Some of the Most Significantly Changing Musical Trends - Essay Example

MUSIC BUSINESS The future of commercial music industry in the next five years: Spellman P mentioned in his article that the music industry is entering the new era of success and receiving record capital from its customers, and with changing trends everywhere in every business, the musical trends are also changed including the creation, composition as well as trends of listening is changing. Below are some of the most significantly changing musical trends? The propose is to have an overview for the sake of both the producers as well as the consumers of the music industry. Rights and Collection Agencies: As a matter of fact, the ratings of the collection agencies will fall in importance as most of the media people are in the habit of making decision based on the maters of accountability and the final results instead of relying on the total viewers of a particular channel. Collection agencies are evolving in large basically to cut off the revenues spent on the continuous exercise of supervising and evaluating the task of copyrights both in the local as well as international market. So the member of the music industry should be able to understand the legislation regarding the copyrights as well as a core knowledge should be there about the delivery of the music to the consumers in addition to the basic trends of users of this industry which are all the time changing. Collection agencies also need to develop latest technology to have a continuous record of the inward flow of the copyright capital and the income related to the royalty. At large, collection agencies are usually playing an important role in the industry, by making lobbies among the policy makers of music industry, by exploiting the information about the business and these agencies can be beneficial in promoting this talent by awarding scholarships to the deserving ones. Copyright Issues: The major portion of the capital in the music industry are created with the help of musical concepts which is done by collaborate effort of the market and the members of the instrument industry. As in all the other industries these ideas have to be protected and that is done by the means of copyrights creation. But there is one exception in this regard as in the music field the main idea of the artist is not protected rather it is some modified fixed form of that idea which comes under the copyright act. In addition to this, the copyrights are not issued and instead these are kept with the author or the publishing authority. Capitals in the music industry are built through the musical innovations with the aid of specialized institutions and market support. Like in other industries copyrights hold utmost importance for the capital generation but in contrast to other industries, in music field the copyrights does not protect the idea of the artist itself rather its expression to certain extent is given copyrights for example a certain form of music cannot be protected through copyrights but its expression by certain artist can be protected. In addition to this, copyrights are not usually distributed rather kept with the author or the publisher of the idea. In this way by weakening these copyrights issues, the musical industry is allowing the expansion of music across the world. In other industries, the inventor of a new idea usually earns a lot through his ideas by maintaining the secrecy of the idea and also by demanding a very high capital for the product which may not consider the market level at sometimes even. Whereas the lyricist has the main interest in the market size he has rather than the financial motive. So in the next 5 or 10 years, one of the areas of which will be needing the main attention is the field of copyrights as through this one can aid in promoting the industry to a greater extent and at a greater pace and as a consequence will be covering the major part of the world. New Media: One of the most remarkable invention which has and which will affect the musical industry is an iPod which has succeeded to motivate the people to buy music online from different websites some of which are apple’s i Tunes music store or Amazon. But the problem with this type of development is one that this development is totally dependent on these devices like iPod and if at sometimes the interest in these devices starts to regress, as a consequence the interest in digital music will also be decreased. It is often said that digital media is the replacement of music CD but it is not the true representative of the situation as digital music is trending now a days but may not be the trend in the near future so the ultimate musical hardware will be the key to generate capital in the musical industry. At the forum of International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI, which is the representative of the musical industry, one of the presenter agreed to the fact that the sales of digital music has slowed in the recent times. If we have a look at the figures of 2009, the CD sales fell by about 10 to 12% which led to a loss of about $1.6bn but on the other side the digital downloads increased by only 9.2% receiving just $400million of the total gain. Another presenter commented that digital download assets are increasing but not at the same pace as they were increasing in the last few years. So from the above discussion we can assume that though the sales of digital music are on the rise but not in pace with the decline in the sales of musical CDs so in order to look this matter, some concrete steps will have to be taken in order to consolidate and expedite these sales or to promote the CD market by giving different promotion offers. Branding: As a matter of the fact, all the remarkable developments which are made in the music industry are in one way or the other related to the digital music. As in recent times, a lot of big brands have entered the market of digital music so there will be increasing competition among these brands which will result in more creativity in turn. As all these brand leaders whether these are music companies, electronic industry, mobile soft ware as well as mobile hardware industry and all the advertisers have to compete in the industry to have better outputs. At the end of this competition among these companies, there will be some companies for sure which will be leading the others but the net effect of this competition will be accelerated growth in this market. In the last century, the recording and the distribution of the music was an economically sustainable industry. It causes the consumer satisfaction as well as the compensation of the performers, composers as well as distributors for their struggle. In the era of classical music, these recordings served the artists in different ways. In case of popular performers it was the main source of income and on the other hand it also aid in the promotion of the artist. The more were the recordings of a particular artist, the more prestigious will be the name of that artist. But in contrast to the previous century, the trends are completely changed and in the future times in classical music, capital will be generated either by donation or with the support of advertisements and in some cases these can be generated through endorsements. Recorded format will not be having any other propose other than to promote the talent and the name of an artist and will not be for the propose of capital generation In addition to the classic media, every digital download or streaming of a particular artist’s track will increase its brand value and will aid in the promotion of the artist as well as composer. It will not be increasing the revenue directly rather will be increasing the revenue indirectly by promoting the brand as well as by augmenting the demand of the listeners. Sponsorship: The marketing methods which were leading the advertisement industry about a decade back are losing the control on their customers drastically and on the other hand the consumers on the receiving side are also changing their behaviors at a tremendous pace. The behavior of the consumer is more rashes and more products oriented which results in a change in their media trends and they are very particular about the brands they use and if they find something unacceptable they show their response very quickly. In recent days and also in the upcoming musical era, the consumers will be defining and redefining the musical brands by themselves by listening to too many different artists and on too much developed technologies. So the sponsorship as well as the advertisement skills of a particular artist or a musical device brand holds the key role in the overall impact of that product whether it is some song or a digital music device. Improve Data Collection: The music industry sponsors usually are interested in utilizing some tools for timely monitoring of the available data at a prompt pace. This is made possible with the help of some companies that keep the record of audiences, all the transactions related to that product, also have information regarding market shares and about the capital at the box office. Most of the music companies as well as advertisers have contracts with such institutions to have accurate information about their companies. Live Music: There is no doubt whatever that the live music industry is enjoying the best time as regard the capital as well as the customer support but what will be the future of this industry? In past years, one factor which revolutionizes the field of live music was the introduction of the promoter to convince the audience for going on a live in concert. In those days every promoter was a brand in itself and was just serving the singer or the band but not the listeners. So a change in this trend was brought upon to expand the extent of the live music and the concert advertisement was accompanied by posters of the artist, web links to download the concert as well as the CDs of that concert also so that those who did not attend the concert can also enjoy that time. Now a day’s, companies arranging live in concerts are also interested in taking the contact details of the viewers so as to serve different proposes including the feedback of the audience regarding the event and also about the facilities at the venue of the event. In the recent and the upcoming times, like any other big industry, live music industry is also moving toward globalization. The larger promoters are taking over smaller promoters both nationally and internationally. The benefit of an international takeover is to gain a new client group and in that attempt if some brand can convince the agents of a famous band then it will certainly improve that’s company profile. One of the bigger changes that will happen in the live music industry will be the methods and trends of ticketing. Till now, usually the promoter was involved in printing and selling the tickets through his distribution partners usually the record stores, and the box office. Now the field of ticketing is changing as the online ticketing is available and even you can buy your ticket through your mobile franchiser after which you can print this ticket out or send the code back to your service provider and show that code at the concert and they will let you go in and you will not have to go through the conventional ticketing process. This type of ticketing technology sound impressive to the customer as a result it will be on the rise in the upcoming years. But there is one problem with this technology as there is less involvement of the promoter with the cash as cash is going directly to the companies involved in the ticketing so these ticketing companies if strong enough can be in a position to deal directly with the bands without the involvement of a promoter. Recent Changes to the Way in Which Music are Distributed, Bought and Sold: While describing recent changes regarding music, Kenneth, A. describes some ways in which music is distributed and sold in the previous years to the recent times. Phonographs (From early 19th century to the mid of 20th century) Radio (Early 20th century) Stereo Systems (Early 20th century to mid 20th century) Eight Tracks & Audio Cassettes (1960’s to early 1980’s) Compact Discs (Late 1970’s to early 1990’s) MP3 Format (1990’s) Music on the Internet (21st century) IPOD (Present and the future) References: 1. Spellman, P. Staying Ahead Of The Curve: Music Marketing Trends You Can Count On. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 30th Nov 2010]. 2. Guardian.co.uk. iPod hits a sour note as apps take over. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 1st Dec 2010]. 3. PORTIORESEARCH. (2007). Digital Music Futures 2007-2011. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 1st Dec 2010]. 4. The Business of Classical Music. (2008). Classical Music after the CD. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 1st Dec 2010]. 5. Robin Good. Marketing Communications Future: The Twilight of Interruption, the Dawn of Engagement Marketing. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 1st Dec 2010]. 6. Future of Music. FMC Releases "Same Old Song" Playlist Analysis Report. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 2nd Dec 2010]. 7. Reynolds, A. The Future of Life Music Industry. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 2nd Dec 2010]. 8. Kenneth, A. Journal of Business Case Studies. (2008). A Case Study of the Music Industry. Volume 4, Number 3. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 2nd Dec 2010]. Read More