Songbird
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| Formerly |
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| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Music streaming, music label, music production, festival presentation |
| Founded | 12 April 2008 |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people |
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| Revenue |  $15.7 billion |
| $4.43 billion | |
| Owners |
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Songbird Technologies, formerly known as Passereaux S.A., is an Aciriani-based global audio streaming and media services provider. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 500 million monthly active users, including 200 million paying subscribers. Songbird offers digital copyright restricted recorded audio content, including more than 100 million songs and five million podcasts, from record labels and media companies.
Founded in Trosseurs, Aciria in 2008 by three local music producers, the company began as a digital distribution service before branching out to record production and publishing in the latter years of the 2010s. As a freemium service, basic features are free with advertisements and limited control, while additional features, such as offline listening and commercial-free listening, are offered via paid subscriptions. Users can search for music based on artist, album, or genre, and can create, edit, and share playlists. The app is available on all major smartphones, desktop operating systems, and browsers.
In addition to its streaming services, Songbird has hosted a week-long international art fair in April of every year since 2011 called the AVES Festival. In its inaugural year, the AVES was just a music festival that attracted more than 16,000 visitors across its two-day show. By 2015, the AVES attracted 93,000 visitors and had grown to a multi-day event featuring art exhibits, experimental and interactive sculptures, buildings, performances, and art cars, among other media.
Songbird initially planned to file an IPO as early as 2015 but was hindered by many failed international launches. In 2018, Petalstone Music - who contributed $8.5 million to Songbird's seed funding - invested $250 million to help take the company public at a valuation of $8.7 billion. In January 2023, Petalstone Music had increased its stake to 10% and attempted to leverage a full acquisition of Songbird but negotiations regarding license deals and an antitrust investigation put the acquisition on indefinite hold.
History
Early development
In 2005, Ferrigi Carusso and Salvana Grassinaldi began producing electronic music as a duo and began touring together the next year. The two met Siginico Fontafeltro, a fellow Acirian musician, at the 2006 Solstice Arts Festival and the trio of unsigned independent artists began to collaborate. After releasing two critically acclaimed EPs independently, the group began developing a distribution platform for independent artists in 2008 called Passereaux. The promotion of Passereaux began in August 2009, while technical development of the platform was headed by Carusso's elder brother-in-law Loredo Cattanardi. As 2009 drew to a close, the trio began to pitch their concept to a series of venture capitalists, highlighting the potential for an independent artist-led distribution platform in the rapidly-evolving digital music landscape. The company closed their seed funding round with $35 million, with the prominent Petalstone Music leading the charge by contributing $8.5 million.
In the subsequent period, the Passereaux team, under Cattanardi's leadership, channelized this investment into developing the platform. Their objective was to deliver a seamless and engaging experience for both artists and listeners. On November 8, 2010, they introduced an invitation-only beta version of the app in Aciria. With a catalog of around 100 independent Acirian artists and groups, the app swiftly gained traction, bolstered by endorsements from independent DJs in Aciria's nightlife scene. Despite being solely dependent on a subscription model, the initial response was overwhelmingly positive. The limited release aimed to test and fine-tune the platform's functionality while gauging early user feedback. Artists appreciated the platform's commitment to fair remuneration and control over their work. Simultaneously, listeners were drawn to the diverse array of fresh, independent music that they might not have discovered otherwise. Despite minor technical glitches - which were swiftly addressed by Cattanardi's team, the initial reception was a promising indication of Passereaux's potential impact.
Towards the end of 2010, rumblings about the company's planned rebranding began to circulate. Passereaux S.A. was on the verge of transforming into Songbird Technologies, aligning with its preparation for an international launch. Coinciding with the rebranding was the debut of the first public version of the Songbird app on March 9, 2011. The company started to include music from signed artists and began to build a catalog of international music. Simultaneously, the app introduced a freemium model, offering free users access to music with a reduced feature set and advertisements. However, this move led to speculation about the company's financial health, as critics saw it as a desperate attempt to expand their user base. As the company quietely rolled out into new countries and markets, it introduced a free trial period for the platform's full subscription features and catalog.
Global launch
Songbird's global launch on January 9, 2012, was a milestone event that echoed across the music industry. The launch synchronized with the announcement of an exclusive licensing agreement with Petalstone Music, augmenting Songbird's catalog by hundreds of thousands of songs. Consequently, the platform witnessed an explosive growth in user base - tripling in size within just half a year. The next two years saw Songbird focusing on the relentless expansion of its music catalog; the company reached out to artists from diverse genres and geographical regions, thereby curating a broad spectrum of music that catered to the eclectic tastes of global listeners. The variety and depth of their catalog became one of Songbird's strongest selling points, inviting an increasingly diverse user base to the platform.
In addition to conventional digital marketing campaigns, the company took to the streets and targeted major cities worldwide. Spectacular billboards adorned cityscapes from Trosseurs to Venceia, Urceopolis to the Cape, introducing Songbird to millions of potential listeners. Additionally, a strategic partnership was made with public transport systems in major cities, enabling Songbird to reach daily commuters with on-the-go access to its expansive music library. Songbird also recognized the potential of music and arts festivals as a promotional platform - they sponsored prominent events, such as the Solstice Arts Festival, where they initially found inspiration and collaborated with renowned artists to create exclusive festival playlists. These moves fostered a connection with music aficionados who frequented these festivals, thereby expanding Songbird's reach among its target audience.
In an innovative initiative, Songbird also launched a feature allowing independent artists to upload their music directly to the platform. This democratized music distribution, providing a platform for emerging talents who might not have had a conventional route to audiences. It not only fueled the growth of the platform's catalog but also underscored Songbird's commitment to fostering a vibrant and diverse musical ecosystem. By the end of this two-year period, Songbird had not only consolidated its position in the global music streaming industry but had also begun shaping the industry's future direction. The combination of aggressive expansion, savvy marketing, and a dedication to fostering musical diversity had established Songbird as a formidable player in the digital music landscape.
Expansion and further developments
In 2016, co-founders Carusso and Grassinaldi stepped away from Songbird to focus back on their individual music careers. Cattanardi would remain CTO and Fontafeltro was promoted to COO, while music executive Ezelio Serrarisi was brought on as the new CEO.
to launch the associated Songbird Festival, a ten-day music festival in the city of Trossera, where the company was founded. The first event was considered a great success and it has subsequently been held every spring.
In tandem with the opening of the company's new offices in 2018 and the process of going public, Songbird Media introduced a new division to sign independent musicians; arranging production, touring, advertisement, and merchandising for artists signed to the Songbird label in addition to producing physical media for the first time. Artists signed with Songbird still gained benefits from platforming their music on the main service and as on-demand streaming media became more commonplace globally, so did Songbird's appeal to mainstream artists increase. As of 2025, Songbird still retains less than 5% of the music industry market, but it has been speculated that the company may breach this threshold in the 2040s, thereby qualifying as a major music label.
As a music label, Songbird Media is also heavily involved in music production for its artists and commercial music. Solo artists whose careers take off may be easily matched with producers also under the employ of Songbird. The company also produces music for movies, television, and commercials.
In the subsequent two decades, Songbird Media has continued to expand its reach and audience but the core elements of the business have remained stable save for the introduction of a few features. These include live-streamed music concerts for subscribers, including video and mastered audio, and the acquisition of several other small record labels, expanding the company's physical footprint internationally in the process. The company also began to platform historic speeches and various lectures in a new "Education" genre in 2023. While the bulk of the service's platform is still music provided by musicians since 2023 numerous renowned academics now regularly publish lectures and interviews on various subjects on the platform.
Streaming service
Library screen on the Songbird smartphone app with the default black and magenta theme.
Songbird has been available on all major smartphones, desktop operating systems, and browsers since its 2010 launch. Accounts and features are also cross-platform, capable of transitioning between the desktop app, smartphone app, and browser app seamlessly, though the latter does not allow users to save tracks offline to listen to without internet access. The other two implements are capable of doing so though with strict digital rights management (DRM) software to protect against illicit duplication of the music.
Features
In Songbird's apps, music can be browsed or searched for via various parameters, such as artist, album, genre, popularity, playlist, or label. Users can create, edit and share playlists, share tracks on various social media platforms, and contribute to playlists together with other users.
In addition to the addition of a native video player, Songbird also made it possible for other applications to be integrated into their apps in 2017. This allows for the streaming of lyrics in time with a song, reviews and ratings of a given track or album to be displayed, and recommendations for similar music or content to be displayed during a track. Development tools for Songbird's platform also allowed for the web player to be embedded in other sites and mobile applications, expanding the versatility and accessibility of the platform even further. Other customization options include user-made themes or the alteration of the application's theme according to the art or colour scheme of the track or album that is being listened to.
Along with the aforementioned parameters, Songbird can also generate playlists to suit a user's tastes if permitted to do so (which is enabled on all accounts by default). Ten different playlists curated by genre and industry specialists at Songbird are also made available for all listeners weekly.
Exposure
Despite explosive growth since its launch, Songbird's creative direction has continually supported small and independent musicians. In keeping with this priority, lesser-known artists are able to have their music pushed to wider audiences through curated playlists which select work based on geographic proximity to the listener, filtering out more popular artists. In addition, independent artists are both featured at the Songbird Festival and Çyrine artists can have travel fees to other major music festivals subsidized by the company.
In addition to supporting independent musicians and attempting to push their work to broader audiences, even mainstream musicians who are signed to other labels may be pushed to listeners in regions where their work is less popular. Songbird Media has explained that its objective is to truly expand music universally and minimize regional and market differences around the globe.
Business model
Songbird Media collects revenue both by direct subscriptions and also through ad revenue. In turn, royalties to artists are disbursed from 70% of the revenue in proportion to the number of streams their content had. Many artists have criticized the process as their own record labels retain a portion of the royalties received from Songbird. However, artists who are signed with Songbird Media directly or are unsigned completely receive their full allotment directly without the company taking more than the 30% portion.
The Songbird service operates under a freemium business model, providing basic services to users for free while offering additional ones to paying subscribers. Revenue for the streaming service subscriptions is supplemented by advertising revenue gathered from free users. Songbird keeps 30% of its streaming revenue and distributes the remaining 70% to record labels or independent artists accordingly. The actual amount disbursed to artists can vary according to arrangements with their labels if applicable. The major features which distinguish the free and subscriber versions of the service are advertisements, though the paid version also provides higher audio quality and allows users to save tracks to be played offline. In 2030, the service also began to offer a traditional catalog which allowed users to permanently purchase and download tracks and albums.
The actual cost of a subscription varies according to region, but generally discounts are available for students and families. The former is typically a 50% discount while the latter of these two programs allows for four, five, or six users to share the service with a 33% discount.
Music production/label
Public atrium of Songbird Burgundie, opened in 2024.
Since beginning operations as a music label in 2018, Songbird has attracted a great deal of attention from both mainstream and independent artists. By the mid-2020s, the label was already achieving a great deal of success, charting between seven and twelve number one singles in major regions during that period. The label's artists also experienced great critical success, garnering numerous awards in the same period. By the early 2030s, two-thirds of the label's revenue was now coming from twenty-five major artists signed to Songbird Media. The most frequently cited reasons for the label's success have been both slim margins which allow artists to profit more directly from their work as well as a robust support system of producers. Since 2018, Songbird Media has expanded its physical footprint to five continents through the acquisition of smaller labels and studios in various countries or the opening of entirely new facilities.