Happy Leap Year, everyone! While it isn’t like a three-day weekend, it only comes around once every four years and is an extra day in February. We’ll spend it planning next week’s subscription news content and upcoming webinars and events. In the meantime, here’s what’s happening this week. Comcast agrees to buy ad-supported streaming service, Xumo, and Salesforce acquires unicorn Vlocity. A new RII study shows music subscription revenue is increasing, Social Media Today offers tweeting tips to maximize your subscription company’s exposure, and What’s New in Publishing  shares digital subscription trends for publishers.

Comcast Buys Ad-Supported Streaming Service XUMO for $100 Million

While some of us were buying chocolates and flowers for Valentine’s Day, Comcast was buying ad-supported streaming service XUMO. XUMO offers free, live and on-demand programming available on smart TVs. The free streaming service’s content includes more than 190 channels grouped by genre (e.g., Funny or Die, Cheddar, College Humor, etc.). The service is free to viewers, but they must watch ads like they do through linear TV and other AVOD services. Advertising revenue support the business rather than subscription dollars.

Though Comcast did not disclose terms of the deal, CNBC reported that the price tag was more than $100 million. CNBC also said the nine-year-old company has about 55 employees and 10 million active monthly users.

“The talented team at XUMO has created a successful, growing, and best-in-class set of streaming capabilities.  We are excited for this team to join Comcast and look forward to supporting them as they continue to innovate and develop their offerings. XUMO will continue to operate as an independent business inside of Comcast Cable,” said Comcast in a February 25 announcement.

Why would a huge cable and entertainment company like Comcast want to buy a small streaming business? It is diversifying its portfolio by adding another streaming option to appeal to cord cutters and possibly to a younger audience. Other companies have made similar plays. For example, in January 2019, ViacomCBS bought Pluto TV for $340 million.

Best Practices: 4 Tweeting Tips to Maximize Your Exposure

Social media tools like Twitter are constantly evolving, and it can be hard to keep up with the changes and the best practices. In a recent article, Social Media Today shares a new initiative by Twitter to help businesses maximize their exposure with “Good Copy, Bad Copy” tips. In a February 24 tweet, Joe Wadlington of Twitter shares his top tips.

1. Avoid using ALL CAPS.
2. Research shows that people respond better to percentage discounts versus dollar amounts. Instead of offering $10 off, offer 10% off.
3. Limit your hashtags to one or two. In some cases, you might want to eliminate hashtags altogether, so they don’t detract from your message.
4. Consider using website cards for larger images and better click-through rates. Learn more about them here.

3 Digital Subscription Publishing Trends

In article one of a two-part series for What’s New In Publishing, Damian Radcliffe examined some of the latest digital subscription trends to identify what publishers are doing to grow their subscriber bases. Here are three trends Radcliffe highlighted.

Half of publishers surveyed believe reader revenue is their most important revenue source: As expected, print and digital advertising remains volatile. Print ad revenue is still declining, while digital has made up some ground, particularly during election years. In spite of that, publishers are not putting all of their eggs in the advertising basket. In a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Oxford University, 50% of publishers said reader revenue is the most important revenue stream, 35% said reader and advertising revenue are equally important, and only 14% said advertising is the most important revenue stream.

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are doing it right. We’ve written about the quarterly financials for The New York Times Co. and the Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp, have the right formula down. Both are growing their subscriber bases – particularly digital – and their revenue growth and innovative products continue to fuel that growth. Other publishers could learn from them, though for some legacy publishers it is like steering a ship in a hurricane. They needed to start their evolution before the storm. Hopefully, it isn’t too late.

Growing subscription revenue is not easy. This is stating the obvious, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Consumers are getting used to the idea of paying for the services they want – music, streaming video, SaaS, beauty boxes, etc. – but news is not always on the top of their list. In fact, many consumers are still not willing to pay for news. For those that are, the average number of news outlets they are willing to pay for is one.

For Racliffe’s complete analysis and some cool charts depicting the trends, see the original article, “5 Digital Subscription Trends for Publishers, in Charts” on What’s New In Publishing.

Streaming Music Subscriptions Are Hotter than Ever, Says 2019 Report

Speaking of trends, RIAA released its 2019 music industry report with some fascinating findings. Total revenues from recorded music in 2019 were $11.1 billion, a 13% increase over 2018 revenue of $9.8 billion. RIAA reports that this is the fourth year in a row of double digit growth. The biggest increases, of course, came from paid streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora, while digital downloads and physical goods (e.g., CDs, albums, etc.) declined.

Highlights from the report include:

• Revenue from streaming music was $8.8 billion, a 19.9% increase over 2018.
• In 2019, the streaming market alone represented the entire U.S. recorded music market in 2017.
• Total subscription revenue in 2019 was $6.8 billion, a 25% increase over 2018.
• In 2019, there were more than 60 million paid streaming music subscriptions, a 29% increase.

“Today, music companies are delivering fans exciting and attractive music experiences online, offline and everywhere in between. At its core, it’s all about the artists and their music – and always will be,” said Mitch Glazier, president and CEO of RIAA.

Read more 2019 facts from RIAA’s annual report on the RIAA website, and read Glazier’s full statement on Medium.

Salesforce Acquires Unicorn Vlocity for $1.33B

This week was a big one for acquisitions. In addition to the Comcast-XUMO deal, Salesforce announced that it would acquire unicorn Vlocity for $1.33 billion in cash. Once complete, the acquisition will allow Salesforce to target specific industries with their CRM solutions, including communications, media and entertainment, health, energy and utilities, government and nonprofits, and insurance and financial services, reports TechCrunch.

“Because every organization, including the world’s largest customer-centric corporations and industries, must digitally transform, it is more important than ever for our customers to have products that speak the language of their industries,” said Vlocity CEO and co-founder David Schmaier in a February 25 announcement.

“Our deep expertise in vertical industries enables organizations to digitally transform while delivering seamless, industry-specific processes and data models across any channel, helping to increase sales, service and marketing agility, operational efficiency, digital adoption and simplicity,” Schmaier added.

Founded in 2014, Vlocity has been valued at $1 billion. In its six years, the company had raised $163.8 million through its Series C funding round. Salesforce Ventures was among Vlocity’s investors, according to Crunchbase. The deal is subject to the standard regulatory approvals. It is expected to close in the second quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2021. In related news, on the same day, Keith Block, co-CEO of Salesforce, stepped down from his role, leaving Marc Benioff the sole CEO of the company, says TechCrunch. Block will serve as an advisor to Salesforce, as needed.