the music industry is out in front of the rest of the entertainment business when it comes to dealing with digital disruption. So this NYT article about the US music industry is a must-read.
it's about how the album - the mainstay of the music industry's profitability for forty years - is in decline, and the single its getting its revenge:
"a decade ago, the music industry had all but stopped selling music in individual units. But now, four years after Apple introduced its iTunes service...individual songs account for roughly two-thirds of all music sales volume in the United States."
album sales have fallen 16% so far this year. The steepness of that trend is unlikely to sustain but that is a scary, drop-off-a-cliff figure. Record labels are responding by constructing deals with acts that include a series of singles and ringtones but not albums. Instead of releasing an album and going on tour every two years, acts will have to get used to providing a constant stream of content, to keep people interested. One possibility is that artist 'brands' become more like record clubs, with fans paying a regular subscription in order to receive a series of recordings, videos, and other products. As one music exec puts it:
"perpetuating a business model that fixates on a particular packaged product configuration is inimical to what the Internet enables, and it’s inimical to what many consumers have clearly voted for"
tv channels ought to be paying close attention to this, for obvious reasons.
indeed all marketeers should. The 'brand idea' is the album of marketing - the central vehicle that everything else has to be subservient to, the thing that consumers are expected to swallow whole. Traditionally of course, this idea lived on tv and was repeated until people couldn't avoid it. But consumers now expect to be re-delighted and re-surprised and re-entertained in dozens of different ways by a brand, forever.
that's why the premium on creativity is higher than ever before.
