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Media Research Exec Says Music Industry Is On Its Last Legs
Ponca City, We Love You writes "For years, the major record labels have fought a pitched battle against the MP3 format. Although major labels like EMI and the Universal Music Group have embraced MP3s in recent months, a story from the Mercury News says early returns from those moves indicate they've had little impact on the industry's fortunes — for better or for worse. 'These are ailing businesses on their last legs,' said Eric Garland, chief executive of BigChampagne, a market research company focused on digital media. The question of copy protection on song downloads 'matters a whole lot less to them than it once did.' The industry has a bigger problem. Consumers used to buy CDs for $10 or $15 a pop. Increasingly, they're buying songs at about $1 apiece instead. So, even if transactions continue to increase, the industry is seeing far less money each time consumers buy and it's having a difficult time making up the difference."
They need to do a better job of recruitment. On any given night I can find better bands playing at local clubs then I hear on the radio. How about they all chip in to recreate a free classic MTVesque station to market directly?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I really think this is BS. I have a friend who has worked at Atlantic for the past year or two and he currently has 5 gold records hanging on his wall and one platinum is on the way. If these bands are selling so well, why is the industry doing so poorly. Also, these bands are not totally mainstream. I bet 90% of /. hasn't even heard of them.
My understanding is that, for a $1 iTunes download, the breakdown looks something like this:
$.75 - Label
$.20 - Apple
$.05 - Artist
If the middleman (who provides neither the content nor the bandwidth, and takes 3/4 of the money) can't make a profit here then I think perhaps they're doing something wrong.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
'Cause I don't. I've lamented the death of the LP since CDs appeared; the only benefit CDs ever gave me was that I didn't have to flip the disc over. What did we lose? Well, in a lot of cases, liner notes, the cool label on the media, etc.)
;)
What I miss is the *packaging* of the LP. They were big and afforded great album art, along with all kinds of neat extras (like the spinning wheel on Led Zeppelin III, or the zipper on Sticky Fingers, or the stickers and posters in Dark Side of the Moon). And even without the extras there are just so many album covers that are just great *art*. It was the cover that made me buy Joy Division's "Closer", even though at the time I'd never heard of them. Frankly, the album cover, AFAIC, is still the best part of the record.
So, hey, music industry...why don't you downplay the actual tracks and hit up on the packaging? In the Internet world everything is just a stream of bytes so your bytes aren't much more special (and certainly not worth more) than anyone else's stream of bytes. So give it up and make something tangible, keep-able, desirable. Put the disc in a wooden box with a wool interior, or wrap it in tinfoil, whatever...make the *experience* more meaningful. As much as I enjoy the convenience of buying a track in iTMS, I am missing an "experience" that I got with some of the better-packaged albums.
And the crazy thing is that this is not new to the music industry; they've put out special collectors editions of stuff for years and years; I have CDs that came in pseudo-film cannisters, wooden boxes, even bubble-wrap. Sure I paid a premium but I didn't just want the music, I wanted the creative packaging as well.
Witness the power of the free market at work. When you've been fixing prices for decades to shore up your profits, you shouldn't be surprised when that system comes crashing down, once an innovation comes along that turns your industry on its head.
This is how OPEC will feel, if ever we get off our asses and start making commercially viable electric cars.
- To put up the cash for recording.
- To package, promote, and distribute the end product.
With inexpensive, accessible recording software, artists can create a quality product much, much cheaper than they could in the past. Plus, with the Internet, there is really no compelling reason for physical media anymore. Music can be promoted and sold virally, with nearly 100% of the proceeds going directly into the artist's pocket. Compare this with the paltry 2-5% artists would get through the traditional sales model!The Record Labels' days are numbered. Their sales model is outdated, inefficient, generally produces an inferior product, and siphons cash away from the artists themselves. They are now nothing more than an expensive middle-man.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Does the industry really need billboards in every city? I'm talking about a grassroots, fundamental reformulating of the industry as a whole. It makes no sense that a shitty, commercially-architected pop group can gross $10m on a single album while truly talented artists can't even get off the ground. We need to go back to square one, focus on the music, and let the industry reinvent itself from there. The music, and the artist(s) that produce it.
Oh wait.
The movie folks fought like heck to kill the VCR. And in the end, not only did home video not kill the movie biz, it likely saved it. Try to image a movie industry that only makes money from theatre showings and the occasional soundtrack. Now it's not tapes but discs, but we have the movie, the director's cut, the remaster, the collectors box set. I doubt Disney pumps out all those direct-to-video sequels because home video is killing their business model.
Likewise, when the music industry folks finally get their heads out of their butts, they'll realize direct digital distribution is not a threat, but rather the savior.
I don't know why they haven't jumped on board years ago. You mean we get to sell music without the overhead of a physical plant to produce discs/tapes/whatever, without a transportation infrastructure to deliver the product to retailers, without having to share the profit with stores? What's the catch?
Yes, making quality copies is easier for the consumer than taping off the radio or making a dub from a friend. But 1) that fact doesn't negate any of the positives of the above paragraph. And 2) playing luddite and ignoring all the positives of the above paragraph doesn't prevent any of the issues of unlicensed digital copies.
So as it is now, the RIAA folks get all the negatives (from their point of view) of the internet and digital music, while refusing to partake in any of the positives.
One day they will wake up, just like the movie folks did. When that happens, not only will the digital revolution not kill the music industry, it will save it.
To the folks who say the music industry will go away because bands don't need it, I disagree. Not everyone has the resources to build/rent a studio and make masters. And throwing up your mp3s on the band web site is trivial when you're a local hit and expecting a couple thousand downloads; it's not quite the same when you're hoping for millions of downloads. Putting together a tour of college town bars with an old VW van is not quite the same as organizing an international tour of stadiums.
Yes, the current business model is something akin to the record companies are property owners and artists are overworked dirt get combed by share croppers. Yes, I hope direct community built between bands and fans through the web will give artists move leverage. But I doubt music companies as we know them will disappear any more than the web and digital distribution has freed authors and killed off the publishing houses.
Your confusing the record label and media. Streaming sites such as you and satellite radio are taking the place of conventional media. The public needs to be told 'what is hip' at least to a degree. Your filtering has been done by DJ's , your friends and TV for years. I think that is what the music industry will eventually be. The marketing filter. Notice how TV shows are telling you where to get the music heard on the show. What eventually morphs out of all this has the potential of being either the greatest thing to happen to musicians, or that the amount of choices gets so great that many artists offerings get never get noticed. Basically nothing new. That has always been a problem. Even with the thousands trying to get 'discovered' few actually do. Many painters and writers die before being proclaimed a genius and never see the millions generated by their inspiration and talent.
If a film or television director hears your song and wants it, he's going to get it. The real problem is that very few big movies are directed by people that wanna get new, edgy, or slightly-less-than-commercial music from untried acts. The call to the music supervisor is generally "Get me something that's by a hot band to put over the snowboarding scene," the actual band, performer, or subject is really secondary to the commercial aspect. Only occasionally do you hear "Get me band x's song y".
This is the area most in flux. "Publishing" can mean many things, and there's no reason that copyright law couldn't be simplified to make collecting royalties something much more manageableI agree, but this reform had better happen soon if people distributing on the Internet want ay protection at all.
Physical media is dying. You're just going to have to deal with that. It makes absolutely no sense to continue distributing music on CDs when it's possible to distribute bit-perfect copies at a lower cost over the web.Eh, I'm not alone. I guess we'll just have to see, but for just tracks of audio, you're right. It's left to see if the recording industry won't start offering more value for the physical media than they do now, like lyrics embedded as a standard, easier ripping, videos, promo materials... huh, you're right, it's dead.
Again, labels are the reason why giant budgets are required to promote songs. They serve to reinforce the status quo, which means Joe Anotherguitarplayer can't compete.Well, you can't make musician A disappear from the Earth by heavily promoting musician B. Again the real problem is that people don't always have strong feelings about particular songs or artists, but just wanna hear music, any music, maybe restricted to a genre but that's it.
And, well, guess what, if you want 100 million people to hear the hook to your song or even read the name of your band, that's going to cost you millions of dollars in media buys, sorry. The average music listener doesn't spend an hour a day on band home pages looking for good music. There's this whole line of work called "A&R" with professionals to do that for them. You may not like what they come up with, so you're welcome to start your own music website, too.
See #2.In flux, yes, but a big fact remains that if you create music that only exists as a recording, i.e. you don't have a live act, it's going to be very difficult for you to make a living doing your art. The thing left unstated in these debates oftentimes is that the people advocating more freedom really don't care if they only do their music as a hobby. I myself am certain quality would suffer under such a regime, but again this remains to be seen.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.