Universal Music Group (UMG), the world leader in music-based entertainment, Twitch, and Amazon Music announced an expansion of their agreements today.
Customers will have improved access to some of the world’s most popular music content on Amazon, including live streams, high quality, and spatial audio, artist merchandise, and exclusive experiences with UMG’s industry-leading roster of artists from around the world, thanks to the expanded agreements.
With the breadth of their music services and products and their dedicated focus on customers and creators, Amazon Music and Twitch are excellent strategic collaborators, committed to creating the best and most diverse experiences for fans across streaming music, live streaming, artist collaborations, and physical merchandise. With these agreements, we are proud to build on our track record of success in working closely with Amazon, and we’re looking forward to delivering even more incredible experiences for our artists and music fans everywhere. – Michael Nash, EVP, Digital Strategy, Universal Music Group
Furthermore, Twitch and UMG will collaborate to create new innovative opportunities for artists and labels to engage creatively and commercially with their fans and new audiences.
Twitch embodies a creator-first culture, including empowering musicians. Now, more than ever, we’re excited to work with UMG in an effort to further broaden the scope of tools available for their artists to engage with fans, while also providing new avenues for their artists to earn meaningful income while streaming on Twitch. – Tracy Chan, Head of Music at Twitch
Subscribers to Amazon Music Unlimited will be able to stream even more music from UMG’s extensive catalog in HD, Ultra HD, and spatial audio as a result of the agreements. Amazon Music and Universal Music Group will also continue to collaborate to improve the fan experience when discovering and purchasing authentic merchandise from their favorite artists directly from the Amazon Music app, including apparel from UMG’s Bravado, the industry’s leading merchandise company. This will make it even easier for UMG artists to create high-end campaigns for their most important events.
Amazon Music and UMG have recently collaborated with artists such as Billie Eilish (Interscope), Selena Gomez (Interscope), and The Weeknd (Republic) to create exclusive merchandise collections tied to their new album campaigns. And most notably, Amazon Music worked with Ye (Def Jam) to launch limited-edition apparel engineered by Demna for the #FreeLarryHoover Benefit Concert, sold exclusively in the Amazon Fashion Store and in the Amazon Music app for a limited time.
UMG has been a strategic collaborator for us, as we continue to evolve our service and bring our customers even more ways to engage with their favorite artists, and discover new music. With these agreements, we’re strengthening and expanding how we can continue to work together to provide unique and exclusive experiences and create even more content for listeners. – Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music
Twitch has also agreed to provide UMG and its artists with commercial opportunities to engage directly with fans via its suite of products. UMG will encourage the creation of artist and label channels on Twitch and will collaborate with Twitch to create an exclusive series of artist features and experiences, as well as other music-related content, for the service. This will enable UMG to provide unique opportunities for brands to communicate with passionate and engaged audiences.
In the dance music industry, Nicky Romero and Tomorrowland, among others, have already teamed up with Universal Music Group.
