Amazon Music App Now Lets Artists Live-Stream From Twitch Accounts
Amazon Music is letting artists deliver live concerts and other live-streaming sessions from Twitch directly in the Amazon Music mobile app — giving them a new way to reach fans.
The opportunity is open to all artists on Amazon Music who have (or create) a Twitch channel; all an artist needs to do is link their Twitch and Amazon Music accounts through the recently launched Amazon Music for Artists app.
Redington says that more than 1,000 artists have already connected their accounts for future streaming, including Donald Glover, Black Pumas, Imagine Dragons, Bastille and mxmtoon, and just as on Twitch, artists are welcome to stream not just performances on Amazon Music but tutorials, Q&As and other programs.
More than 1,000 artists have already connected their Amazon Music accounts to Twitch, the company said.
There aren’t direct monetization features through the Twitch live-streams available on Amazon Music app for iOS and Android, but eligible artists can set up subscriptions on Amazon-owned Twitch to earn money (as well as sell merchandise and participate in ad-revenue sharing).
According to Amazon, the integration of Twitch with Amazon Music mobile will let artists reach “stadium-size audiences” at a time when in-person events are limited because of Covid-19.
The company says Amazon Music has more than 55 million customers worldwide.
The new feature comes as some in the music biz are unhappy with Twitch’s approach to streaming music on its platform. The nonprofit Artist Rights Alliance, Twitch is not properly licensing music from artists while the game-centric platform also has shown “unwillingness to do anything beyond the most minimal and inadequate effort to process takedown requests” under the U.S.’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
In the Amazon Music app, users can get notifications from artists they follow when they the musicians go live on Twitch. In addition, Amazon Music has launched a new “Live” page.
Events that use the new Amazon Music/Twitch streaming feature are scheduled to include:
- The Killers’ Brandon Flowers and Ronnie Vannucci Jr., who will join Amazon Music Sept. 4 at 1 p.m. ET to answer fan questions about their latest album, “Imploding the Mirage.”
- Soul singer and storyteller Nicole Atkins will host a variety series Wednesdays at 7 p.m. ET with performances and interviews with friends and artists including Elle King, Cut Worms and Whitney.
- Amazon Music will stream the Heavy Music Awards 2020 live from the HMA’s London offices Sept. 3 at 8:30 p.m. BST/3:30 p.m. ET and feature performances from The Hunna, Holding Absence, Heart Of A Coward, Wargasm,Coldbones and HAWXX.
- Capital One City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage Anywhere will stream exclusive digital performances (Tuesdays at 7 p.m. ET) spanning Latin, world, hip-hop, jazz and more for its weekly concert series.
Artists can visit artists.amazonmusic.com/live for more information about the feature, including step-by-step instructions for connecting their Twitch channel to the Amazon Music app
This year, Twitch and Amazon Music have worked with artists to support and produce livestreams to raise millions of dollars for COVID-19 relief efforts including Twitch StreamAid and Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion.
To boost event discovery, the Amazon Music homepage will now feature a carousel promoting artist livestreams; a new “Live” tab will list all the performances happening in real-time; and Amazon
Music users will receive push notifications when any artist they follow goes live. Additionally, Amazon Music is launching its own branded channel with scheduled content including a Q&A with The Killers‘ Brandon Flowers and Ronnie Vannucci Jr. answering questions about their latest album Imploding the Mirage (Sept. 4) and a variety series from soul singer Nicole Atkins, with special guests like Elle King and Whitney (every Wednesday). ref: https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/amazon-music-app-now-lets-artists-live-stream-from-twitch-accounts-1234755430/ | https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/streaming/9442797/amazon-music-twitch-livestream-artists