Top 5 Streaming Platforms for Talent Discovery, Ranked by A&Rs [Music Industry Survey]

Kristian Gorenc Z

Feb 28, 2024

The research included 125 music industry professionals. 77.7% of them were label managers or A&Rs, and the rest were mostly artist managers, booking agents, digital marketers, or distributors. The most, 24.7%, come from the USA, 8.6% from Germany, 6.5% from the UK and Brazil respectively, and 5.4% from France.

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Listening to DSPs vs. using DSP data for talent discovery

63.2% of respondents listen to streaming services for artist discovery daily, 29.6% weekly. Less, on the other hand, utilize streaming data for artist discovery daily (38.4%), and 33.6% do so weekly.

Spotify, YouTube, and SoundCloud data most important for talent discovery

Respondents ranked Spotify as the most significant source of artist discovery data among the streaming services. This is how the others were ranked: YouTube (#2), SoundCloud (#3), Apple Music (#4), and Amazon Music (#5).

Here are some interesting survey findings:

1.      Spotify data ranked as the most important.

Most respondents also find Spotify a necessary music discovery source for their day-to-day work, only 4% could do without it.

2.      YouTube has the biggest choice of fresh music.

YouTube has the highest level of agreement for having the biggest choice of fresh music among the streaming services. It’s also rated as the service that’s likely to feature songs other DSPs don’t, but here SoundCloud is better rated.

3.      Early discovery most likely happens on SoundCloud.

Data indicates that early discovery is most likely on SoundCloud. Survey respondents rated SoundCloud as the platform that most likely features songs other streaming services don’t. They also most strongly disagree that when a song appears here, it’s too late to sign it. Also, 51% of A&Rs say that they have discovered new artists on SoundCloud who later became commercially successful.

Other sources used for talent discovery

When asked about the other sources they use for talent discovery, Instagram was chosen by 75.3% of respondents, TikTok by 49.5%, and music analytics tools (like Viberate, Chartmetric, and Soundcharts) by 46.5%.

The survey was conducted by Viberate, a music data company, creating Viberate Analytics – one of the largest music analytics tools for industry professionals. The platform ranks and analyzes millions of artists based on their performance on streaming and social media channels. It also recently added a much-requested A&R filter, enabling discovery of unsigned artists which you can try here.