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Lead: The price of a subscription service sits at a psychologically attractive $£€9.99 monthly fee and that helps hook users. The problem, however, is that this price point solidified in the early 2000s with Rhapsody and has not increased in line with inflation in 14 years. Around it other products – from loaves of bread to […]
Lead: Secondary ticketing is seen as fleecing the fans (according to its critics) or providing a valuable service that ticketing companies can’t or won’t offer (according to its supporters). Beyond that, however, is a growing grey economy that is worth billions each year – where vast sums of money are being generated but not going to […]
Lead: Digital is proving both curse and blessing for music and brands. On the one hand, it allows younger consumers to become invisible. On the other hand, the push for more branded content means smaller acts are getting a (slightly) fairer crack of the whip while digital music is opening up emerging markets as it […]
In our cover feature we pick apart SoundCloud’s move into subscriptions. It has been a long – and often tense – journey to go from a free UGC platform to one fully licensed by all the majors and key indies. Now with those deals in place, it’s launching SoundCloud Go (initially in the US) and […]
Lead: DIY has a long tradition in music, but the focus has tended to be (from punk, through indie, hip-hop and grime) around how the music was disseminated. The latest do-it-yourself revolution could, however, be around online and social advertising. There is a case being made for artists and labels seizing control from ad agencies […]
In our cover feature we look at the staggering success of Finnish gaming company Supercell and, rather than rub it in the music industry’s face, we consider precisely how artists and labels can learn from it and other gaming companies like it. From applying a different ruler to freemium to understanding gateway purchases and celebrating […]
Lead: At the turn of the century, the industry’s reaction to P2P was to try and sue or arrest filesharers. Today a different approach is being taken by companies who see filesharing less as an economic threat and more of a marketing opportunity. We talk to the companies trying to turn the tables here as […]
Lead: Spotify and Pandora are now opening up to let acts and their marketing teams find out who their biggest fans are and directly contact them with rewards. Meanwhile platforms like Hive are promising to simplify the targeting and rewarding of super-fans across multiple data points. In this age of laser-guided segmentation, nothing should be […]
Lead: In the “old days” (i.e. five years ago), big albums would have been kept off streaming services in other to push download and CD sales. Today windowing is often about pushing streams as much as possible – except on YouTube. The video site has been criticised in the past over its payment rates and […]
Lead: Ad-blocking software is nothing new but when Apple starts to allow it for iOS9 devices then everyone needs to sit up and pay attention. Way beyond the undermining of ad-funded services’ business models, the impact for the music industry could be huge – with analytics and online metrics at risk of becoming close to useless. We speak to those engaged in the music industry’s latest game of whack-a-mole to ask them what it means and what, if anything, can be done about it.
Our cover feature looks at why the PRS/SoundCloud legal tussle is a foreshadowing of the single biggest issue that will impact on the digital music industry next year. At the very heart of it is the viability and future of safe harbour. On the one side is the creator’s right to create and the copyright […]
Lead: The live music business has not been turned on its head by digital in quite the same way as the record business has – but it is really starting to feel the impact. We look at how huge clouds of data from a variety of sources can help acts plan their tours more effectively, […]
