INDUSTRY 2018-19 points

IN THIS POST:
See below for a list of themes/points/case studies covered.
The idea of this is to gather a range of resources, as I encounter them, which help to inform you on the music industry. it will be a rather big post! Use this with an earlier summary with examples mostly not referenced here, but also the various tags!!!

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8520844/money-makers-major-labels-individual-revenues

Do they pay enough? This audio atrocity made a lot of money for a charisma-free star... Read on to find out who

“At the beginning of the digital revolution it was common to say that digital was killing music,” said Edgar Berger, chief executive of the international arm of Sony Music Entertainment. Now, he added, it could be said “that digital is saving music.” [NYTimes]

......

Did you know that primitive, bleepy (polyphonic) ringtones were the 1st major market for the music biz on the then new smartphones? This headline comes from 2005, when people paid up to $/£4 for a single ringtone, changing these as the charts changed. Online distribution, popularised by piracy site Napster from 1999, began to be monetised by labels from 2000, and by 2003 this was a booming market. In a sign of how fast things change, digital downloads, the 2nd big market, are tipped to disappear soon ... and the ringtone market (and charts!) already has. Of course, there's now a retro market for this defunct technology, and Crazy Frog lives on...
....

TO EDIT......
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/metallica-napster-lawsuit/
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tim-ingham-music-industry-status-2018-771105/

HMV is a bedrock of the British music industry – its loss would affect us all

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/30/hmv-is-a-bedrock-of-the-british-music-industry-its-loss-would-affect-us-all?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

IN THIS POST: 
I began this just as a summary on a report on UMG's increasing profits, but I've widened it out to provide key facts/figures on the music industry. As well as multiple tags (monetising, merchandise, music industry, Spotify, distribution etc) you can find key posts like this industry summary, ppt on Bicep example with more egs of monetising, and this post with graphs and stream revenue calculators, + this 2018 summary which drew on multiple articles:

• when did it peak (were revenues highest)? 1999
• why did revenues fall after this? Online distribution made piracy easy (eg Napster) and undermined the appeal of expensive CDs 
• by today a whole generation has grown up with the attitude that music is/should be free; not prepared to pay for albums (there's even a political party campaigning for this: The Pirate Party)
• ...indeed, the album is being undermined, with streams from albums on Spotify typically focused on just 3-4 songs
• monetizing recorded music is therefore not as easy as it once was;
• the existing business practice, distributing recorded music as physical media, was disrupted by convergence/digitisation
• the smartphone (+phablets/tablets) is the key converged device for the music industry, overtaking the PC where previously people would access the likes of Napster
• by 2012, streaming/digital sales revenues overtook physical sales in the US
• it wasn't until 2017 that this happened in the overall, global market (broadband, 3G/4G rollout and take-up being slower in many markets)
• the digital sales market was initially key, especially iTunes sales, but will soon be overtaken by vinyl revenues!!! 
• other early digital markets have quickly disappeared as technology accelerated: ringtones were a huge market just a decade ago
• the video in this post uses the 'polymorphic', 8-bit music style that people used to pay a few euros to get for their phones, before continued convergence made it easy to load your own (probably ripped from YouTube) MP3
• starting in 2000, this was the 1st way the music biz had of making money from phones - the US ringtone market alone was worth $300m by 2004 (Japan $900m, globally about $3.5bn [see Wiki]). It declined from 2008 on; by 2014, the ringtone chart was abandoned (see this article)

  

  a whole market that's now gone: polyphonic ringtones

• see this interactive website to sample a range of ringtones over time! 
• streaming now accounts for over half of all music industry revenues and is growing, while physical media sales continue to fall 
• UMG 2017-2018: digital (streaming/sales) up 1/3, physical down 20%
• the payment per stream remains controversial: the music industry strongly argue that YouTube especially must pay much more - see the calculator below
• the EU may pass laws to force YouTube to pay more...
• ...which may lead to millions of fan videos being taken down!!!
• touring (tickets) and merchandising, + sponsorship, tie-ins, etc are another key means of monetising for artists and labels
• but labels increasingly force artists to sign '360 deals' including image rights + a % of tour revenues

........................................
DOES YOUTUBE PAY ENOUGH PER STREAM??
I've blogged on this (and Spotify and others before); here's a revenue calculator for 1 of the most streamed videos ever ... you can try it for others ...

UNIVERSAL'S PROFITS SOAR EVEN AS PHYSICAL MEDIA CONTINUES TO FALL

Lot of great details in this musicbusinessworldwide feature on the corporate fortunes of UMG (Universal Music Group), one of the big 3 that accounts for a combined 80% of the global music industry's revenues...

• UMG's streaming revenues are greater than Spotify's total revenues, a reminder of the diversity within a market dominated by bug names like Spotify, YouTube and Apple, but with plenty more such as Amazon and Deezer.
• Overall revenues are rising despite continuing steep falls in physical media revenues.
• Rock music is very much secondary to rap/rnb/urban for sales (this goes back about a decade)

There's lots of business terms/abbreviations here:

• YoY = year-on-year (eg 2018 profits up on 2017's)
• Q4 = Quarter 4 (businesses publish reports on revenues, profits, losses every 3 months ... every quarter

If you were to ask Sir Lucian Grainge what his favorite genre of music is right now, you’d have to guess he’d say hip-hop.
According to Vivendi, Universal Music Group’s five biggest revenue-generating artists in the first nine months of this year were: (i) Drake; (ii) Post Malone; (iii) Kendrick Lamar; (iv) XXXTentacion; and (v) Migos.
These acts drove UMG’s recorded music sales in the first nine months of 2018 to an all-time high of €3.28bn ($3.93bn), up 10.2% YoY at constant currency.

Remember that the music industry constantly moans about piracy and the streaming platforms paying too little per stream ... yet profits are increasing overall.

HOW PROFITS BEGAN RISING AGAIN AFTER FALLING EVERY YEAR FROM 1999-2011

After years of falling from their 1999 peak, the industry (not just UMG) starting growing again in 2012, as this 2013 report highlights:

The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought recovery might have begun.
The increase, of 0.3 percent, was tiny, and the total revenue, $16.5 billion, was a far cry from the $38 billion that the industry took in at its peak more than a decade ago. Still, even if it is not time for the record companies to party like it’s 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide significant encouragement.
“It’s clear that 2012 saw the global recording industry moving onto the road to recovery,” said Frances Moore, chief executive of the federation, which is based in London. “There’s a palpable buzz in the air that I haven’t felt for a long time.”For years, the music industry’s decline looked terminal, with the record companies seemingly unable to come up with digital business models that could compete with the lure of online piracy. Last year, however, digital sales and other new sources of revenue grew significantly enough to offset the continuing decline in CD sales.

UNIVERSAL'S GRIP TIGHTENS AS THEY SIGN UP TAYLOR SWIFT
Universal just tightened its grip on the industry with the signing of Taylor Swift, though they agreed to give her ownership of the masters of all recorded music, a big change from usual industry practice, and to pass money from sale of its shares in Spotify to its artists.

Taylor Swift leaves lifelong label to sign with Universal Music Group

More details: Taylor Swift strikes a blow for fellow artists as digital revenues soar

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/24/taylor-swift-blow-fellow-artists-streaming-revenues-soar-universal-spotify?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

https://www.cbcmusic.ca/posts/20648/danny-michel-opens-up-about-reality-being-musician

$44.99 sales, including $0.003 per Spotify stream, for a Canadian artist's top 10 hit (Canada charts and figures)

New campaign to get Spotify etc to tag Indie artists and boost the 19.55% global share not taken by the big 3.

https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2018/11/spotify-apple-music-urged-to-label-indie-music.html

https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2018/11/the-music-business-is-about-more-than-just-the-big-three.html

Music biz revenues grew in 2017+2018 as streaming booms.

Universal expanding in China/Asia.

Metallica launch Enter Night Pilsner, building on whiskey (Rolling Stone).
They even released a 'making of' video! (Blabbermouth)

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/jobs/spotify-manager-artist-label-marketing-us/

Physical sales so reduced, a Jan 2019 #1 only had 823 album sales!!!

Average Spotify user only paying 5.5o, and falling, as global rollout in poorer countries builds and family plans too.

https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019/01/record-labels-evolve-to-stay-relevant-in-the-streaming-era-musonomics-report.html

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/features/8492870/spotify-direct-to-artist-tools-label-territory

https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/01/is-the-music-industry-dead

MUSIC INDUSTRY 2018 some pointers

This is a quick post inspired by encountering the site musicbusinessworldwide.com

UPDATE: Useful review of music video trends in 2918, including the return of mega-budgets for a handful of elite artists:

Drake’s mates and Taylor Swift’s cosplay: exploring the 2018 music video

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/19/drakes-mates-and-taylor-swifts-cosplay-exploring-the-2018-music-video?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

I was looking for some info on the 1D GCSE exam case study but spotted a number of great articles on here. So here's a few pointers based on the site.

You can find a bullet list I previously did summing up some key music industry points (with many links to posts) here.

AS CDS DISAPPEAR TOURS ARE JUST THE TICKET: 1D EXAMPLE
A point I make many, many times: the traditional music industry model has been through disruption from digitisation (though it hasn't rebalanced the competition in favour of Indies; see Anita Elberse's fascinating analysis of how big 3 acts utterly dominate Amazon sales, making the 'long tail theory' seem absurd), so labels are looking for new revenue sources. Merchandise is a key factor - when I went to see The Wedding Present (UK Indie band) in Luxembourg last year, I got to chat to the singer after the gig, who was at the merch stall signing his own comic book range alongside the usual tee-shirts etc.

The likes of 1D aren't going to do that. They did sell VIP packages for gigs - something else I saw at a Depeche Mode gig, with multiple tiers including a basic that simply allowed you into the venue earlier to hear the soundcheck. I've blogged on Taylor Swift and Katy b Perry doing this, with fans paying a lot for a selfie opportunity. [meet-and-greets post]

The basic breakdown is clear though - most major artists (Indies too) will gain more from tours than album sales. Even combined with streaming (which is now bigger than physical sales and download sales combined) that remains the case. Getting onto TV ads, film/game OSTs are also potentially lucrative.

Big Three Sony Universal Warners

In film its the big six (7 if you count Lionsgate); in the music industry, following a controversial 2012 $2bn takeover of EMI by Universal, its just the big three: Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group. Sony and Universal also combine on the VEVO platform.

See: thebalance.com feature on the big 3; musicbusinessworldwide.com (the spin on this one is a bit odd - that the ENTIRE Indie industry beats any one of the big three individually); digitalmusicnews.com; this pdf.

Table from digitalmusicnews.

You can see how the industry has gone through dramatic 'disruption' from digitisation - but with little impact on the market share of the dominant conglomerates:

Source: p.11 of this report (pdf).

INDUSTRY Big 3 revenues streaming surge

Music streaming hailed as industry's saviour as labels enjoy profit surge https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/29/music-streaming-industry-saviour-labels-spotify-apple-music?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

Will Spotify kill the music download?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/26/spotify-music-download-apple-itunes-streaming-vinyl?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

Record sales: vinyl hits 25-year high

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jan/03/record-sales-vinyl-hits-25-year-high-and-outstrips-streaming?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

INDUSTRY Can we judge a hit anymore? Rihanna's Anti

Huge amount you can glean from this:

• very precise info on how the US industry officially calculates what streams are worth as notional sales
• an analysis of the confusion over whether Rihanna's new album is a smash hit or a serious flop
• a range of (often hyperlinked) examples of large-scale tie-ins that's seen Samsung especially pay to distribute 1m copies of various albums (including Anti) - not forgetting the controversial U2/Apple case
• a new twist on the use of websites as a promotional tool (Rihanna's bewildering recent effort)
• her full-on use of social media to tease and trail the album ... then delays ... then confusion between streaming company Tidal (she's a major stakeholder) and record label Universal...

ARTICLE: Rihanna's Anti sold fewer than 1,000 copies in a week. Is it a flop?

INDUSTRY Universal acclaim down to marketing spend

A truly angry article, packed with useful detail on the monopolised music industry and how the biggest player, Universal, used its vast resources to seal influential critic awards.

A sample quote:

Add in similar costs for a TV and radio plugger, to get the music aired in public and make voters feel that said act really is the kind of label priority worth voting for, and the same again for an online marketing team to make things appear “viral” and “organic”, and you will be lucky to get much change out of £100,000. Labels say that the cost of developing and launching a new mainstream pop act today can be anywhere between £500,000 and £1m. With winning the tastemaker polls seen as the blue chip moment in a launch campaign, it’s clear why an increasing number of chips from a decreasing number of bettors are being stacked on the side of the BBC’s roulette wheel.

ARTICLE: How do you become music's next big thing? You hope your record label will spend, spend, spend.

INDUSTRY Universal owner buys DailyMotion - isVEVO dead?

http://www.baeblemusic.com/musicblog/7-1-2015/the-death-of-vevo.html

INDUSTRY WEB 2.0 Conglomerates sued over fees for 'broken' downloads

Great illustration over the downsides of web 2.0 and how the likes of John McMuria may be right in arguing that the brave digital new world is simply a slightly reconstituted lineup of giant conglomerates, not the newly democratic, level playing field technotopians see it as.

Universal is in the frame here, but their practices are fairly standard for the record industry.

Article link below the line.

Customised ads within vids: Universal tech deal

More on this shortly: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/30/universal-deal-adverts-mirriad-existing-music-videos.

...Quick summary of key points:

CrowdFunding: Universal muscles in for vinyl reissues

Universal appeal? Ah, never mind

Crowdfunding is generally seen as one of the key means by which digitisation offers a democratisation of media production, enabling producers at any level to appeal directly to fans or investors (the line is often blurred) for funding for new projects, which might be a new game, album, film, app, etc.

I've blogged on this before, with many big-name artists and film-makers turning to this model for funding, generally offering promotional packages rather than financial returns for this funding - signed copies, chance to appear as an extra, extra tracks, deluxe packaging, etc.

So much for levelling the ground for the little guy: news comes of Universal's (rather smart to be fair) wheeze to take any risk out of the recent trend of re-releasing albums on vinyl, reflecting the steep increase* in vinyl sales (and the long tail theory). So, instead of taking a punt on which album to expensively re-press on vinyl, Universal instead put it to fans: if enough of you provide advance funding, we'll do it - advance publicity and sales in one go, and premium pricing to boot. Cynical, but smart.

*Vinyl sales doubled from 2012 to 2013, with David Bowie and Daft Punk releases amongst those seeing sales of the format soar.
 
Here's Sean Michaels on the story:

How YouTube fan vids make artists money: Harlem Shake eg

IN BRIEF:

The stats in this article seemed modest by March

The bottom line? The dominant narrative around digitisation and the music industry is of piracy and the disruption to the traditional record industry model centred on purchases of physical media. How fair the payment splits are can be debated, but music video's viral potential does offer a chance to make money - even if its fans (re)making their own versions of an original video. Their work can deliver significant cash to the artists behind the original.

Its a simple but fundamental point if you want to understand how the music business works today: while debates may rage around streaming services such as Spotify and just how much/little remuneration they provide to artists, there is serious money to be made from distribution through YouTube - and that includes fan-made vids/UGC (user-generated content). The lexicon of YT would label many of these 'responses'.

Scroll to the bottom for info on the new YouTube-based record label, All Def Music, a collaboration between Russell Simmons, Universal Music Group and others. 

This blog's description makes reference to the ongoing status of music video, and particularly to the scope of viral hits to raise serious revenues. Here's a little detail on how a much-mimicked video, in a very postmodern fashion (one that would gain a knowing smile from Andy Warhol, whose 'Factory' churned out 'his' work actually produced by others!), makes money directly from the multiple 'tributes', 'responses', remakes, term them what you will:

Those who enroll in the content ID service give YouTube a reference file of their content. They then choose between getting videos that are found to use that content blocked from the site, or taking a slice of the advertising revenue those rip-off videos generate and tracking the original's success.

VEVO vertically integrates with TV channels

VEVO, as a coalition of 2 of the 3 remaining global giants, Universal and Sony, already had a production arm; YouTube acted as the main distributor/exhibitor for its wares (music videos) until now, arguably being of greater importance than MTV and suchlike. Now they've launched their own channels, so are able to boast in-house production, distribution and exhibition.
There's more in the article below, including the assertions that "Part of what we're trying to achieve is that element of nostalgia but 70% of our audience is under 34."
YouTube has now bought a 10% stake in VEVO.

Article source.

Vevo launches 24-hour digital music channel in US and Canada

Video website hopes to recreate MTV's 1980s heyday with service for internet-connected TVs, tablets and mobiles

• Josh Halliday
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 March 2013

Rihanna: likely to feature on Vevo TV. Photograph: Stuart Wilson/Getty Images

Thirty-one years after MTV flickered into life to the sound of the Buggles hit Video Killed the Radio Star, the video website Vevo has launched a 24-hour digital music channel in the US and Canada.
Vevo, the site created by record giants Universal Music and Sony, hopes to recreate MTV's 1980s heyday with the channel, showing a selection of music videos, live concerts and original programming.

TOWID (The Only Way Is Digital)

2013 is clearly set to see digitisation continue apace, with analogue media being displaced by digital media which are typically cheaper to produce and distribute. That doesn't mean that analogue media, such as films shot on 35mm and distributed as 35mm prints to cinemas (each print costing £000s), will disappear, but that bit by bit the industry is moving over to digital content.
Here's some useful stats from this article, about Google buying a 10%, $50m stake in the video distributor Vevo (the joint Sony/Universal venture that you'll have come across if you've watched a few videos on YouTube, given how much of the music industry their artist sales represent):

Earlier this month the Entertainment Retailers Association reported that downloads of music, TV shows, films and video games topped £1bn in the UK for the first time in 2012. Digital music sales grew but revenue from physical singles fell by 44% year on year and albums dropped 11%.

The cinema industry and CD sales remain strong but, like newspapers, which are also seeing circulation declining rapidly as more people access their news online, may not have a bright future. The record set by Skyfall, 2012's Bond movie, may never be beaten: it became the first movie to take in over £100m at the UK box office by the last week in December 2012 (it was already the biggest ever UK cinema hit, and topped $1bn worldwide).

Copyright and YouTube

See also http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jan/04/record-labels-making-money-youtube; http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/youtube; http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/oct/10/music-streaming-songwriters-youtube-pandora; http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/16/youtube-teens-first-choice-music; http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/dec/28/youtube-video-views-disappear-migrate.

Whereas your final AS coursework must feature zero copyright material, you're using a copyrighted track for your A2 coursework - have you remembered to evidence, as required by the exam board, an attempt to contact the rights holder (usually the record label) for permission to use the track for this work, making clear you're not seeking to profit from using their copyrighted material (and might even encourage some people to buy the track through your video!)?

Since YouTube introduced an automatic detection system (see the Wiki) and signed deals with most of the major TV, film and music companies (as you'll have seen from your Media work, these tend to be subsidiaries of massive horizontally and vertically integrated conglomerates such as News Corp and NBC-Universal), the issue of 'fair usage' of copyrighted materials has evolved a little.

Link at the end of the post: a very useful site for exploring the issue further

If any of your work contains any copyrighted material you might find its deleted by YouTube, or blocked in certain nations but not others (dependent on which countries its deals have been signed in). This will particularly the case where you've used lengthy clips from films. Where you've used a short clip, or any copyrighted music, you're more likely to find a notice on your channel uploads page telling you there is 'matched copyright material'.

My vodcasts used clips short enough to be considered 'fair usage'

Rather than delete or block the upload, the more common response is simply to assert that other copyright holders' material has been used, and force ads onto your upload, the revenues from which will be split between YouTube and the copyright holder.
I've tried to find a definitive acceptable length of film clips which won't generate a YouTube blocked upload, without success so far (if you find anything on this please pass it on). I'd suggest aiming for 30secs or less, using freeze frames with original audio removed for anything over this, but that's a guess. Check your uploads for anything being blocked. So far, we've not problems with any A2 music videos, just AS film vodcasts (and a compilation of scenes which used a Depeche Mode a couple of years ago), including one of mine (vodcast on scream queens + final girls, available to view on request) in which I simply used too much of Bride of Chucky.

FairUseTube.org provide a very considered analysis of the issues involved, YouTube's policies and also highlight some of the common abuses - where fraudulent companies simply claim you've used their copyright material when that's not the case. I think I may have found one such dubious claim on my channel, for past AS coursework where the soundtrack was composed in school using GarageBand! In such cases, the fraudulent company pockets the money from ads which YouTube force on to the upload.
See http://fairusetube.org/dvd-ripping-guide; http://fairusetube.org/youtube-copyfraud; http://fairusetube.org/guide-to-youtube-removals and other such links on the site.

YouTube itself offers a guide, including lengthy videos, though they shy away from being specific over such matters as how much of a single TV show, film or other text goes beyond the fair usage doctrine - see also the Wiki on Fair Usage.

The Uni of Houston's DigitalStoryTelling site also features a considered discussion of the issues and legal policies.

INDUSTRY Universal-EMI Monopoly?

I've posted several times on this, and will add links to all below at some point, but here's a fresh angle on this story - which is ideal to help you show some knowledge and understanding of the economic operation of the music biz, as well as the impact of digitisation. The story features Universal, so should remind you of the concepts you came across when studying British cinema...

The proposed 'merger' of Universal and EMI (basically, the British giant EMI being swallowed up by the US giant Universal) has been very controversial and may now be blocked as US politicians in the Senate have argued this would endanger competition in digital media, and threaten to push up CD prices by reducing competition. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/03/mediabusiness-emi.

I notice also that Universal have been providing the music used at the Olympics, a handy spot of global advertising there (their fellow Vivendi subsidiary NBC, the US TV network, are broadcasting the Games in the US): http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/04/olympic-stadium-music-locog.

INDUSTRY: EMI sale creates Big 3

With the announcement that EMI is being bought up as two packages by Sony and Universal, the already absurd concentration of ownership that was the big 4 now becomes the big 3, as I blogged on recently:

The last British giant, EMI, has been in the hands of private equity companies for some time, and has been effectively for sale for a while now, the private investors having bought it at what now seems an obviously inflated price just as the music industry began to feel the financial impact of digitisation.

This article contains a useful update on all this.
So, will the Big Four become the Big Three?

-------------------------------------------------------

A little bit of theory: Chomsky's propaganda model includes as one of the five filters 'concentration of ownership, while Ben Badikian has written about the negative impact of monopoly (a topic we'll explore for the exam Media Regulation topic) in his classic book The Media Monopoly (now renamed The New Media Monopoly)

Leading corporations own the leading news media and their advertisers subsidize most of the rest. They decide what news and entertainment will be made available to the country; they have direct influence on the country's laws by making the majority of the massive campaign contributions that go to favored politicians; their lobbyists are permanent fixtures in legislatures.
This inevitably raises suspicions of overt conspiracy. But there is none. Instead, there is something more insidious: a system of shared values within contemporary American corporate culture and corporations' power to extend that culture to the American people, inappropriate as it may be. (excerpt from http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/Afterword_Bagdikian.html)

You can find an archive of articles at http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/emi
Some recent, useful additions include:
'EMI: the sad demise of a very British company: For three decades, EMI took on the world in record sales. Now its sale to Sony and Universal marks the end for the music major'
'Universal and Sony reach deal to buy EMI for £2.5bn: Famous British music business could be split into two in agreement that hands control to biggest rivals'
'Farewell then EMI, your tunes were the background to our lives: The company that brought us Cliff and the Beatles, the Sex Pistols and Susan Boyle is disappearing. We should salute its contribution to our culture'

Industry news

I'm not going to post every bit of news from the excellent http://www.guardian.co.uk/music section (and the following example comes from elsewhere - the business section - of the paper, just showing the utility and value of regularly reading a broadsheet, even if just once a week!), but would remind you to have a scan from time to time, and ensure you don't neglect to evidence your grasp of the contemporary music industry on your blog.

This article considers how two of the industry giants have decided to change decades of policy on release schedules, scrapping the idea of releasing singles to radio weeks, even months, before commercial release to build up appeal, in an effort to counteract the effects of digital piracy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/16/universal-sony-music-singles-release