Yandex Music announced the launch of the “Donations from Fans” tool. Starting from December 6, a “Donate” button will appear on the pages of artists who have activated the new function, by clicking on which users can transfer the desired amount. The press service of the service reported this. It is stated that for artists who have released new releases since January 1, 2024, Yandex Music will double donations from listeners within a month of their release – the stream has allocated 100 million rubles for this.
“25 million Yandex Plus subscribers will have the opportunity to support their favorite artist, and artists will receive an additional source of support for their work,” the message reads.
User donations will go directly to the artist; The service does not charge a commission for this.
Regarding the doubling of donations from Yandex Music, the company emphasized that this is the first initiative of this kind in the music market in Russia.
Alexandra Sagalovich, head of the Yandex Music service, notes that lately local music has become increasingly popular among listeners.
“By introducing donations, we want artists to have more opportunities to bring their ideas to life, so our listeners can help them do so. We support young artists in various ways; Last year we launched the “Iskra” playlist and provided advertising support to the artists included in this list. Donations are the next step; It is especially important for young and not yet well-known artists who lack the resources and opportunities to create new music,” Sagalovich explained.
The company states that new releases directly impact the growth of the artist’s audience. Within a month of its release, the artist’s audience on Yandex Music increased by an average of 8%. What’s more, if an artist releases albums consistently and regularly throughout the year, their audience grows one and a half times faster than artists who release one or two albums a year, according to the service.
Yandex Music first started testing donations in August. The experiment was made available to a limited number of artists. According to the results of the first months of testing, 177 artists used this function. Currently, the service has received more than a thousand applications from artists to connect to the new functionality.
Previously, Yandex Music announced an update to the recommendation system, brand platform, new logo and visual style. The first phase of the changes includes switching to a new recommendation model using deep neural networks in “My Wave” and updating the main parts of the applications.