By now, I’m sure anyone who has played with or owned a gaming console has heard of either Rock Band or Guitar Hero. If you’ve been to Walmart, its kinda hard to miss all the guitar controllers for those games as you walk past the electronics section. Rock Band is now planning an expansion that will make indie musicians, like myself, much more accessible. The Rock Band Network will allow bands to create their own Rock Band tracks from the studio recordings, then upload them for any Rock Band player to download. Fellow network members can try out the tracks in advance and rate them. I’m really excited by this. These games are another way to reach people who don’t go to concerts, they don’t buy the latest CD’s, they just know their video games and TV shows. Get more info at: http://creators.rockband.com/ and you can check out the video below to get a good idea about what’s coming:
No More Mom & Pops for EMI
When your business is hurting, the least advisable strategy is to reduce the ways people can get your product. I would try expanding the places people can find my products and making my product more accessible, but I’m not EMI. The international conglomerate has decided to focus their sales efforts on big box stores, like Best Buy, and one-stop shops, like Walmart. They are no longer going to distribute to small mom & pop record stores any more. I swear I’m not making this up. The supposed benefit for them is reduced costs, which is a reasonable prediction. I can also predict they will have reduced revenue too, which I hope, for their accountant’s sake, helps them come out better financially on the other end. Otherwise, not only will the accountant be looking for another job, but so will everyone else who works for EMI. Good luck with that.
iTunes is #1
iTunes has passed Walmart to become the biggest distributor of music, period. It’s the number one digital distributor and the number one overall distributor. Big stuff.
iTunes accounts for 19% of all the music sold today, compared to Walmart’s 15%. The next closest digital distributor is Rhapsody, with 1% (although Amazon is at 6%, but that’s a combination of digital and physical CD sales). Digital downloads, in general, account for 30% of all music sold.
Interesting and telling stat: 48% of teenagers didn’t buy a single CD last year. I think that’s only going to increase and digital sales will become one of the only ways to buy music (unless you buy a CD/memory stick/some-new-format directly from the band at a show).
I think the next thing will be artists selling download cards at shows instead of discs. I’ve been toying with the idea myself. It just seems to make so much more sense, ya know? The fan buys the card for the same amount as a CD or an album download, they go home, load up iTunes/Amazon/artist’s site/wherever and put in their claim code. They can then download the album, maybe in their choice of formats – depending on the site, and load it wherever they please. CDs are bulky, take up more space than the download cards, they break easily, and then are only used to rip MP3s into a computer and are now a pain for the fan to store. So skip a step and sell them a download in person. Autograph the card and the fan has a cool keepsake.
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