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06/11/07 Buy shares in Ticket Master not iTunes
LONDON, UK - It struck me today how the music industry is changing. They all say it’s dying due to online downloads. It’s not dying - it’s just the business model that’s dying (actually died).
iTunes has it wrong (selling music). iTunes is a transitional fad in the model (selling individual singles rather than albums). But the future is selling the experience of music, not the music itself.
Why do we not hesitate about buying a £60-£80 gig ticket, yet hum and ho over choosing to purchase a 99p digital download? World tour concerts used to be money a haemorrhaging calendar event for a band/label in an effort to promote & increase record sales. Here is the model shift.
In this digital world, where premium quality audio recordings have become a commodity, bands need to give away their music for free to promote their gigs and make money there, from the experience (what you can’t get online), that is what people will pay for.
If I had access to legally download all albums of an artist, and I really liked them, then sure - I’d pay serious money to go to their concert when it rolled into town.
The pricing model of a gig is for another post, but I’m sure it does not need to be fixed price per ticket. The pricing model of a track download should be free - but maybe not free access - maybe a ’share track’ or ‘limited invites’ like any beta invite.
-Robin-
Tags: business model, itunes, music
5 Comments
06/11/07 Rowan
Welcome to the 21st century Robin!
Aloha Robin. What about smaller artists, whose sales may be in the low thousands or even hundreds, and newer artists who are just getting their first releases out there. This seems like a prudent strategy for established artists with a decent catalog. But how do you get to that point in this new model?
dammit! I knew there was a flaw!
Do new artists make much from record sales?
08/11/07 Nahenahe.Net » Blog Archive » Hawaiian Music Around The Web on November 7th
[...] Buy shares in Ticket Master not iTunes - Digital Media Engineer - Robin Blandford: “It struck me today how the music industry is changing. They all say it?s dying due to online downloads. It?s not dying - it?s just the business model that?s dying (actually died).” [...]
Depends. From the Hawai’i industry, it depends on the arrangement. Some artists are there own labels, book and pay studio time, coordinate manufacturing and then turn over final product to a distributor. They do OK on a per-CD basis, but the numbers aren’t huge. Some artists just show up at the studio and someone else does everything else. They hardly make anything at all. The more the artists do the bigger cut they get, but many want others to do the work for them.
I agree with you that performance revenue is going to become more significant. I’ve heard that some major labels are trying to get cuts of merchandising when acts go out on tour to make up for the lost CD sales.
It seems that we may be going back to the model of “tour your ass off, sleep in a van and build a fan base” rather than leaving it to label A&R people to get people’s attentions.
