A Manifesto For The Future Of Free Music

Posted on March 6, 2015

In the thankfully long gone days of DRM downloads it could be fairly said that ‘music was born free yet everywhere it is in chains’. Now it is free of DRM and, for most consumers, of price also. Of course the majority of consumers have always spent most of their time listening to music for free via TV or radio.

But the internet transformed free into something that was every bit as good as the paid for product. So yes, most people have always listened to music for free most of the time, but they listened to what broadcasters decided they would listen to. In the old model free music was something that would sate the appetite of the passive fan but was not be enough for the dedicated fan. Free music thus very clearly played a ‘discovery’ role for the core music fans. On demand free though has changed the equation entirely. For many consumers the free stream is the destination not the discovery journey. So 50 million YouTube views is no longer a marketing success but instead x million lost sales or paid streams.

What The Music Industry Can Learn From The Beer Industry

Over the next few weeks I will be writing a series of posts that illustrate what lessons the music business can heed from other industries. This is the first of these posts. Beer sales have been in steady decline for many years with the big brewers coming to terms with changing consumption habits of consumers and the impact of disruptive new models. Sound familiar?

Why Zane Lowe Could Do More For Discovery At Apple Than Echo Nest’s $25.6 Million Does For Spotify | Music Industry Blog

BBC Radio One DJ Zane Lowe just announced a shock move to Apple. For the non-Brits and non-Anglophiles, Zane Lowe is arguably the most influential radio DJ in the UK and is renowned for being a tastemaker with an eclectic pallet. His left of centre focus and his commitment to supporting and breaking new acts has allowed Radio One the freedom to be unashamedly mainstream in much of its other output. So why does this all matter for Apple? While it is not yet clear what sort of role Lowe will assume at Cupertino it is a move bristling with significance and a clear statement of intent from Apple.

Fixing the Tyranny Of Choice

Five Long Term Music Industry Predictions (And How Disney Will Rule The World) | Music Industry Blog

The new year is typically a time for predictions for the year. But at the midway point of the decade, rather than do some short term predictions I think this is a good time to take a look at the longer term outlook for the music industry. Here are five long term music industry predictions:

How Rhapsody Became A Top Tier Player Again | Music Industry Blog

Posted on February 11, 2015

Rhapsody today announced reaching 2.5 million total subscribers across their unlimited and UnRadio offerings. While not in the same scale as Spotify’s 15 million, it nonetheless places Rhapsody as the fourth largest subscriber base globally and approximately 10% of the global total.

What Spotify’s December Growth Tells Us About Pricing | Music Industry Blog

Spotify just announced the addition of 2.5 million paying since mid November to reach 15 million total subscribers. This is unprecedented growth not just for Spotify but for the subscription market as a whole. It also comes at a time when Spotify needs the best possible numbers to keep labels on board during its crucial renegotiations. But what is most interesting is what the growth tells us about pricing.

Long term readers will know that I firmly believe there is a watertight case for reducing the price of subscriptions. Only about 10% of music buyers spend $10 or more a month on music (across all recorded music formats) and most of those have already been converted to subscriptions. While there is absolutely a case that some consumers can be ‘educated’ to spend more on music, in just the same way cell phones educated them to spend more on telephony, many simply will not because there are such compelling free alternatives.

Read the rest of this article here:
What Spotify’s December Growth Tells Us About Pricing | Music Industry Blog.

Why Die Hard Music Fans Are to Blame for Declining Music Sales in 2014

Why The Music Aficionado Was To Blame For Declining Music Sales In 2014 | Music Industry Blog

Music revenues declined by 2.9% in 2014, down from $6.9 billion in 2013 to $6.7 billion across the US, UK, France, Italy, Australian, Sweden and Norway. Much has been made of the fact that revenue fell in the Nordic markets where streaming had previously driven growth. One year’s worth of revenue numbers does not make an industry trend.

The one year fall off in strong streaming markets is not proof of a fundamental weakness in the streaming model in just the same way a couple of years of growth was not proof of its strength. We are in the midst of a transition period and there will be further anomalies and blips along the way. They key reason for the volatility is the music industry’s growing dependence on an increasingly small group of consumers: the Music Aficionados. Music Aficionados are consumers that spend above average time and money with music. They represent just 17% of all consumers but a whopping 61% of all recorded music spending. These consumers shape the fortunes of the music business. In the past this did not matter so much because: