PPQ

Question: The increase in hardware and content in the music industry has had a significant impact on producers and audiences in recent times. Discuss.

The increase in hardware has had a positive and negative impact on the music industry. Music is now more accessible from home without having to buy the physical copies in advance. This is due to the increase in computers and other mobile devices. Services like Spotify and Youtube make it easy for people to access music where and when they want it. Spotify offers a free service which requires an internet connection or a paid service which allows you to access all their songs and even download them to listen to when no internet connection is available.

The increase in both hardware and content within the music industry has also  greatly aided smaller production companies and artists signed to these companies as it is now just as easy for these production companies with significantly less budget to make a successful artist as it is with a larger company. This has become evident in recent years especially with artists such as Adele. However this drastic change has also had negative effects on both artists and producers as audiences have become much less interested in the release of new content as it has become a daily occurrence. There is also a much higher quality of recording equipment which has lead to higher quality music. This means that even smaller artists are able to record high quality music and compete with more well know artists. This has seen a rise in the number of smaller artists having hit singles or albums and has encouraged the average listener to explore different music options.

Music is now downloadable and this makes music cheaper to produce as not as much money has to be spent on  producing hard copies. This means smaller artists can record and sell music over the internet without having to produce a single hard copy. This has impacted the music industry immensely as artists can now post music online, free of charge and have a chance of developing a large following, such as Ed Sheeran who rose to fame after being discover on Youtube. He is now one of the most famous artists around.

Audiences are less interested in one particular artist due to increase in content and smaller artists are getting more attention by groups of individuals which leads to the overall interest in music being more evenly distributed amongst bigger and smaller artists.

Youtube and other online music sites help to raise awareness of smaller artists due to features of Youtube like the "Suggested" section that show videos related to ones you have already watched.

There has also been an increase in the popularity of Techno music as instruments are becoming more computerised. This has changed the music industry and even created new genres of music. House and Dubstep are two of the most popular genres in the modern day and these are created and played using computer hardware and software.

 On the other hand, many may argue that there has been next to no change within the music industry due to this increase in hardware and content as the majority of people will still prefer to listen to mainstream artists that are within the Top 40 charts and are often played on radio stations rather than venturing online or into music applications with the aim of discovering alternative or new artists to listen to, many would argue that this has created a “tyranny of choice,” audiences are offered so many different options that they have begun to feel overwhelmed by alternative audiences and therefore have deliberately chosen to stick with mainstream artists.

Question: Discuss the issues raised by media ownership in the production and exchange of music products in the music industry.

Media ownership comes in two main forms as a music artist. You are either part of the oligopoly that is known as "The Big 3" or you're an independent artist. "The Big 3" come in the form of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. Sony alone controls as much as 30% of the music industry so this gives you some idea of just how big these "Big 3" are. Some of the artists that have contracts with Sony Music Entertainment are Britney Spears, Calvin Harris, Michael Jackson and Prince. As of 2014, artists like these provided Sony Music Entertainment with a revenue of $4.89billion so there is clearly money to be made. However, big labels like these are likely to spend a large percentage of their revenue on various things such as advertising, equipment, wages of staff, and of course, the percentage given to the artists. 

The Big 3 have all benefited from horizontal integration. Horizontal reduces competition and cost. Sony Music Entertainment for example is now made up from many, many other smaller labels such as Columbia Records, Epic Records, RCA Records and Sony Masterworks to name a few. This has dramatically cut down the amount of competition faced by Sony Music as all of these labels would have competed with each other separately as different record labels. Not only has it cut down the amount of competition they face, Sony have now significantly reduced the size of the market and effectively decreased the choice of record label a new artist could chose to sign for. Not only have they reduced the size of the music market but due to their lateral integration of their other companies in film, music and video games. This has led to Sony controlling a large range of all media content. So the real question now is can the independent labels even compete? 

Music

Consumption

Consumption of music refers to how the music is listened to. This could be by CD, digital download, LP, stream or a vast range of other ways.

Major Artists

Major artists' music tend to be consumed in a much larger variation of ways for several reasons. Major artists can be accessed and listened to in much wider range of ways than smaller artists. Major artists can be listened to through streaming, CD's, downloads, radio, television and now even records are making a comeback.

As you can see the most popular from of music consumption is still physical albums , followed by digital albums and then streams. However, CD and Digital album sales are falling and streams are dramatically increasing. This leads us to think that consumption of major artists' music will soon become mostly streams and digital albums. I suspect this will greatly contrast with the consumption of smaller artists as they are not as readily available on streaming websites and apps.

Smaller Artists

Smaller artists don't have as wide a range of consumption methods as they are less likely to be on music streaming  sites such as Spotify. This then leads to them missing out on a large percentage of music consumption. Artists normally start out doing small gigs and posting videos online. Over time they may grow and become more popular, later allowing them to release an album and perhaps allowing them to appear on streaming sites. 

Production

Definition: 
Production is the process of creating, recording, and materializing music.

Further:
Originally, music production and recording equipment was very expensive. It wasn't for everyone. Now, you or I can pick up our smartphones, open the application store and quickly download an app (maybe even for free) that we can create high quality music on. Damon Albarn produced an entire album on an iOS (yes, the software on an iPhone) device.

Recordings are created by recording artists, often with the assistance of record producers and audio engineers. They were traditionally made in recording studios (who are paid a daily or hourly rate) in a recording session. 

In the present day, advances in recording technology have allowed many producers and artists to create "home studios", bypassing the traditional role of the recording studio. The record producer oversees all aspects of the recording, making many of the logistic, financial and artistic decisions in cooperation with the artist.

Audio engineers (including recording, mixing and mastering engineers) are responsible for the audio quality of the recording.

A recording session may also require the services of an arranger, studio musicians, session musicians, vocal coaches, or even ghostwriter to help with the lyrics.

Distribution

In order for people to actually acquire and listen to music, the music must be available, by firstly being distributed - so that the public can access / purchase it.

Definition:
Distribution is actually distributing the music. Meaning its promotion, getting the music on sale in stores, on to the radio, and online to be streamed or downloaded.


Further:
Music distribution is definitely changing. Digital distribution is on the rise, and it has been for a few years now.

From Wikipedia: "The music industry has undergone drastic changes since the advent of widespread digital distribution of music via the Internet, which includes both illegal file sharing of songs and legal music purchases. A conspicuous indicator of this is total music sales: since 2000, sales of recorded music have dropped off substantially while live music has increased in importance. The largest music retailer in the world is now digital: Apple Inc.'s online iTunes Store"

The largest music retailer in the world doesn't own one CD, let alone one store. That shows how times have changed, how music distribution has changed.

Major Label Artists?

Major label artists have their music distributed by / through their label.

Independent Artists?

Independent artists can distribute their music quite easily now, through releasing it digitally. An artist can release their music for free on sites such as Soundcloud, YouTube or AudioClouds. Listeners are able to hear an independent artist's music without the need for said artist to have a label.

Marketing

In basic terms... marketing is either 'forced' or 'allowed'.

The music industry has undergone extreme changes over the past few years, many of which have opened the doors for developing bands and artists. Gone are the days where the only option for getting fans to hear your music relied upon support from a limited number of "gatekeepers."

Music is able to be distributed as described, it doesn't take a lot of exposure to sell music now.

There are two types of marketing:

-Push marketing

-Pull marketing

Push marketing is actually pushing the music out. Promoting it with advertisements on television, in magazines etc. This is from institutions to audiences, with no way for audiences to interact.


Pull marketing is allowing the music to be pulled. Audiences can receive music on their own terms, such as streaming a song from Soundcloud or a video from YouTube.

Sales

This chart shows the music report for the US in the year 2014. 

The past decade has brought about a major shift in income streams for the music business. Musicians have seen a spectacular rise in income from live performances which contributed to a significant increase in their overall revenue. The labels on the other hand are struggling, mostly due to the decreased revenue from recorded music.

As piracy would have a negative effect on the music industry it may have a positive effect on the live performance industry, as the money that would not have been spent on an artists album may go to the concert tickets to see them perform live.