Australia’s Tuned Global takes first step into new markets

Australian-owned music streaming service Tuned Global has entered the Latin American and Caribbean territories via a partnership with new on-demand music streaming app TrackDrip.

Tuned Global is in 12 countries including India, Nepal, Fiji, Myanmar, Japan, Indonesia, Australia and Malaysia, and with a presence in North America, Europe and Africa.

TrackDrip, which officially launched in July, is piloting in the region in Suriname, a small country on the northeastern coast of South America.

“We have spent a great deal of our initial company phase in South East Asia,” Tuned Global MD Con Raso tells TMN.

“In this region, we found that there was a strong loyal following and love for local music.

“The challenge for the artists in these countries was that they didn’t really have a platform to display their content.

“Most of the major platforms have a strong focus on international music and local often get’s swamped.

“The music and artist scene in the Caribbean is similar and we felt there was a strong opportunity in that market.”

The key to a new market, Raso points out, is through partners.

“In the case of the Caribbean, we have always had a strong interest from many companies in different industries.”

According to its website, 13 million use Tuned Global technology, it has 35 million tracks from international and independent artists, and is inked with 100 record labels and aggregators.

“We powered the first telco streaming service in Australia with AAPT and EMI and the provided multi-year executions for companies such as Samsung, Universal Music, JB Hi-Fi and Coles,” Raso recounts

“Through this process we started to understand the varies challenges of our clients and how solutions needed to be adapted to their needs.

“We have since expanded significantly and provided services to many varied countries.

“Although we do offer API solutions for our clients, we are certainly seeing a shift to companies wanting a full turnkey solution, encompassing front and back ends, along with user engagement strategies.”

Among its successful partnerships have been Universal Music and Pizza Hut Malaysia; Line Music in Japan; with Warner Music for Ed Sheeran’s Ed No. 6 app, and its own D2C service in Indonesia.

One of Tuned Global’s features includes support for Artist Generated Content, via video feeds and full support for video playlists outside standard audio streaming capabilities, both online and offline.

According to Raso, “We have always believed that user engagement is the highest priority.

“How do you create a service that engages a user more often, but also provides a positive outcome for artists?

“We created our own AGC (Artist Generated Content) platform called stakkar.

“Artists can use stakkar to create short-form video content (15-30 secs) that automatically inserts itself in between relevant music tracks in the application.

“As an example, a user may be listening to a mix with a focus on a particular artist and their AGC content will appear between tracks.

“It’s not meant to be ads or similar, but to allow the artist to let their fans know what they are up to – right now!!

“Artists can also use it to communicate why they recorded a song or album and that will show up before that song is played.

“It’s all about the fan knowing the artist better.”