The Music Industry in 2012

The Recoird industry traditionally has side whiuch is:

• Mainstream labels- Large organisations with revenue avaliable for different acts and are therefore able to saturate markets and offer high production values on promotional materials
• Independent lables- Seperate to and opereate independently of the mainstream labels. Often. operate without smaller audiences genres and cater to a specific market.

The aim of the artist is to be signed to a label in order to promote their music to the target audience and sell a maximum number of a albums. The record label owns most of the profit the song released...An artist will sell their song for $18.98 and would only make back 90cents.

Over the years ownership has changed dramatically, between the 1970s and the late 1990s, the industry was dominanted by 'The Big 6'. In the late 90s there became the merging of companies into a bigger company which created 'The Big 5. In 2004. Sony Music and BMG then merged and the market was dominated by 'The Big 4'. We are currently in proccess of being dominated by 'The Big 3', as Universal Music and EMI are in the middle of merging.
Each of these, own lots of smaller and subsidary labels that specialise in deifferent genres/areas of the market, which enable 'The big 3' to dominate the markets.

Sales for albums drop over £100m in 2 years:

• 2010- 319m
• 2009- 366m
• 2008- 428m

Nower days consumers have shifted to the internet and web 2.0 Eg, Youtube. People also want singles that they have heard on the radio. As well as there being a wider area of being able to access and buy music. There are about 67 legal music download services available in the UK alone, Eg Amazon and iTunes. 1/4 of all downloaded music in the UK is illegal. As well as streaming being avaliable, Eg Facebook and Google; this allows music to be deliverd to a user on demand. Sites can be free or you can buy paid subscription, however free sites often cover their costs with advertising revenue. Also artist can sell their music on their own websites.

Music videos 'today' are struggling to have the same impact on the record sales. Youtube means that fans can access the song and video on demand for free. Videos needs to give the artist exposure and engage new and existing fans, without a video the song may not have the same impact.