July 1, 2007...11:11 am
Making Money From Music
I’ve found it interesting to see the changes that are happening to the popular music industry these days as downloads, the Internet and the the competition of computer games and fashion compete for a slice of the youth market dollar.
No more albums?
Rock groups deciding to discontinue making albums and just offering singles and EP’s (something that the American Walmart stores have been calling for as they believe the lower priced EP format is a more viable commercial option for both retailers and artists) and the collapse of some music high street chains who struggled to make ends meet in this new digital download driven world.
Giving the stuff away
On top of this comes the news that the pint sized Prince is to release his latest album as a give away in a British Sunday newspaper which has the industry foaming at the mouth (I presume the paper is paying Prince for this so it’s hardly an altruistic act by the purple one and it may be that prince sees this as a way of getting his current music actually heard).
Ringtones vs pop tones
Pop music is not the great money spinner it once was and the days when it took near a million sales to get to the top of the music charts are now well and truly in the past. Radio too is no longer primarily the place to hear new music. It could be that the music industry wound down a long time ago and only the boost of people re buying their old vinyl collections on CD managed to keep the industry afloat. With no new physical music format in the offering it’s going to take some innovative thinking to monetise downloads to provide the kind of income the industry has too long been used to. At the moment they are making more money from ring tones than the music itself.
2 Comments
July 1, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Wait, they give that paper away?
I thought this was the next step in Prince’s brilliant charts-manipulation take-over-the-world act, wherein the CD is “bundled” with the paper, meaning that a purchase of the paper tallies up as a purchase of the album.
He did that here in the states with one of his last tours. He included his new CD in the price of the ticket, meaning that everyone who went to see his show helped boost his album into the top of the Billboard charts.
That man is a genius.
July 1, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Hi jer. The paper is a paid for item but the CD will be free with the paper. The newspaper’s obviously do this sort of thing a lot as a way to boost their circulation figures (The Mail on Sunday’s figures are a bit down at the mo). Obviously it’s not truly free (I think the MoS is £1.40 whilst a CD would costs £8.99-£11 on average) unless you know a Mail on Sunday regular buyer who isn’t much into Prince (which I would have thought was an awful lot of the MoS’s readership but who knows.No doubt there will be lots of requests for any unwanted CD’s on Britain’s freecycle groups. I’m waiting for paid for CD’s that have free tickets to any live concert. Now that would shift some product.
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