This past week, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel at New Music Seminar entitled “Breakthrough Trends Of The Music Industry”. The panel was comprised of some of the brightest minds in the music business. These folks also know their statistics and where to get it. Some of them were very helpful in my popular argument this week about downloading.
The presentation had many amazing facts about where the music business is and where it’s heading. For one, 94% of all new releases sold fewer than 1000 copies (singles or albums). Wikipedia traffic is an accurate predictor of future sales. File trading is on the wane. Meanwhile, sales are up overall and more revenue is coming to artists and labels via SoundExchange every quarter. There’s been a lot of requests for the slides, so here is the deck presented at the panel. What’s your take on these figures?
Excellent blog post Jay. Thank you. I keep reminding myself and my artist that we cannot really look at the music business as a business. The statistics here are further proof that a rational investor would do better elsewhere. We’re in it for the music. However, your insights and books are very helpful to try and achieve a balance between the music as art and the music as a viable product. Keep up the good work. And if you’re back in Toronto before CMW let us know. We’d love to take you our for lunch.
All the best,
Jaime