Research - State of the music industry

The music industry has changed hugely since the last 10 years in all areas of production, distribution and exchange. Before, the music industry was divided clearly into two sides; one being mainstream which are large organisations, saturate markets, had high production values and were known as Majors. The other side to the music industry were independent companies which were small organisations, they operate independently and work with specific markets. Also, record labels own the music, not the artist.

The aim of the artist primarily is to get signed to a record label so they can make money and to do this they promote their music online. Also, another aim of the artist is to help them sell loads of album by releasing a single and promoting the song.

However changes have been made over the years because of development of technology and new strategies of production, distribution and exchange. Changes in mainstream music:

• 1970 -1950s there were the 'Big Six'
• late 90s - reduced to the 'Big Five'
• this was because of the development of conglomerates and merging of companies
• 2004 - 'Big 4' : EMI, Sony, Warner, Universal
• 2012 - 'Big 3' : Universal just bought EMI, $1.9 billion deal and they have to sell 'parlaphone', Warner and Sony

Between 2008 and 2012 sales for albums dropped over £100m.

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

Consumer behaviour has changed over the years too. Customers have become more active in their consumption of music as there are new places to buy and download music. The comersalisation of the internet has allowed people to download music online illegally and stream music online for free. 

People now use the internet to get their music including downloads from itunes, putting music onto their MP3 players or music devices, using google/amazon and etc. Illegal downloads have become a very popular method of getting music for free. There are 67 illegal download services in the UK and there are 1.2 billion illegal downloads in the UK. People also use YouTube MP3 converters to rip their music off from music videos. Streaming is another popular method as music can be delivered to use on demand. With some being free and some that require paid prescription. The free sites cover coasts with advertising deals with labels. 

Other methods of sharing music would be through social networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Also, fan sites and artist websites are a good way of sharing music. 

The role of music videos today is to either promote a new artist or to promote the latest single to sell the album. This is usually aired on MTV in the form of a play list selected by the channel. However, viewers have become more active instead of passive in the way they interact with the media. Hence why many people choose to use music channels such as YouTube to listen to music as it is fast and effective.