Thread by @djboothEIC

In 2015, the music industry moved the global release day from Tuesday to Friday. At the time, the decision was made to a) combat piracy and b) align with the traditional consumer payday, among other smaller reasons. Six years later, it's time to go back. Thread...

Thanks to the proliferation of streaming, piracy has declined sharply over the past half-decade. Why? Accessing music through DSPs is incredibly easy and leaks are limited because music isn’t distributed in physical form ahead of its wide release.

The proof is in the numbers, too:  

* Through the first 6 months of 2020, 72.1 million consumers paid for a music streaming sub in the US across all DSPs.  

* Roughly 1/3 of all Americans use a streaming service (paid or ad-supported) to consume music.

As for releasing music on the same day of the week that people are paid... it's irrelevant! Monthly subscriptions have replaced digital and physical purchases. Once a month, on the same exact date, a flat rate payment is drawn from a charge card or bank account by most DSPs.

Releasing music on Fridays doesn't just suck for artists, who lose marketing momentum once the weekend hits. The labels hate Friday, too, because they know by the following Monday, they must move on to begin marketing titles for the next week. Also: labels don't work weekends.

A return to Tuesdays would mean a more robust post-release marketing plan opening week. Songs and albums would remain in the conversation longer — which, in a world dominated by Trending topics and algorithms, means a longer shelf-life and more streams.

https://twitter.com/djboothEIC/status/1281744627817680902

Also: when titles are scheduled to go live, inevitably, there are delivery errors, metadata errors, mapping errors, etc. A move from Friday back to Tuesday would benefit streaming platforms, mitigating the mad, pre-weekend scramble to fix outstanding issues.

Assuming this never happens, I highly recommend to artists who don't have designs on charting on the Billboard Hot 100 or 200 their opening week — release titles off-cycle on Tuesday or Wednesday. Give yourself multiple weekdays to push/market your title before Friday's deluge.

Statistically speaking, users actually consume fewer hours of music on weekends than weekdays. The reason is routine. Five days of one routine (school, work) means consistent listening time. Weekends are variable, & music competes with and loses to video when people are home.

https://twitter.com/the_rel_world/status/1402387798766804993