The Stream: Spotify’s X Factor?

A new TV show in Norway describing itself as a “next generation music talent competition” will use plays on Spotify to determine artists that will go on to get signed to record deals.

The interesting bit is that the world’s three biggest record labels are already on-board, withUniversal, Sony and Warner Music all signed up alongside Spotify.

Artists will be encouraged to upload home made performance videos on to The Stream website that will be publicly viewable.

The artist and their fans are then encouraged to spread the word, with the 100 most streamed invited to a showcase for Universal, Sony and Warner Music. The labels will then choose 40 artists and work with them for a week. At the end of that week, each label will actually sign three artists.

Those nine final acts will then compete on a live TV show and the music will be available onSpotify. The most streamed artists will stay in the competition, and the least streamed artist ruthlessly evicted in the modern Darwinian style of most shows on the telly.

The pitch is basically Spotify meets the Running Man, which sounds intriguing enough to The Gen.

A statement from the show’s producers Nordic World said: “It’s up to the audience which artists stay in the competition, and which ones have to leave, based on the number of streams as well as traditional voting during the live shows”.

If this all sounds slightly too strange to be true then rest assured that there is an actual live trailer available here.