state51

Category: strategy

  • #IRespectMusicFans

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    Musicians seem to be on a permanent campaign for more money, and a larger share of whatever’s going. There’s no doubt it’s tough to make a living in music. There are more musicians than there are living wages, and as an industry the way the money is shared out often leaves all but the top players out…

  • Three Reasons Why Indie Music Will Thrive

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    There’s a professional and independent music industry, sandwiched in between the largest corporate and VC funded businesses, and the hobbyist and part time music makers. It is vitally important as a repository of skills and cultural memory, as the guardian of meaningful values in music, and as an engine of innovation for the future. And I think…

  • Spotify Cannibalises iTunes; Universal Cannibalises Music

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    Universal Music has been turning in some very unimpressive numbers for parent Vivendi over the last few years. Traditionally record companies blame everyone other than themselves for their failures (I did a brief survey some years ago here). Now in the frame is Spotify, which relies heavily on drawing users in on its free offering, from…

  • A Global Release Day is the Wrong Kind of Globalisation

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    Big record labels are gearing up to move their release scheduling so that all new records come out on a Friday at a minute past midnight. They argue that everyone knows anyway through social media when a record is released; that record stores for those buying physical products need to know what day to rotate their displays…

  • The Dog in the Manger

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    Nobody ever claims to have contributed to a traffic jam, despite all the evidence around them when they are doing so. And clearly had they not contributed, the jam would have been less of a delay for everyone, especially them. So it is with yearly summaries of markets; the great temptation is to see the…

  • Digital Music in 2015

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    Some ‘state of the nation’ observations about where we seem to be at the end of 2014 in the world of digital music: 1. Only an extreme optimist would make a meaningful bet on the recorded music industry as a whole growing significantly in the next few years. Sales of downloads are likely to show…

  • Streaming Payouts Need Some Simple Tweaks

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    Continued debate about how to share revenue generated by on-demand music streaming services is less enlightening than it could be, mostly because it is conducted in an almost information free context. We don’t really know how much money is being brought in, how it splits between subscriptions and advertising, or what’s in the deals that…

  • GRD? More Like GOELRO, Comrade!

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    Music industry watchers will have noted the recent demise of the Global Repertoire Database (GRD), a project so misconceived that its collapse should more properly be greeted with relief than hand wringing and woe. Some background. In 2008 EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes posed a question to a small and odd group of interested parties at two…

  • The New Starmakers, and the Story of a Song

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    Spotify took to its blog October 2014 to let the world know that if the ants have megaphones, in Chris Anderson’s rather superior phrase, Spotify’s megaphone is bigger. A ‘curated playlist’ had driven a track up the charts in the world’s biggest music market. The track was Waves from Mr Probz, and it would be wrong…

  • Of Course a Stream is a Lost Track Sale…

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    The long drawn out crisis in the recorded music industry continues, and one of the much debated questions is whether people are subscribing to streaming services instead of buying downloads and CDs. If they are, the worry is that the amount of revenue and the way it is shared might damage the recorded music industry…