This & That

The Three Things You Need To Know About The UK Music Sales Figures

Mark Mulligan's avatarMusic Industry Blog

As most people expected, the UK recorded music industry returned to growth in 2015. The UK now follows an increasingly familiar European narrative of strong streaming growth helping bring total markets back to growth. Sales revenue increased 3.5% to reach £1.1 billion while total streams increased by 85% to reach 53.7 billion, with audio stream representing 49.9% of that total. There is no doubt that these are welcome figures for the UK music industry but as is always the case, a little digging beneath the surface of the numbers reveals a more complex and nuanced story. Here are the three things you need to know about UK music sales in 2015.

1 – Streaming Growth Accompanied A Download Collapse

Long term readers will know that I’ve long argued the ‘Replacement Theory’, that streaming growth directly reduces download sales. It is a simple and inevitable artefact of the transition process. Indeed…

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This & That

Underground Vs Commercial – Does it really matter?

Tel Young's avatarMEDIA EMPEROR

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The quote above sums this latest Post i have written.

Does it really matter if a track is classed as underground or commercial?

After trailing through various sites and forums and other various forms of social media i have seen people actually being bullied over the net for their taste in music, because they like a commercial record, or they are not underground enough and their sets contain the likes of Martin Garrix, Avicii, Don Diablo and so forth.

I find this attitude in music absolutely ridiculous. Its narrow minded, one dimensional way of thinking and it totally annoys me. The whole underground vs commercial debate is totally stupid and not needed in the world of music. It does not make a DJ instantly cooler because he has got the latest releases by a producer who is underground. It does not make the listener or the clubber any cooler because…

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Pandora Buys Rdio To Become A Global Streaming Powerhouse

Mark Mulligan's avatarMusic Industry Blog

pandora rdioPandora today announced that it was acquiring the assets of now failed subscription service Rdio.  While the whispers about Rdio’s future had been building for some time, the deal is more interesting for what it says about Pandora’s plans than what it says about the state of the subscription business.

Rdio Battled Bravely And Set Innovation Standards But Fell Short

For what Rdio lacked in subscriber numbers it made up for in innovation.  It continually set product and feature precedents that Spotify and others subsequently aped, and its $75 million dollar ad inventory deal with US radio giant Cumulus sets a business model blueprint that other streaming services will follow. But for all its efforts and extensive marketing efforts Rdio was simply not able to get to the same sort of level as Spotify’s 2nd tier competitors, let alone to seriously challenge Spotify itself.  The music subscription business is not…

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