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Music Biz Predicts 6% Decline in '03
jonerik writes "According to this article from Reuters, music industry executives gathering this weekend for the global music industry conference Midem in southern France are being told that a 6% industry-wide decline in sales is being predicted for 2003; not as bad as last year's 9% decline, but bad enough since '02 and '03 come on top of a five percent dip in 2001 and a 1.4 percent fall in 2000. As a result, talk of consolidation is rampant at the conference, with the most likely scenario being a buyout of EMI by BMG-Bertelsmann. Critics, however, are skeptical that the labels' problems will necessarily be solved by simply bulking up. 'The politics at the major labels hasn't changed. The guy who puts his neck out on the line could get fired. Whereas the guy who keeps his head down is safe, and he gets to keep his BMW for another year,' said Paul Myers, founder of Wippit.com, a subscription download site."
Economy slumps
Music sucks
Downturn...must be piracy.
This slowdown of sales has everything to do with P2P and nothing whatsoever to do with a slowing global economy. (Should I use the "R" Word?)
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Seems like...
1. Sign shitty artists
2. Sell shitt CD's
3. Piss on consumers rights
4. ??? (anything but restructuring)
5. Lose profit
Wait...that doesn't work
...and sales go down. Did these people take basic economics? The soft economy no doubt helped. Of course, the industry blames piracy...
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
Maybe if they stopped hyping pretty-looking but talentless actors and concentrated on people who could actually perform music in some way, we might actually be interested in buying it.
And, as an aside, many of us are so jaded from the recent crap, that we're unwilling to buy music basing our decision solely on the two (three if you're lucky) songs that get played on the radio. I want to hear a majority of the album before I buy it. Oh, sorry, that would require me to STEAL the music first. Oh well, no CDs for me.
Apparently, of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
What's 6% of a bazillion, anyways?
Of course in this economy, lots of industries would give their first born for a mere 6% decline.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
is the fact that they put out less CD's than they have in previous years..
begun, the flame war has..
Is that they are going to reduce the number of published artists by 24% and jack up the prices by 18% and blame the resulting 6% 'loss' on Kazaa.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Maybe if they stopped cramming out so many remix CDs (Reanimation, Limp Bizkit New Old Songs), stopped charging so friggin' much (20$ a disc), and actually made them worthwhile as opposed to one or two good tracks, they will actually have a productive year.
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
... the stock market analysts would be clamouring for layoffs and restructuring. Period. No lobbying for laws or paying off your local congresscritter
Lets see, we'd expect to see the following:
1)A 5% reduction in operational expenses
2)A 10% reduction in global workforce, with a minimum of 3% coming locally
3)Announcements of 'diversification' by hiring some recognizably named 'diversification' consultant, who ought to leave after 5 months and make many speeches talking about how the environment wasn't conducive to change and (4 months later) will say it was a success
4)A number of consultants to help improve product flow
and finally
5)Several new products in time for a major tradeshow
Oh wait, this isn't 'industry', I forgot their lawyers make the money by paying off congress.....
In a completely unrelated story, a 43-year old man was startled today to find out that shooting himself in the foot does, in fact, hurt.
People don't want to pay $20 for a CD of a new artist. Consumers are for the most part fed up with the BS they feed us about piracy hurting their bottom line. Stop complaining, and do something about it already! Either throw Kazza users in jail, or conform to the economy like good little capitalists, and reduce the cost to meet the demand.
Reducing the cost of CDs will have a 2 fold effect:
1. More people will choose legal CDs over piracy [gives music companies more money].
2. The black market will be hurt because there will be fewer pirates to downloading and selling [eliminate the pirate competition].
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
They keep complaining about piracy of music through things like kazaa, but the only way they have tried to combat it is through stuff like spreading worms on the p2p networks.
I dont think they reallise that there are no satisfactorary ways of actually legallly paying for and downloading tracks. Most of the ones I have seen are poor. If a decent scheme was started, im sure at least some people would be willing to pay.
I predict that the music business will have a 0% change in their business model.
I'll wager that both of our predictions are correct.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Well, the impending/current loss of profits hasn't stopped them from holding their global conference in the south of france.
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
is pandora's box, and their diminshing expense business model almost ensures a continuing growth/profit downturn.
QUESTION - How can you depend on a smaller subset of crappy music to support a more diverse and growing audience and still make a greater profit, with out Andersen Accounting 101....
ANSWER - you can't unless you can claim the losses due to an illegal act and get aid or a system slanted in your favor...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
- To sample the music you might want to purchase.
- To make backups of your music.
- To copy your music to a portable digital device.
- To create your own mix of music.
- To play CD's on your computer even though they support the 'Compact Disc' logo.
- To compress your music down to one CD so you don't have to carry tons of CDs around.
Yeah, I'm surprised about the decline. Everything people does to make music more fun is labeled 'piracy'.
> Golly! It looks like that particular argument is now dead and gone.
Hardly. As has been mentioned before, some independent industry analysts were actually surprised that the drop in sales was only as much as it was. They did the calculations of new artists signed, albums released, and all the other factors that go into the total sales equation, and estimated sales to be actually less than they ended up being. Some concluded that music sharing might have accounted for that.
I think the music industry is becoming irrelevent. They have massively overproduced and they are about to pay the supply/demand price for it. There's more music available at the local mall store than I have time to listen to in my lifetime - and thats just what's in stock on CD and cassette.
I'd much rather see a live performance than pay for a recording anyway. I'd also like to actually be able to know the performer instead of being one of a zillion nameless fans. That's why as I grow older, I like trendy less, and whatever I can see in person at a local bar or small venue much better.
Music sharing and so on isn't the enemy -- for centuries, sharing is the way music perpetuated -- from one performer to the next to the next... I find it ironic that the music industry blames the fuel for creativity for it's decline...
-- $G
The more the major labels have to downsize and consolidate the more that specialized independent labels will be accessible to the mainstream.
I hear a lot of stuff like "boycott the RIAA - stop buying CD's" on slashdot. What about labels that are unaffiliated with the RIAA? Almost all of the music I have bought in the last 10 years is from independent labels - not only because I don't like the business practices of the major labels but because the music on independent labels is BETTER. Smaller labels are generally interested in good music over money (there's not really much money in it).
Of course this is a pretty wide generalization - there's a lot of shit on independent labels too. But almost everything I hear on the radio is shit.
"How can I find music without major labels shoving it down my throat", you ask? Read reviews! Try www.pitchforkmedia.com. There's a shitload there. Then download a couple tracks of something that sounds interesting off Limewire or whatever and see if you like it. If you do, go buy it.
Anyway, the point of this rant: The major labels loosing money and downsizing will not make it any harder to hear music - smaller labels will fill any void that appears. And that is good.
Eating is for wimps.
No wonder the music industry's in a downturn; it's got the same insanely cheap short-termism that pervades companies and governments these days. These people don't care about keeping customers in the long term; they just want money now, now, now even if it means that in fifteen, five, two years time they'll be living in a cardboard box. They don't realise that by chasing cash rabidly in the short term they'll lose customers, perhaps permanently. It's no wonder that on the local and BBC radio they like playing so much borderline alternative music these days; all of the recently produced mainstream music sounds mostly the same. There's no variety.
That's the thing. There's nothing wrong with producing fluff. However, if you're producing nothing but fluff, charging £17.99 for it, then stopping people from even copying the fluff for personal use, then there's something very wrong.
And what's their solution to the problem?
A merger. For goodness sake, how is that going to solve their problem? They'll be able to merge profits? Wow! As if they didn't have enough cash to buy their own laws already. A merger just means that the music industry will become yet more homogenised and yet more people will be turned off from what the 'superstars' are producing. People will buy less and pirate more.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
"Two words that shouldn't fit together: Music Industry
Ever wonder why the Foo Fighters sound just (almost) like Nirvana when that x-Nirvana drummer wasn't even with the band and didn't really much write songs when he did? Answer: it paid to write songs like Nirvana. Or, more specifically, the record company paid the FF's to sound just like Nirvana knowing that's what would sell to the stupid shit kids out there riding along on yesterday's pop-cool-whatever.
I can just see some record company execs schmoozin' that drummer and telling him that he could still have a fine future in the industry if he could just write songs like no-more-head-Kurt did: "Would you be interested in forming a new band like Nirvana, drummer?" Reply, "Well, ya. Uh, I could try... How much would you pay us?" "We could make it VERY worth your while if it sounds like Nirvana and the kids see you as the band reborn."
Some jack-off from that 90's Clash wanna-be band whatever-they're-called was defending himself recently about "the state of punk in the 90's" sort of thing in Alternative Press and saying that it can be about money and getting down on people who are giving him trouble for being commercially successful. Well, I say fuck these fair weather pop-punk bands pretending to be rebels and acting like they're breaking new ground. I mean, I have a 9-5 job at an ISP in Salt Lake City, Utah and I have pink hair and although my boss is liberal and customers make comments sometimes, most everybody likes it like it's fun, which it is. I bring up this example to simply point out that pink hair 20 years ago would be a statement and likely cause trouble and now slack, somehow-I-keep-a-job types like myself can have pink hair and keep a job-obviously things have changed. Hell, even extremists like Marilyn Manson hardly cause a stir outside of places like Utah and Florida.
I'm applauding this lack of concern for appearance and simply want to point out that punk music is not rebellion anymore-some of it is still damn good, but it is music and not some fucking costume party for pseudo rebels.
Back to my RANT that making music into an "industry" is not a good thing overall-one mostly gets copy-cat bands like the Foo Fighters and all those Epitaph bands, on a good day but more likely Alanis Mourisette female-singer -with-heart-on-shoulder pop radio hell.
This is not to say that one can blame record companies when I just heard on the news this morning that the most popular radio station in NYC is playing 80's disco music!!!! Nietzsche's notion of the masses as cattle clambering along seems quite fitting at moments like this. But anyway, what are people buying when they pay for an album? What do they hope to get from some LL Cool J song?
This idea of "music-as-industry" really gets me bad because I have to listen to this shit when I'm in someone's car or flipping through the radio station's in my honey's car since her tape player doesn't work. This is hellish. Where is the surprise in any of this shit? Where is the soul in it? how can anyone feel any emotion besides hatred when listening to this? I'm no Rocket Scientist *sob* but why can't music have some soul again? Are people so brainless and exhausted that most anything will do? Are people so lazy that they'll let radio and record producers choose what they will like and hear?
I see people gobbling up the feces over and over again and then see stacks of some "big" band's music at the used music store less than a year later. So many bands are liked and hip for no apparent reason-take Rocket From the Crypt. Their music is boring and lame and lifeless and unoriginal and yet Sympathy For the Record Industry (cool name) bothers to waste cool record art and vinyl on these San Diego kitch bitches. I keep hearing people talk about their wearing bowling shirts on stage like that's a good reason to buy and enjoy their albums and concerts. What am I missing here? And then Blacktop comes to town a year ago and less than a dozen people are out to see them.
Now I'm thinking about films and getting pissed about that too. Ever hear of "quote-whores"? I'll RANT about it sometime.
If you agree, don't be getting too full of yourselves too quickly. Most of you liked disco in the late 70's/early 80's--or would have if you had been around and old enough."
godlessmotherfucker.com
The Beatles wouldn't be signed today. Well, maybe baby-face Paul would if he ditched the three homelier guys.
The Rolling Stones wouldn't get past the odd bar gig.
Janis Joplin? Joe Cocker? Anyone from CSNY? Ha. No hope in hell.
They don't sell audio, they sell image now.
The majority don't want to buy 'good music', they want to affirm some sort of image they associate with. That's why it's boiled down to a handful of cookie-cutter stereotypes: Hardcore Gangsta Rapper(tm), Edgy Club Kid(tm), Hard Rockin Mallcore Punk(tm)
Big corporate concerns cater to the majority - that's what they and their boardrooms and feasibility studies and market focus groups are good for.
Only little independent labels would take a chance on an unknown, gamble on the 5% who are actually interested in music (it's background noise to most).
Shame the government allows the biggies to systematically crush the smaller labels - doubly so since the smaller labels sell a different product (music) to a different audience (music lovers).
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Is the industry really producing poorer music?
There is a big reason the music industry targets teenagers. People that go to college and start paying bills grow cynical about the status quo, including music. Not necessarily the music industry, but of course that's where people target their cynicism because the industry profits from listener's failure to find a musical style they're consistantly happy with (which is impossible).
People in high school don't really think about the music industry as being evil. They listen to what's popular, just like most wear what's popular, etc. Even if it's not 'popular', it's finding a niche, whether it be computers and academics, social life and sports, or drama/science fiction/goth. People in different clique's have a musical style targeted at them, and they take it mostly without thinking. They may complain about CDs being expensive, but they don't complain about quality or immoral lobbying.
As you get older, you think that it's not important to fit into a clique with your musical choices. Instead you try to find things that you like, both musically and morally. It's only natural that with your more mature, broader perspective on the world that you become cynical.
In conclusion, say all you want about the industry pissing you off and quality deteriorating. Everyone outside of high school says that, they did 20 years ago, they will 20 years from now. It's natural to purchase music less as you get older. Therefore it's not logical to expound your own buying experience with the revenues of the music industry.
When you're 50 and you never buy new music, the music industry will still be around and raking in even more money than it does now. Not that it's right, but that's how it is.
my blog
MTV has, finally - after flirting with the idea for years - officallly announced they will cut back to about 10 videos a week. It recieved a mention in TV Guide's Cheers and Jeers last week or the week before (I'm sure someone could find out).
From now on, they will select these very few videos, and then air them constantly.
The point? Such rigid control over the playlists, plus the dramatic scaling back of the numbers of new songs viewers and listeners are exposed to has killed MTV, VH1 and radio. If you don't like the NuMetal, Rap, PerlJamClone and TeenyBop tracks this week, you are out of luck. There will be nothing new for you to see. You will not be exposed to any new artists, new genres....nothing beyond what you already know.
So once you have all the U2, Radiohead, Bijork, They Might Be Giants, etc albums you got into, what else is there?
A lot.
But how the hell are you supposed to find out?
Play MP3.com roulette?
Good luck filtering out the crap from the music with some substance with the little guidance you can get. I lost track of the number of times someone reccomended a band to me that ended up being just another bottom-of-the-barrel garage band (not to dis garage bands in general, just the REALLY lame ones.)
MTV, VH1, etc have always shown lots of shit, but they also managed to dig up a few gems along the way. Playing video after video from bands that hardly sold anything, didn't have a good marketing budget and didn't fit into one group, live up to anyone's vision of what they "should" be, and what kind of music they "should make. The programmers were responsible for sustaining bands until they reached immense heights.
U2 albums didn't really start to sell well until their 4th album - "The Unforgettable Fire" - which had 1 top 40 hit. Before then, they never really had that much success on retail shelves -despite having a huge tour following.
MTV played them anywyay.
When their second album didn't do very well, they kept playing them.
When they went off in odd directions with their music they kept U2 videos in heavy roation. Didn't matter what rigid category they did or did not fit into.
It was music, and it was interesting.
Sometimes it sold well, sometimes not nearly as well as before.
But the videos kept playing.
That's over now. MTV has given up because they found the 14-year-olds love all their crappy non-music shows, and the single, 90 minute or so block of time when they do show videos (Total Request Live). These viewers are the most fiercely loyal. So MTV has decided to cater to them, and only them.
This demographic didn't tune in as much when a block of videos came on that didn't cater to only their tastes.
So MTV axed the very thing they are based on.
Radio isn't much better.
So now, it's down to 10 songs a week - mostly the same ones from last week - in a few, narrowly defined styles. Most of which will not appeal to a broad audience.
And the millions of listeners who have far fewer places to turn will find themselves uninterested in buying music. There simply isn't anything new being introduced to them.
And the music industry will see the downturn, and blame it soley on file-swapping.
And they will wonder why they can't find any new "hit" artists.
They will ignore the fact they simply don't have the paitence to nurture a band, but simply expect it to go Top 10 with its first album. A group that fails to do so will be dropped. And any group in the running will have no control over their music anyway, so the expectation that they will get any better is moot - considering they have no ability to grow as artists.
These people want 4 new U2s every year.
But, like many other groups before and since - the key to success was artistic control by the band, and relentless exposure - regardless of sales.
They didn't hit the Top 10 until album #5.
And few ever will again..
Nobody will wait that long anymore.
In just a few easy steps.
1. Return to a focus on music, as opposed to entertainment or product. Make a distinction once and for all that flash in the pan pop stars like Britney Spears or New Kids on the Block are not musicians, but entertainers. These groups are not so much recording artists as stage performers who also happen to have released an album. Considering relitivly short run longivity of these entertainers, keep promoting them the same way you've been doing for years: It works.
Now take the other side of the industry, the actual musicians; The folks who play their own instriments, the ones who formed a band together on their own and are creative and inovative forces are derived internally, not in a focus group. Employ A&R scouts and record executives with arts or music degrees, not business degrees. When deciding which bands to sign, make judgements based on individual merit instead of compliance to a winning formula.
In other words, promote and press music that is good, as opposed to an anaylist's predicted expectation for sales. In the end, this will provide quite a bit of profits as long as you:
2. Cut massive promotion costs. There is absolutly no reason why you should have to spend ~$5 million to promote an untested band. $1 million rock videos which are never viewed can be made just as effective as $50,000 videos in the hand of a novice filmaker who is allowed to innovate. Plastering the walls of every music store in America with posters will do nothing if nobody has heard of, or likes your band. Use low cost promotion methods, such as the Internet or word of mouth (hey, if the band is good, this does work). You can ultimatly generate low or no cost promotion with your best and most succesfull promotional outlet, radio, if you:
3. Stop orginized payola. Don't roll out a new untested band nationwide--they may fail! Allow individual radio stations and individual DJs the freedom to make programming decisions. If it's good, and the folks calling in keep asking for it, it will get played and eventually gain national attention. If it stinks, the DJs will soon drop it. When you allow programming decisions to fall into the hands of the folks who actually enjoy the music and talk on the phone every day and every hour with the people who will actually buy the music, you'll have a much better chance of knowing what music the people will actually buy then if you make those decisions in the board room.
Yes, this method is not as much a 'sure bet' as your current system, but then again, you will no longer blow millions on every new band which is essentially a crap shoot.
4. Finally, Value price recordings. ~$18 for a CD is simply too much money. Plain and simple. Consider a price point closer to the consumers willingness to pay. Make smaller recording runs for unknown or untested bands. As price per unit goes down, pass at least some of that savings to the consumer. Also, consider reviving the single. If you find yourself with a band that has a hit but an otherwise woefully uninspired album, charging $1.95 for a CD with just the one hit on it gives you more profit and allows the customer the ability to get the music he wants without making the often unprofitable (for you) decision to eschew the entire purchase.
As a personal note, you also might get me back as a customer if you stop calling me a theif or a terrorist because I've downloaded music off the Internet. Until recently I would purchase a few new CDs every month, but your public contempt for me has just frustrated me so much that I won't support your industry. You may think what I do is immoral, but you might want to consider this: If we make money in the long run, the custoemr is still always right.
The Internet is generally stupid
I think its worth noting that in the last year more interesting new music was heard on Mitsubishi and Sprite commercials than on the radio. New, great music comes out all of the time, but there's zero interest in promoting it. Not on MTV, not on the radio, not anywhere. The only way I find out about new music is by reading the alternative press or through word of mouth.
The record industry is an industry of parasites. Their business model is based on relentlessly screwing both the producer of their product (the artists) and the customer. The executives themselves, as in most industries, produce nothing and contribute little. Anyone who's ever worked in a big corporate office can attest to this: the highest level of management spends most of their time schmoozing and going to catered "meetings". Their jobs are the least at risk, they work the shortest hours, and yet they make the most money by several orders of magnitude. I think that C. Brown from Leaders of the New School said it best in "Scenario":
"We're all making pennies on our records, so who makes the paper?
The man in Manhattan laughing in the skyscraper."
There's a huge, ever growing part of the "music industry" these days that is NOT a part of the RIAA, and is not being accounted for in those statistics, as far as I know.
We are not spending less on music than in the past. It's just that many bands have eliminated the middleman (major labels, RIAA). The whole "jam" scene, which now has engulfed many of the music fans that used to buy tons of RIAA CDs (like me), has effectively eliminated the middleman. And it's not just "jam", it's many jazz, funk, and otherwise non-mainstream artists that are doing this.
Most of these bands have their own record labels now, and do almost all of their CD sales at live shows or directly from their own websites. Some of them are quite popular, like Ween for instance. They used to be on Elektra (major label), but their next album will be sold in the fashion I described.
If you were in touch with this large, growing scene as am I, I think you would agree that a lot of money is being spent on CDs and not being accounted for in these statistics. And that amount is growing quickly year after year.
Someone with a Slashdot account who agrees with me here, please repost this and get it noticed!
I'm sorry, but this just gets my goat. The record industry insists that they're loosing business and it's just horrid what P2P is doing to them, and it's all piracy's fault.
Find me another mutli-billiion dollar a year industry that's NOT hurting in this day and age and I'll give you a cookie. On top of that, they're a non-essential industry! They should be hurting more than anybody else out there right now!
Okay, lets assume this is horrible to the record industry. The industry is just decimated by P2P right now for arguments sake -- who the hell do you know of right now that's been laid off by them and is hurting economically because of it? Anybody?
Lets step back into the world of -real- products with value right now. They're hurting... badly. I've seen Steelcase (a fortune 500 company recently) cut back their staff by large marks because of the economy. People aren't pirating office equipemnt, it's just a bad economy. There's rumors of a automotive parts manufacturer shutting down here too -- and that's not because of piracy. People still drive cars, and beleive it or not, they usually buy them. Yet, still, they're hurting. People are getting laid of from real jobs in real industries, yet these SOBs have the gaul to say that their sales are slumping and beleive that it's somebody else's problem that it's happening.
Bull... fucking...shit. Welcome to the real world, fellas. When people who make products people actually need are out of work you can sure as hell bet people that make things that noboby really needs are going to be hurting for money.