7digital

Last updated

7digital Group Plc
Company type Public – LSE: 7DIG
IndustryB2B Music Technology Services
FoundedJanuary 2004
Headquarters69 Wilson Street, London EC2A 2BB,
London
,
United Kingdom
Number of locations
5
Area served
 20 countries (August 2023)
Key people
Paul Langworthy (CEO)
Michael Juskiewicz (CFO)
Samantha Sawyer (CCO)
Jon Hilbrants (CCO) [1]
Services White-label music solutions, API, music download stores, production, streaming music services, radio services, voucher promotions, loyalty schemes
RevenueEUR 6.69 million (2021)
Owner Songtradr
Number of employees
70
Subsidiaries Entertainment News, Unique The Production Company, Smooth Operations, Unique Interactive, Above The Title
Website www.7digital.com

7digital Group PLC is a British publicly listed company that offers access to music, tracking and reporting for clients. London-based, 7digital provides end-to-end music services for the fitness, social media, DSPs, and gaming industries with brands such as Barry's and Triller. [2] [3] Advertising Age described 7digital (Zdigital in Australia) in 2008 as a British download store, [4] while the New York Times referred to them as a digital music company. [5] [6] 7digital's Smooth Operations, Unique Production and Above the Title companies are now branded 7digital Creative, and produce content for BBC Radio 1, Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 3.[ citation needed ] In 2009 HMV bought 50% of 7digital. [7] In 2019, the company replaced their second CEO, [1] Simon Cole, [8] who had replaced founder/CEO Ben Drury. [5] In February 2023, it was announced 7digital had been acquired by the Santa Monica-headquartered B2B music licensing company, Songtradr. [9]

Contents

Overview

Initially their API was used by Guvera, Onkyo, Samsung, BlackBerry, HMV, musical.ly (now TikTok) and Technics. They subsequently partnered with Triller, FORME Life, Soundtrack Your Brand, Global Eagle, Grandpad, Apex Rides, and Fender.

History

2004–2009

7digital was founded in 2004 by Ben Drury and James Kane [10] as a B2B digital music services company, building music download stores for record labels, brands and other retailers. 7digital Direct to Consumer (D2C) service was launched in 2005.

7digital is backed by technology venture capital firm Balderton Capital (formerly Benchmark Capital Europe). On 28 January 2008, 7digital raised £4.25m in its series B investor round, securing investment from various groups including Sutton Place Managers. The investment was to be used to launch 7digital.com in more European countries and the United States, [11] along with expanding the sites offerings to include downloadable video and computer games. [12]

In September 2008, 7digital.com was the first company in Europe to launch DRM-free MP3 downloads with all four major record labels. [13]

As of October 2008, 7digital employed 45 people in London and had over 1.3 million registered customers. [14]

On 3 August 2009, HMV bought a 50% holding in 7digital from its venture capital owners. [15]

2010-2019

In 2011, 7digital expanded with an office in Luxembourg and in early 2012, they expanded to the US with an office in San Francisco, CA. [16]

In October 2012, 7digital secured $10 million in funding from two new investors, [17] Dolby and Imagination Technologies. [18] HMV's stake was previously reduced to less than 20%, [19] and following HMV entering into administration, retail restructuring specialists Hilco, are now the holders of these shares.

On 25 November 2013, UBC Media announced merger plans with 7digital by way of a reverse takeover. [20] [21] The merger was completed in May 2014, forming 7digital Group Plc. [22]

The company entered a business relationship with MediaMarktSaturn in 2017, which it ended in 2019, in exchange for a cash payment of €4 million. The end of the partnership led to a need for 7digital to raise capital by the third quarter of 2019 to remain operational. The share price fell in response to these developments, with a loss of 63% on 9 April and further losses on 10 April 2019. [23]

Clients

7digital's agnostic platform is used for building products on any type of connected device.

HMV

7digital is independent of their business since significant investment they received in 2012. Re-launched in October 2013, HMVdigital.com is a download store. [45]

Ubuntu One Music Store/Canonical

7digital collaborated with Canonical Ltd. to provide the Ubuntu One Music Store in the Ubuntu Operating System starting from Ubuntu 10.04. [46]

On 2 April 2014 Canonical announced the closure of all of the Ubuntu One file services. [47]

Spotify

Spotify users from the UK, France, Norway, Finland, Spain, The Netherlands and Sweden were able to purchase tracks to download (if available) from 7digital. [48] This was done by right-clicking and selecting the 'Buy From' link. However, Spotify launched their own purchase service during 2011 which replaced 7digital. [49]

Other

In October 2014, it was announced that 7digital would work with will.i.am [50] for his new wearable smart device.

In November 2014, 7digital partners Technics launched 'Technics Tracks', a new premium Hi-Resolution audio service. [51]

7digital.com

Alongside its B2B digital music services business, 7digital offers music tracks direct to consumers in MQA, MP3 320, 256, M4A, 16-bit and 24-bit FLAC audio. [52]

The 7digital mobile app has been pre-installed on devices through partnerships with Acer, [53] HTC, [54] Samsung, BlackBerry, Pioneer, [55] HP, Dell, and Sonos.

7digital's Indiestore launched in early 2006 and allowed unsigned artists and independent labels create their own digital music download store for free. [56] The Indiestore was discontinued in 2010. [57] 7digital directs independent artists to work with independent aggregators, where they will be able to service their music to a variety of music retailers. [58]

In December 2014, 7digital became the first music platform to adopt Meridian Audio's high-quality MQA format for streaming/downloads. [59]

Geographical availability

As of July 2015, 7digital operated in 82 countries. [60] On May 19, 2017, 7digital announced the sudden closure of its EU store, [61] though it continued to have stores for some individual European nations. As of 2023, the service is still available in 20 countries.

See also

Related Research Articles

Digital music stores sell copies of digital audio, for example in MP3 and WAV file formats. Unlike music streaming services, which typically charge a monthly subscription fee to stream digital audio, digital music stores download songs to the customer's hard disk drive of their device. The customer will have the copy of the song permanently on their disk, provided the track is not deleted by the customer, the disk does not get physically damaged, or suffers from being corrupted. Major examples of digital music stores include iTunes Store, Amazon Music, Bandcamp and 7digital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shazam (music app)</span> Music identification application

Shazam is an application that can identify music based on a short sample played using the microphone on the device. It was created by the British company Shazam Entertainment, based in London, and has been owned by Apple since 2018. The software is available for Android, macOS, iOS, Wear OS, watchOS and as a Google Chrome extension.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">JioSaavn</span> Indian music streaming service

JioSaavn is an Indian music streaming service and a digital distributor of music in Hindi, Marathi, English, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Chhattisgarhi and other regional languages of India. owned by Jio Platforms a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. Since it was founded in 2007 as Saavn, the company has acquired rights to over 80 million music tracks in 16 languages. JioSaavn is a freemium service; basic features are free with advertisements or limitations, while additional features, such as improved streaming quality and music downloads for offline listening, are offered via paid subscriptions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VidZone</span> Online music video service

VidZone was one of the largest online music video VOD services in the world, operated by London-based company VidZone Digital Media and Sony Computer Entertainment. The online service provides free streaming of music videos from the VidZone.tv website, in addition to music distribution through a number of mobile networks worldwide. The VidZone catalogue encompasses over 1.5 million tracks, 45,000 music videos and 15,000 realtones, including full access to catalogues from the Universal Music Group, Warner Music, Sony Music and EMI.

Deezer is a French music streaming service founded in 2007 that provides users with access to a vast library of music tracks, podcasts, and radio stations.The company has been a subsidiary of Access Industries since 2016. It offers streaming services in over 180 countries and features a catalog of more than 90 million licensed tracks, making it one of the largest streaming platforms available. Deezer is available on various devices, including Android, iOS, macOS and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TalkTalk TV Store</span> UK-based video-on-demand service

TalkTalk TV Store was a UK-based transactional video-on-demand (VoD) service available on Macintosh and Microsoft Windows computers, games consoles, tablet computers and Smart TVs. Content is generally streamed, with downloading currently possible on Windows PC/laptops. The blinkbox brand had been extended to companion services offering digital music and books.

Blinkbox Music was a free, advertising supported, music streaming service, with over 12 million tracks available for streaming in the UK and Ireland, with content from the music industry, and most independent labels and distributors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ubuntu One</span> Cloud service operated by Canonical Ltd.

Ubuntu One is an OpenID-based single sign-on service operated by Canonical Ltd. to allow users to log onto many Canonical-owned Web sites. Until April 2014, Ubuntu One was also a file hosting service and music store that allowed users to store data "in the cloud".

AudioBoomPLC is an on-demand audio and podcasting distribution platform. AudioBoom offers business-to-business services to the radio, media and podcast industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MixRadio</span> Online music streaming service

MixRadio was an online music streaming service owned by Line Corporation. The service was first introduced by Nokia in 2011 as Nokia Music for Windows Phone, serving as a successor to Nokia's previous Nokia Music Store/Comes with Music/Ovi Music Store initiatives, which was based on the LoudEye/OD2 platform. After its acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business, the service was briefly maintained by Microsoft Mobile Oy before it was sold to Japanese internet company Line Corporation in 2015. Following the acquisition, MixRadio expanded to Android and iOS in May 2015.

Merlin is a digital rights music licensing partner for independent record labels, distributors, and other music rights holders around the world. It was founded in 2007 with Charles Caldas as the chief executive. In January 2020, Jeremy Sirota stepped into the role of Merlin CEO. The company is a member-based organization representing the digital licensing rights for hundreds of independent labels and distributors in nearly every country around the globe. As of 2019, Merlin has paid out over two billion dollars.

The Galaxy Store is an app store offering apps, games and exclusive themes and other customizations for mobile devices manufactured by Samsung Electronics. The service is primarily supplied pre-installed on Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets, and Galaxy Watch wearables. It requires a Samsung account to be used.

Guvera was an online music and entertainment streaming service founded in 2008. Guvera had agreements with the music labels in the regions where the product was available, which allowed for legal free music streams. As of May 2017, Guvera has shut down all operations across all remaining Asian markets.

An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the computer itself. Complex software designed for use on a personal computer, for example, may have a related app designed for use on a mobile device. Today apps are normally designed to run on a specific operating system—such as the contemporary iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux or Android—but in the past mobile carriers had their own portals for apps and related media content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yahoo Smart TV</span>

Yahoo! Smart TV was a Smart TV platform developed by Yahoo! based upon the Yahoo! Desktop Widgets (Konfabulator) platform. Yahoo! Connected TV announced on August 20, 2008, at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco as the Widget Channel, it integrated the Yahoo! Widgets Engine with a new television oriented user interface to enable Internet connected applications to run and display on a 10-foot user interface. The platform was slowly being abandoned by its manufacturers, and was eventually deprecated. New apps that were based on Konfabulator stopped being added effective March 30, 2018, but existing apps can still be updated and installed, and HTML5 based apps are not affected by this.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moodagent</span>

Moodagent is a white label music streaming service that specializes in interactive playlists and personalized music recommendations. The Moodagent brand is developed and owned by the Danish company Moodagent A/S, which has proprietary methods for recognizing emotional and musical characteristics of individual tracks.

The following is a list of on-demand music streaming services. These services offer streaming of full-length content via the Internet as a part of their service, without the listener necessarily having to purchase a file for download. This type of service is somewhat similar to Internet radio. Many of these sites have advertising that supports free-to-listen options as well as paid subscription-based premium options.

SoundayMusic is a geosocial networking mobile music streaming app that enables users to listen to and track the music their friends and neighbors are playing in real time. The service provides over 32 million tracks and allows users to create "music stations" choosing between a mix of up to three artists, or choosing a music genre. In the free version users can create up to 10 personalized stations, look at the stations that are being played nearby in real time, and interact with other users through instant chat. The paid, premium subscription removes advertisements and allows users to create an unlimited number of stations. It was launched in 2009> by Soundtracker, and as of December 2014 the service had 1.3 million registered users. Soundtracker is available for iOS App Store, Android Google Play, Windows Phone Store, Windows Store, Google Glass, BlackBerry World, Samsung Apps, Amazon Appstore, Nook, and Samsung Smart TV, in 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese Simplified, Japanese, Korean and Russian. Soundtracker is a registered trademark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triller (app)</span> American social networking service

Triller is an American video-sharing social networking service that was first released for iOS and Android in 2015. The service allows users to create and share short-form videos, including videos set to, or automatically synchronized to, music using artificial intelligence technology. It initially operated as a video editing app before adding social networking features.

References

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  2. ↑ Ackerman, Naomi (9 July 2021). "7digital signs deals with Barrys and Volava as it pursues the home fitness market". The Evening Standard . Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  3. ↑ Cirisano, Tatiana (12 August 2020). "Triller signs contract with 7digital, adding 80 million song catalog for users to soundtrack clips". Billboard . Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  4. ↑ "Minor Chords". Advertising Age . 26 June 2008.
  5. 1 2 Helft, Miguel (6 June 2011). "Apple Unveils a 'Cloud' Music and Storage Service". The New York Times .
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  7. ↑ "HMV takes 50% stake in 7digital". BBC. 3 September 2009.
  8. ↑ "Year End Trading update". 12 February 2018.
  9. ↑ "Songtradr to acquire 7digital, a UK publicly listed B2B music technology company, in $23.4m deal". Music Business Worldwide. 8 February 2023. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
  10. ↑ Barnett, Emma (9 October 2009). "7digital was always meant to be a complete media marketplace" – via The Telegraph.
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  46. ↑ "UbuntuOne Music Store: How a music service should be". Tech Republic. December 2014.
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  61. ↑ [ permanent dead link ]
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