Fitness and fitness tech experienced accelerated change during the COVID-19 pandemic. Feed.fm, the platform powering music for workouts at home and in the gym, is providing fitness brands intel to help weather the storm. 
 

In April 2020, Feed.fm surveyed 400 men and women in the US between the ages of 18-54 that had exercised at home or outside in the last 30 days. Fourteen months later, a similar survey was conducted to identify how workout habits have changed since the beginning of the pandemic and how people are thinking about their exercise routines moving forward. 
 

The data points to three key shifts in fitness habits from the last 14 months.

1. An increased focus on health
    

Feed.fm creates easy-to-integrate, uniquely curated music stations that power 40+ of the most popular at-home health and fitness platforms. Overall usage of the service by these platforms saw a jump, with streams on partner apps increasing 789% in the last 14 months.

These results counter the notion that everyone has just been sitting around. People have used the extra time to walk, get outside, and exercise to pass the time. In fact, 70% of respondents are working out more than before. Interestingly, workouts are not only more frequent but last longer.

1. Working out at home is convenient, but there is still power in a team.

Convenience is still king with 43% of respondents claiming that it is the most enjoyable part about working out at home.

More people are taking advantage of technology, tools, and housemates to get the most out of their home routines. With fitness companies like MIRROR and FitOn launching music-based community features like "Workout Party" and "Face-Off", people are finding new ways to connect online for workouts and creating virtual fitness communities. 
 

• More people are working out with friends, family, or roommates. 57% have a partner in their home fitness routine, up from 41% last year.  35% say they appreciate having someone there to cheer them on.

• 85% of people purchased home exercise equipment in the last year – Up from 52% last year.

• 89% of people surveyed are using apps and devices in their home workouts, up from 57% last year.  
   

1. Music Music Music: 

Whether at home or the gym, music is still a key motivational part of a workout that can’t be left out of the equation.

• 93% of people say music makes or breaks the workout

• 57% stated that they “couldn’t live without” their workout music.

• More people (63%) are appreciating music curated by fitness instructors or provided by apps.
   

About Feed.fm

Feed.fm is a technology platform that makes it easy for brands to legally and seamlessly harness the power of music to engage and retain their customers. Feed.fm's team handles the licensing and technical integration of curated music stations to help brands increase key growth and customer retention metrics. Based in San Francisco, Feed.fm was co-founded by Jeff Yasuda (CEO), Lauren Pufpaf (COO) and Eric Lambrecht (CTO), and is backed by investors that include Crunchfund, Core Ventures Group, KEC Ventures, and Fyrfly. For more information, visit https://feed.fm/. 

Independent publisher with unique jazz, hip hop, international, and indie rock catalog joins startup-supporting end-to-end music solution.

A Train Entertainment is joining Adaptr’s 3,600+ new publisher partners, including Kobalt, Warner Chappell, and BMG, and will enable Adaptr to provide high-quality, fully licensed tracks to developers and entrepreneurs whose tech products involve music. With a catalog spanning everything from compositions recorded by Q-Tip to Krishna Das, from Huey Lewis and Rod Stewart to Wilco and Kanye West, A Train will gain new opportunities for revenue, while expanding the music available to apps and games powered by Adaptr. 

“When most people think about music for apps, they think pop. But there’s value for our customers having access to a bunch of different types of music,” explains Bryn Boughton, VP of Music at Adaptr. “It's not just about the hot 100. While our customers do appreciate access to major label artists, we’re seeing that yoga, meditation, speech therapy apps and dance apps all need a wider range of music from genres like hip hop, global music, ambient, and jazz.”

A Train’s catalog will now be available on Adaptr’s click-through music API platform, which allows startups to integrate popular music into their products in an instant. Created for developers and entrepreneurs looking to build any app that needs music including fitness, dance, gaming, or social app. Adaptr can save companies the significant expense and delay of pursuing direct deals while taking care of usage reporting and royalty administration, one crucial, complex step that’s often neglected when planning for licensed music use. That means publishing partners can rest assured they will receive appropriate and prompt payment for usage. 

For savvy publishers like A Train, this reliability and access to new markets and partners are significant. A Train Entertainment has been in the music business for 35 years, and its publishing division currently has a catalog of 250,000 songs. It has thrived due to its willingness to explore new formats and revenue streams; it got in early with a collection of digital masters when Apple started the iTunes store, working directly with iTunes instead of going through an aggregator. Its open-minded approach to new technology and opportunities is coupled with a passion for finding the right market fit for its multifaceted, diverse catalog. “I look for markets that are eager for specific genres of music, where there is room for an independent publisher and interest in something unique or culturally significant,” says Al Evers, CEO of A Train Entertainment. 

“Publishing is a nickel, dime, and penny business. We saw early on that being in only one business wasn’t enough. We had to look for many bites of the apple,” Evers notes. “Adaptr is another attractive part of that spectrum. They have the target audience we can’t access through other vehicles.”

New York, NY (June 3, 2021) – HFA’s Rumblefish, the nation’s leading provider of music industry rights administration services, entered into an agreement with Feed Media Group, to provide music rights administration support for Adaptr, a B2B music platform offering licensing, distribution, UX, and curation for early-stage companies and app developers, while making it easy for rightsholders to analyze usage and get paid.

Feed Media Group identified a need to bridge the gap between rightsholders and the startup community. They developed Adaptr so that early-stage companies can get to market quickly with rights-cleared popular music, ensuring a richer and engaging customer experience. By working with Rumblefish, Adaptr will provide its customers access to music from many music publishers, creating a one-to-many solution for both early-stage companies and rightsholders.

“We’re driven by our vision to give everyone the opportunity to experience the power of music. It’s a powerful language that connects us and has the ability to entertain, motivate, heal, move, and inspire us to live our best lives—and the research backs us up,” said Bryn Boughton, Head of Platform & Licensing at Feed Music Group.

“We are proud to provide rights administration support to Adaptr for their innovative new system,” said Lauren Apolito, SVP of Strategy and Business Development of Rumblefish. “Our relationship will allow for new revenue opportunities in the publishing market, especially for independent publishers.”

Adaptr soft launched to the music industry on January 25th with WMG, ADA, BMG, Kobalt, Warner Chappell, eOne and others as launch partners, and launched to the public on May 25, 2021.

About Rumblefish:

Rumblefish, the rights administration division of The Harry Fox Agency (HFA), simplifies business for digital services, publishers, labels, artists and apps. The company’s transparent composition administration, data and royalty management, licensing and UGC monetization allow clients to focus on their core business. Rights Simplified. Royalties Amplified.

About Adaptr:

Adaptr is a first-of-its-kind platform giving developers and early-stage companies a place where they can immediately incorporate popular music into apps, connected devices, websites and AR/VR experiences. Adaptr ensures copyrights are carefully tracked and fairly monetized by providing developers with a robust and secure API. New businesses want quality music. One deal with Adaptr makes your music accessible to developers and startups, creating a new revenue stream for you. 

###

Media Contacts:

Jenna Smith

Marketing Coordinator, SESAC

jsmith@sesac.com

Melissa Clark

Marketing Manager, Feed Media Group

melissa@feed.fm

New platform turns months-long process into a single click

Incorporating music into your app or platform is now extremely simple. What used to take months or years takes minutes, thanks to Adaptr (adaptr.com), the new licensed music service for early-stage startups that need to grow. Dramatically cutting time to market and offering a robust catalog of major label music, Adaptr ensures great products involving music don’t fail before they’ve had a chance to succeed.

As of May 25, 2021, Adaptr’s click-through licensing platform is now open to all startups looking to add popular music to their product. For developers and entrepreneurs looking to create a fitness, dance, gaming, social app that needs music, Adaptr can leap the traditional hurdles to music licensing and help prevent infringement, a problem faced even by the biggest companies as labels and publishers grow more aware of the app market.

Designed for early-stage startups that have raised less than $7.5 million and earn less than $4.5 million in revenue, Adaptr can save companies the significant expense and worry of pursuing direct deals with record labels and publishers. Via Adaptr, startups addressing the US market can integrate rights-cleared music playback via a set of SDKs at an appropriate price point (under $100/month to start). And importantly, Adaptr takes care of usage reporting and royalty administration, one crucial, complex step that’s often neglected when planning for licensed music use.

“Before Adaptr, startups had two choices: wade through bewildering and time consuming direct deals with rightsholders, or launch with fingers crossed, hoping to settle the legalities later,” explains Bryn Boughton, Head of Licensing for Adaptr. “Neither is a viable way to create a product and get it to market.” Adaptr is filling a gap: “Labels have experimented with limited sandboxes for prototyping, but once a product was ready to go, the startup faced big licensing hurdles.”

Music can play an essential role in a wide range of apps and platforms that span education, fitness and digital health, social messaging, and gaming. Two of Adaptr’s early customers, mobile gaming innovator Artie and dance app Oga, show the breadth of potential use cases for high-quality, legal music.

Artie (artie.com), a next-generation mobile game platform, skips the app stores and renders games directly on users’ devices via social links, with extremely low latency, high-quality graphics, and fun features like digital collectibles/NFTs. Several of Artie’s games currently in development have strong music components, where curated music players can stream like the radio stations found in Grand Theft Auto.

Despite having strong support and investment from music industry heavyweights (WMG, Scooter Braun), Artie’s team knew they faced an uphill battle to license music. Then they found Adaptr: “Before Adaptr, I was terrified,” says Artie founder and CEO Ryan Horrigan. “I realized there was no good solution. I'd have to license bad public domain songs for our first game.” With Adaptr, Horrigan is able to use music that boosts engagement and appeals to the game’s target audience.

Oga (oga.so) is the first full body tracking app that allows users to dance along with dancers on screen, get points for their performance, and see where they land on a leaderboard. The app was a blast, but founder Ashish Rawat needed one key thing: music that connected with his US target audience. Rawat turned to Adaptr for music licensing and administration. “We tried sorting out licensing via brokers or via direct deals. It was very time consuming,” Rawat explains. “When you’re not from the industry, it’s very expensive and hard.”

As their products take off and companies grow and succeed, Adaptr can help them transition to direct licensing deals as needed, thanks to its parent company, Feed Media Group, a pioneer in connecting music rightsholders and tech and experience innovators. “Everyone is getting on the same page and getting excited about innovation. Together, we can collaborate on mutually beneficial terms and startups can finally access the tools they need,” says Boughton. “It’s a significant model change.”

About Feed Media Group

Feed Media group is for businesses that need licensed popular music to create the most engaging customer experiences in their digital apps and physical spaces. Unlike navigating complex, time consuming negotiations with music labels and publishers, Feed Media Group’s proprietary streaming platform and SDKs deliver pre-cleared music—compiled by the industry’s best curators—complete with user analytics, payments to rightsholders, and legal indemnification for our customers. Feed.fm powers music for the world’s leading brands including American Eagle Outfitters, Mayo Clinic, Mirror, Nautilus and Tonal; and up-and-coming startups use Adaptr to create unique music-based experiences. Our music partners include Warner, BMG, and Kobalt. Learn more at feed.fm.

The innovators of music licensing and distribution at Feed Media Group (FMG) have added a new member to the team, Arturo Lovazanno. Starting this month, Lovazanno steps into the role of Curation Operations Manager and brings with him a wealth of experience from companies like Warner Music Group, Apple, and Samsung. FMG, which helps apps and digital services incorporate music legally and elegantly, relies on thoughtfully curated music to enhance end user experience.

Lovazzano spent the bulk of his early career with Warner Music Group, working his way up to international Director of Marketing for Warner Bros. Records. His talent for music marketing and his understanding of the significance of bilingual music grabbed the attention of Apple, who hired him as the Artist and Label Relations Manager for the Latin music store within iTunes. Lovazzano then earned his MBA in Design and Strategy from California College of the Arts before joining Samsung for eight years as Senior Manager of the Galaxy Store.

Now, Lovazzano is thrilled to find a company that fits his values. “Everything at FMG feels important,” he said. “Nothing is taken for granted. I’ve never experienced so much appreciation for everyone’s efforts and input. Here, you have direct access and real impact on decision making. I’m excited about the company culture and getting back into the music business.”

Considering the work ahead, Lovazzano plans to emphasize user experience and data to inform curation decisions. “We can use creativity to understand our users--that’s who we serve in the end,” he said. “We have to consider how the music affects their experience. For example, we have a plethora of data around which songs drive more intense workouts and get exercisers through challenging intervals. Data is incredibly useful and we always need to fine tune soundtracks, but the core of what we offer combines both human expertise and powerful insights.  There’s no algorithm that can replicate the knowledge and serendipity of a music-loving curator.”

The leadership team at FMG appreciates how important Lovazanno’s role is. “Combining the deep expertise of musicologists and the power of machine learning is our ‘secret sauce,’” said COO Lauren Pufpaf. “Our platform combines pre-cleared catalogs with the industry’s best curation team, user analytics, and rightsholder payments, which is truly unique. We’re excited to add Arturo’s perspective and experience to continue supporting our partners with creativity that improves their bottom line.”

About Feed Media Group

Feed Media Group is for businesses that need licensed popular music to create the most engaging customer experiences in their digital apps and physical spaces. Unlike navigating complex, time-consuming negotiations with music labels and publishers, Feed Media Group’s proprietary streaming platform and SDKs deliver pre-cleared music—compiled by the industry’s best curators—complete with user analytics, payments to rightsholders, and legal