events Feed in Australia.
The link-up will provide users of the streaming service with direct access to the latest Ticketek events through Spotify’s platform, in an effort to enhance the convenience and accessibility of live event discovery when using the app.
“Ticketek is thrilled to be joining forces with Spotify on this partnership,” says Ticketek MD Cameron Hoy. “Both organisations are global leading technology and data driven businesses that exist to connect fans with their favourite artists.
“With this partnership, Ticketek and Spotify will fuel artist discovery and bring fans one step closer to their favourite artists”
“With this partnership, Ticketek and Spotify will fuel artist discovery and bring fans one step closer to their favourite artists, creating a seamless ticket purchase experience. At Ticketek we believe nothing beats the live experience and this alignment will ensure Australian music fans have every opportunity to see their favourite artist when they are touring locally.”
Fans will be presented with personalised recommendations for upcoming shows based upon their unique profile.
“Spotify is very excited to be adding Ticketek to its Live Events Feed in Australia, in order to continue growing the company’s global strategy of diving headfirst into concert discoverability,” adds Rene Volker, Spotify senior director of live events.
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Is live the new battleground for streaming giants?
Streaming giants such as Apple, Spotify and Amazon are ramping up their live music offerings with exclusive live stream series featuring some of the world’s biggest acts.
Apple Music Live yesterday (27 October) announced that Grammy Award-winning artist Megan Thee Stallion will be the latest act to feature in the inaugural, exclusive live performance series.
Her upcoming concert at The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles will be available to Apple Music subscribers in over 165 countries on 21 December at 19:00 PST, and local fans can register for the chance to be in the room for the rapper’s set.
Megan Thee Stallion follows in the footsteps of artists including Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Mary J. Blige, Lil Durk and Luke Coombs, all of whom have performed for Apple Music Live.
“No matter how much time and effort an artist may spend crafting music in the studio, it’s on the stage where they really get to show their work,” the company notes. “Apple Music Live is a new recurring series designed to do just that: give the biggest stars in music the biggest possible platform to flaunt how they connect with audiences and how their songs translate to live performance.”
Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Mary J. Blige, Lil Durk and Luke Coombs have all performed for Apple Music Live
Prior to Apple Music Live, the streaming behemoth previously dabbled in live music with events including the discontinued iTunes Festival and Apple Music Festival.
Amazon Music has also announced details of a new livestream concert series, which will also feature Megan Thee Stallion.
Hosted by American rapper 2 Chainz, Amazon Music Live will be streamed live from LA, featuring “the biggest artists performing their latest hits live”.
It will air on Prime Video following Thursday Night Football in the US and premieres 27 October with Lil Baby, followed by Megan Thee Stallion (3 November) and Kane Brown (10 November), with further performers to be revealed in the coming weeks.
“With Amazon Music Live, we’ve created a new, can’t-miss series for fans to experience the most exciting new music together,” says Kirdis Postelle, global head of artist marketing of Amazon Music. “For artists, this show represents a massive new stage to share their music with fans after Thursday Night Football – the biggest game of the week, airing live on Prime Video.”
Amazon Music Live will be streamed live from LA, featuring “the biggest artists performing their latest hits live”
As well as hosting Amazon Music Live, 2 Chainz will interview each night’s performing artist during Thursday Night Football shoulder programming. Each concert will be available for fans to stream live around the world on Prime Video and will also be available to stream on-demand for a limited time.
Each week’s performance will be filmed in front of a live audience. Attendance to the show is by invitation only and will be facilitated through ticketing and event discovery platform Dice.
Amazon Music also recently livestreamed Kendrick Lamar’s sold-out 22 October show at the Accor Arena in Paris.
Fans were able to watch the livestream for free exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, the Amazon Music channel on Twitch, and on the Amazon Music app.
Spotify previously stepped into the live music sphere when it launched a new livestreaming virtual concert series during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Spotify launched a new livestreaming virtual concert series during the Covid-19 pandemic
The Black Keys, Rag’n’Bone Man, Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff, Leon Bridges, and girl in red were among the artists that delivered what Spotify called “pre-recorded live shows” – which each ran for 40-75 minutes and cost US$15 to attend.
More recently, Spotify soft-launched a new website to sell tickets directly to its users, instead of redirecting customers to partner ticketing platforms.
The streaming provider premiered its tickets.spotify.com on 10 August, enabling those with a Spotify account to purchase event tickets via debit or credit card.
Apple, Amazon and Spotify join several other digital giants that have hosted live concert performances, such as YouTube which has been livestreaming Coachella performances for years and Hulu which has been enlisted to stream Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo music festivals in 2022 and 2023.
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Spotify tests the waters with new ticketing platform
Spotify has soft-launched a new website to sell tickets directly to its users, instead of redirecting customers to partner ticketing platforms.
The streaming provider premiered its tickets.spotify.com site today (10 August), enabling those with a Spotify account to purchase event tickets via debit or credit card.
Currently, the Spotify Tickets site lists concerts for US artists like Limbeck, Crow, Annie DiRusso, Four Years Strong, and Tokimonsta.
The tickets are taken from those artists’ pre-sale allocations – which will be Spotify Tickets’ focus, rather than general on-sale inventory.
According to the site’s terms and conditions, the company only acts as a ticketing agent and takes a booking fee. It also mentions that the platform can sell on behalf of “third parties which can include venues, event promoters, fan clubs, and artists, as their disclosed ticketing agent”.
“Some of [these tests] end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as important learnings”
Commenting on the launch of the new site, a spokesperson from Spotify told Tech Crunch: “At Spotify, we routinely test new products and ideas to improve our user experience. Some of those end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as important learnings. Tickets.spotify.com is our latest test. We have no further news to share on future plans at this time.”
In June, Spotify launched the Live Events Feed, an in-app destination that allows users to discover concerts in their local area via personalised listings sourced from the platform’s affiliate ticketing partners, Ticketmaster, AXS, Dice, Eventbrite and See Tickets.
Though events listed on the Spotify Tickets site are not available on the Live events page, the company’s support page says: “Some tickets listed [on the Live Events page] are available for purchase directly from Spotify.” Tickets directly sold through Spotify are also not currently listed on the artist pages.
Spotify dipped a toe into the ticketing world last year when the company experimented with selling tickets to virtual pre-recorded concerts due to the pandemic.
The launch of Spotify’s ticketing platform comes days after Ticketmaster partnered with TikTok to allow users to discover events and purchase tickets directly through the app. The ticketing giant struck a similar partnership with Snap in February.
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Why the UK’s live biz is set for major resurgence
The UK’s live music industry is set for a dramatic post-lockdown resurgence, according to Will Page, the author of Tarzan Economics: Eight Principles of Pivoting Through Disruption. Below, the former Spotify and PRS for Music chief economist presents his groundbreaking research.
This article was first published by Music Business Worldwide and we thought it was so good, that we wanted to republish it. Our thanks to MBW publisher Tim Ingham for agreeing.
‘Ships passing each other in the night’ is how I described Britain’s live and recorded music industries in a Billboard article during the dark days of lockdown, June 2020.
Streaming had become a ‘stay at home stock’, front loading growth in subscribers and streaming volumes. By contrast, live music had been all but silenced by the restrictions put on our freedoms to curtail the pandemic.
That article provided the evidence base to help policymakers, and contributed to the UK Government announcing a GBP £1.6 billion funding package for the arts the following month, and then the UK Government launching a £750 million insurance scheme for live events the following year.
What matters, as one Scottish Chancellor constantly told me, is ‘evidence-based policy making, not policy-based evidence making’.
I was indebted to the UK’s PRS for Music, which licences live events so that its songwriter members can collect performance royalties when their songs are played at concerts.
Its data on the British market, combined with data on recorded-music spending by the Entertainment Retailers’ Association, allowed me to model consumer spend during a time of crisis.
Now, they’ve let me update the analysis.
The exclusive insights garnered from this work are jaw-dropping. Buckle up.
Live vs recorded music spend. (Anyone remember 2019?)
Let’s go back to when the world was normal.
In 2019, British gig-goers spent GBP £1.7 billion on concert tickets (or ‘box office’), a fifth more than the £1.4 billion that consumers spent on recorded music in the same 12 months.
Combined, British music fans spent a total of £3.1 billion on music in 2019.
(Also: this concert spend captures only the primary ticketing market — what’s commonly known as the ‘face value’ – and ignores secondary markets and ancillary spend.)
Then, music was silenced from our stage, but surged on our phones.
In the surreal year of 2020, ‘box office’ collapsed 90% in the UK to just £200 million – whereas spending on recorded music accelerated by 6% to breach the £1.5 billion watermark.
As lockdown eased in 2021, streaming’s success continued, pushing UK recorded music spend closer to £1.7 billion (ironically, the same value of the UK box office before the pandemic), whereas live spend recovered some of its losses capturing £700 million in box office (still less than half what it once was).
The importance of ‘wallet share’ – and how UK consumers spend just 0.2% of their money on music
We can stack both components of the British music industry on top of one another and add a final piece of the puzzle: wallet share.
The team at the Office of National Statistics who studied Covid’s impact on UK consumer spend kindly provided me with data on recreation and culture spend. This enabled me to measure total UK spend on music as a share of what is often termed ‘the entertainment dollar’.
Think about this for a wee minute: one pound in every ten spent today in Britain is on recreation and leisure – yet only two percent of that leisure spend (which pans out as just 0.2% of the grand total) is spent on live and recorded music.
Deflating, huh?
Now, let’s get to our chart.
On the left, spend on recorded music in green, stacked with box office spend in grey. On the right, the red line represents the share of leisure spend.
The gin-and-tonic relationship of increasing subscriptions driving increasing gig-going increased wallet share from 2% in 2015 to 2.2% in 2019 – a bigger share of a bigger wallet.
As lockdown hit in 2020, wallets contracted and wallet share sank to 1.3% (less share of less money), recovering to 1.6% last year.
Now let’s figure out what these lofty figures mean for artists.
For live music, we strip out fees and taxes from the face value of the ticket and give the artist 75% of what’s remaining.
For recorded music we take the label’s own wholesale value of music and give the artist 25%.
Bizarrely, these assumptions throw up an 80/20 rule for 2019: 80% of artist income came from gigs, and 20% from recordings.
As live music is the main breadwinner for most artists, its silencing in 2020 overshadowed streaming growth, wiping 70% off their income.
If artists were struggling to make a living before we locked down the UK economy, then they had 70% less to make a living after.
And in 2021, the partial recovery in live and continued growth in streaming got artist income to only half what it once was. For individual artists, (less so for firms), that’s really tough.
While there’s no such thing as an ‘average artist’, an average pay cut of 70% raises questions of survival.
In 2019, live music income was bigger (and distributed among the few) while recorded music income was smaller (and distributed amongst the many).
The pandemic suddenly changed that mix.
As streaming has many more mouths to feed – and there’s nothing else to feed them with – it’s little surprise that the UK industry dragged itself through an arduous Parliamentary Inquiry during the lockdown years.
Now let’s focus on the ‘suffering and recovery’ in live music.
In a New Year essay I showed that, since the London Olympics, all the growth in UK live music was contained within stadiums and festivals – increasing their share from 23% in 2012 to 40% in 2019.
That’s at the expense of theatres, clubs and grassroots venues which have felt squeezed out of the British market, in absolute and relative terms.
The chart below neatly illustrates that the harder they come, the harder they fall: Stadiums and festivals lost more box office spend than arenas, theatres and clubs combined in 2020, reducing their share of UK box office down to a measly 10 percent.
From boom to bust to boom again, 2021 saw these outdoor events grow box office by over quarter of a billion, raising their share of box office to a record-breaking 45%.
To use ‘long tail’ language, the UK live industry has never been so ‘hit heavy’ – where the spoils go to so few events.
Where we go now
These insights throw up questions that a global industry can learn from.
- First, how much does scale matter in the recovery? Larger events owned by larger companies may have been better able to comply with the moving target of government regulations.
- Second, did travel restrictions give UK artists a leg-up in the UK festival rankings and if so, will it last?
- Third, we’ve had two years of stay at home ‘sofa-inertia’ (that’s Netflix and Pringles to you and me) so what will it take for behaviours to change and get us off our sofas and back into music venues?
Sure, we’re still a long way off our pre-pandemic peak of £3.2bn consumer spend and 2.2% share of wallet.
But back to Gordon Brown’s point about evidence-based policy making (and not policy-based evidence making), this work gives policymakers and industry professionals the necessary foundation to figure out what assistance and actions are required to get us back to where we once belonged.
This isn’t going to be easy.
Wallets are set to be squeezed further this year and next. That said, with the internecine nature of the Parliamentary Inquiry behind us, the imperative is for all of us – policymakers, professionals and performers – to come together to unlock the ‘coiled spring’ demand for music on British stages up and down the country.
James Taylor [not that one!] heads up music for Wembley Stadium. He sees this coiled spring(ing) into action: this summer, a record-breaking 16 concerts are taking place at the famous stadium with a staggering 1.3 million tickets sold; that’s the population of Edinburgh and Glasgow, combined!
Now the dust has settled, let’s remind ourselves that music is the alchemy in the room that brings us together. And with the pandemic finally behind us, those rooms will surely be packed to capacity.
If the collective ‘we’ get this right, it’ll be more like a slingshot than a rebound.
The author would like to thank: John Mottram and Frances Hodgson (PRSforMusic); Katherine Kent and Luke Croydon (Office of National Statistics), Liz Martins (HSBC Economics), Tim Chambers, Bill Gorjance, Ralph Simon, Entertainment Retailers Association and the BPI.
He would also like to share his thanks to Dice for their comprehensive data on the UK live events industry.
Will Page’s Tarzan Economics: Eight Principles of Pivoting Through Disruption is out now via Simon & Schuster (UK) and Little, Brown and Company (US).
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Spotify launches Live Events Feed
Streaming giant Spotify has launched the Live Events Feed, an in-app destination that allows users to discover concerts in their local area via personalised listings.
The innovation replaces the previous Concert Hub feature, and introduces a number of updates to help fans find shows by their favourite artists.
Listings are sourced from the platform’s ticketing partners including Ticketmaster, AXS, Dice, Eventbrite and See Tickets.
“We’d love to be a part of helping the live music industry recover”
“With shows coming back, and listeners excited to see their favourite artists perform live again, we think this is the perfect time to explore new ways that Spotify can further support the industry,” says René Volker, Spotify’s senior director of live events.
“Thanks to partnerships with leading ticketers like Ticketmaster, AXS, Dice, Eventbrite, See Tickets, and others, Spotify now has most of the world’s concerts listed on-platform in our major markets. Users can now check out those listings on the Live Events Feed. They’ll be excited to see personalised recommendations for upcoming shows based upon their unique taste profile.
“Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that fans are aware of all of the upcoming events by the creators they love and creators they may come to love. We believe if we get that right, then we can get more fans to more shows and help artists and venues have better-filled rooms. We’d love to be a part of helping the live music industry recover and, even more importantly to us, helping to grow it in the years to come.”
“We spent about two years studying the industry, its products and its users”
Sam Sheridan, Spotify’s product manager for live events discovery, explains the Live Events Feed was two years in the making.
“We spent about two years studying the industry, its products and its users,” he says. “One of the key behaviours we see is that fans engage with artists on-platform, but then they leave to search for listings online or to even follow artists on social media for the sole purpose of staying on top of their events. We think the Live Events Feed is an opportunity to help close this loop. This helps ease the burden on fans, reduces the competition artists need to contend with to stand out, and creates new efficiencies around marketing.
“Another core learning was how sticky the discovery pathways are that lead with the artist, which you can see manifest in the design that leans into rich artist imagery, helping fans feel more connected and better informed about their favourite artists. We also included a new way to represent and celebrate the full body of the artist’s touring offering.”
He continues: “In addition, we built a new messaging tool to provide fans with personalised recommendations for upcoming live events based on their listening habits. And we’re putting fans in control of how they want to be communicated with by giving them tools to set their notification preferences, and offering them more information about our different ticketing partners. This, in turn, is helping these partners to find audiences.”
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TikTok introduces direct tipping for artists
TikTok has unveiled a hub of new and existing tools that will enable creators to monetise their short-form videos.
The new toolset, dubbed Creator Next, includes the first direct-tipping function on the platform, allowing creators to receive tips directly from followers while keeping 100% of the money.
Payments are processed by Stripe, which allows creators to sign up and manage their earnings in a simple dashboard.
To be eligible for TikTok Creator Next, creators must be 18 years of age or older, meet minimum follower requirements (which can differ depending on region), have at least 1,000 video views in the last 30 days, have at least three posts in the last 30 days.
Creator Next also includes the new function Video Gifts – which allows creators to receive tips based on engagement with their non-live videos – and the existing tool Live Gifts which works in the same way for live streams.
TikTok’s new tipping features comes months after the viral short-form video app hit the one billion user mark
The package also includes TikTok Creator Marketplace, the official place on TikTok for brands and creators to collaborate, and the previously-introduced Creator Fund, which pays creators for their conten based on a number of factors.
Over the course of the global Covid-19 shutdown, virtual tipping – which is said to have originated in China – has been introduced on platforms including Spotify, SoundCloud and Encore Musicians as a means of helping artists and other creators make more money.
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter also offer tipping features to remunerate creators for their content on the platforms.
TikTok’s new tipping features comes months after the viral short-form video app hit the one billion user mark in late September. Prominent artists such as Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Dolly Parton and U2 have joined the platform in recent months.
Earlier this year, Ed Sheeran delivered a record-breaking live music performance on TikTok, garnering more than 5.5 million unique viewers.
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