Box TV, Spotify link up on chart show

MIPTV: UK music broadcaster Box TV has teamed up with music streaming giant Spotify on an official streaming chart show as part of its efforts to reverse the decline in music TV viewing.

The Official Box+ Streaming Chart will be compiled using Spotify data, listing the most-streamed tracks over the last seven days and reflecting people’s “real-time music tastes.”

The weekly top 40 show will air on Box TV channel 4Music on Mondays starting on April 14.

The partnership is part of a wider strategy at Box to engage more with 16- to 34-year-olds. Box TV MD Matt Rennie told C21Media: “Spotify is a great company that is clearly making waves in terms of the way that people listen to music. We’re a music business too and it seemed sensible to try to integrate.”

Peter De Bruin, Spotify’s head of media partnerships, said the deal would bring the Spotify chart to the small screen for the first time. “The chart gives the most accurate possible reflection of what music fans are really listening to and loving each week,” he said.

Box TV, a joint venture between Channel 4 and Bauer Media, broadcasts seven music TV channels including UK market leader 4Music, The Box, Smash Hits, Kiss, Heat, Magic and Kerrang!.

It also broadcasts through dedicated simulcast players hosted on the channel’s websites and its apps allow mobile viewing. Spotify offers on-demand access to more than 20 million tracks and has more than 24 million active users, including more than six million paying subscribers.

Rennie, who joined Box last September, said the company was seeking more relationships with technology businesses as it faces declining audiences for music TV. “The ratings are a challenge,” he said. “There’s been an 8% decline in music TV viewing year on year. We’re fighting against that and doing quite well. We’ve gone down only by about 2% and are increasing market share within that.

“Music TV is not immune to the general pressures that TV is feeling from technology, particularly tablets and mobile broadband. Music TV feels that pretty acutely because we’re focused on 16-34s.”

Rennie said Box needed keep its product and channels “relevant and fresh.” A recent partnership with social engagement platform Mass Relevance allows Box to bring “dynamic social activity” live to the screen.

“We can develop that into a number of different formats that can make what’s happening on TV seem much more real and alive,” he said.

“We’re also expanding the pool of talent we work with, so we’re starting to work with a lot of YouTubers and crowdsourcing content, and bringing our audience on to screen. It breaks down that barrier between TV and the audience. If you can allow them to interact with the product by making TV interactive and dynamic like that, then I think that’s only a good thing.”

Rennie said there was “more to come” in the Box-Spotify relationship.