Music Ally

There’ll be a separate post with the basic facts, but Tim Walker of The Leading Question is presenting a survey carried out by that firm and us (Music Ally) on how music fans want to experience digital music. So I’m going to give some notes from Tim’s speech here as a companion to that.

How are fans keeping informed about fave artists? 68% artist websites and 64% artist email updates. 51% MySpace, almost double Facebook’s 28%. 40% use Google to find info about their favourite artists.

“Often when we talk to music fans, when you get beyond iTunes ecosystem, people get their music from Google – they use Google to search then go through to retailers to buy that track, but the brand they associate it is Google,” says Tim, saying AdWords is thus a very effective advertising medium, even for smaller music firms.

YouTube is 39%, artist blogs are 10%, ‘via my mobile phone’ is 5% and Bebo is 4%, with Others at 15% (obviously, people could say more than one answer.

More background – females are more ardent fans than males in general – they use more of these channels. Paying downloaders are more willing to sign up for updates. And these results were fairly standard across all three markets covered – the UK, US and France.

Next slide: what artist merchandise do fans buy? The most popular are t-shirts/clothing – 14% buy them regularly, but 55% buy the occasionally. Also buying live tour DVDs – 15% regularly and 51% occasionally. The challenge is to convert that occasional behaviour into regular behaviour.

Mobile content is 4% regular and 20% occasionally. Mufs and posters are 7% and 41% respectively, and virtual items (e.g on virtual worlds) are 2% and 6%. I’m trying to get the figures all down, but I think we’re releasing the report at some point on here with all the charts. Possibly.

What about fans’ interest in artist-based subscription models – subscribing to get cool content and offers. 30% said yes, 56% said it depends on the cost, and 13% said no. So how much? 51% said they’d only use it if it was free, but would accept ads. Those who would pay said they would pay £1-£5 for such a service. So there’s an opportunity for labels and managers to develop these kinds of models more.

What would fans want from these subscription models? 50% said exclusive unreleased MP3s, 42% said half-price gig tickets, 38% said priority access to gig tickets, and so on (sorry, that slide was quick).

What about the album format? Should bands release fewer albums – less songs more often? No. 88% said no, they lke albums. 9% said they’d like to see short albums/EPs with 2-5 songs each time, and 1% said they’d like their favourite artists to release one song at a time. Of people who are currently paying to download music, 85% still said they like albums.

Now file-sharing. Are fans worried about being caught for file-sharing? 68% said ‘I don’t file-share’ – ahem – 10% said yes, and 21% said no. So not a huge amount of concern. I’m giving overall stats here for the three markets – they do vary.

If fans received a letter from their ISP warning them about file-sharing (but not threatening disconnection), would they stop? Only 9% said no, while 64% said yes, and 27% said maybe. That ties in with other research released last year suggesting similar findings.

What if they were threatened with disconnection? 76% said yes – not a huge difference – 5% said no, and 19% said maybe.

But when you ask people who admit to file-sharing, 41% would stop on the basis of a warning letter, while 63% would stop on the threat of disconnection. SO the disconnection threat is more effective against file-sharers than non-file-sharers. But then, non-file-sharers wouldn’t be sent this threat, surely…

Right, digital behaviour – what do people do? 43% use streaming services, 40% are paid PC track downloaders 22% are paid PC album downloaders, ,19% admit to file-sharers, 4% download mobile tracks over the air, and 3% use subscription services. 29% use none of these. Bear in mind the survey asked people registered with a major label’s database – so they’re likely to be more engaged with legal music services.

(I’ll dig out the survey audience / methodology for the end of this post)

And how would people prefer to get their music services? The top by some way is their ISP (46%), and second is their cable/satellite TV provider (10%) – interestingly, these are increasingly the same company, and also they have been LEAST active in developing music services. 5% said their mobile operator, and 3% said their mobile handset manufacturer. 36% said none of these – presumably they’d stick with existing websites and digital stores.

Last slide, which is a complicated one. What kind of unlimited music download service would fans like to get. The most popular was one that was free fro their ISP or mobile network, but tied to that provider (the TDC Play model) – overall 41% chose this option.

38% preferred an annual up-front PC-based subscription model, like Datz Music Lounge. 14% said a rental-based subscription – the Napster / MusicStation model – while just 5% said a phone/PC based service from their mobile operator, and 2% said a phone/PC based service from their mobile handset maker – e.g. Comes With Music.

The survey was conducted in October/November, so Nokia’s big marketing campaign around CWM hadn’t quite kicked into gear.

And that’s a wrap.

Tags: midemnet, music ally

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 10:30 am and is filed under Digital Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.