Music Business/Management DB

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Japan’s physical music sales in 2009 post steeper declines. According to the Recording Industry Association of Japan, physical shipments fell 13% in 2009 compared to 7% in 2008, while trade values declined 5 points from 11 to 16%. In addition, Soft Information Planning, charts compiler SoundScan’s operater, says physical sales plunged by an astounding 27% in 2009 after falling only 3.9% in 2008. Tatsuro Yagawa, GM of public relations at Tower Records Japan says the sales in Tower’s 80 Japanese outlets had also experienced decline in sales of about 5%-7% in 2009. Even leading music merchant HMV Japan has CDs visibly cut down on its inventories. Furthermore, digital music sales do not seem to compensate for the decline of physical sales. The short-term outlook does not seem much better due to tough economic conditions and illegal file sharing activities. On a brighter note, not all labels experienced a contraction in sales. Sony Music had a surprise hit in 2009 with Milayah Kato’s album “Ring”. Besides that, Amazon Japan recorded double-digit percentage gains in 2009 for CD sales. To boost the physical music sales, music labels are bundling freebies such as figurines of artists and T-shirts with CDs as a promotion. Meanwhile, Universal Japan is developing new revenue streams in order to establish a direct-to-consumer business model. In the future, Japan will have to face fierce competition and avoid cannibalization of its physical music sales that will lead to market restructuring, says Kazuhiko Koike, CEO of Universal Japan, “with mergers and acquisitions” on the horizon.

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Ticketmaster will refund fans who purchased tickets from its subsidiary website for any of the fourteen specified Bruce Springsteen concerts. The FTC charged Live Nation Entertainment with using "deceptive bait-and-switch tactics" and not addressing the risk involved with resale sites. The FTC decided TM directed unknowing customers to TicketsNow, charging multiple times the face value of the tickets. In addition to deceiving ticket buyers many tickets sold through the subsidiary website were "phantom tickets". The company held on to customers money for months knowing that there were no tickets available. Customers who fell victim will be eligible to receive a refund of the difference from the initial retail value.

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Live Nation Entertainment has recently entered a deal with Walmart enabling ticket distribution at 500 of its locations. The number of stores selling tickets is expected to increase to 1,000 by the end of the year. Irving Azoff (chairman of Live Nation Entertainment) has worked with the mega store in the past. Under the prior agreement Walmart became the exclusive outlet for the sale of the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden. As a result the album became the best selling disk of 2008.

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The world’s largest concert promoter, Live Nation, and ticket selling giant, Ticketmaster finally merged on January 25th 2010. The merger of these two giants of the industry had created controversies among artists, managers, members of U.S. Congress and rival promoters in 2009. They are genuinely concerned with this monopoly that would leave its competitors out in the dark. It is obvious that there are many pros and cons that will result from this mammoth merger. Among the pros are the reduction of overall ticket prices and service charges imposed onto consumers, creating an online marketplace for artistes to promote and bundle their albums with various trinkets such as T-shirts, thus boosting sales of physical music. However, critics predict less competition in the industry would lead to higher prices. In order to prevent any form of monopoly that may warp the industry, U.S. attorneys imply several conditions to the new mergers. The terms are ; the company must grant Ticketmaster’s software to the second–largest concert promoter, AEG Live, and Live Nation must promise not to retaliate against any venue owner whom sell tickets or promote any shows that has an agreement with any non-Live Nation company. For critics, the restriction was not strong enough. Though the two new companies have finally merged, however, there are still problems and frustrations that are still going on and unresolved. A long period of time will be needed in order to sort things out between the people who are involved in the industry and those who are affected because of the merger.

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When the Bonnaroo festival was first announced in 2002, only local media and jam band obsessives cared enough to press organizers for lineup details. By it’s third year, anyone in the business with any leverage at all were hounding their friends at Bonnaroo for the inside scoop. Today, facing it’s 9th year, Bonnaroo has taken matters into their own hands when it comes to revealing this years line-up, by revealing the line-up February 9th for the festival set to take place June 10-13. Traffic on Bonnaroo.com skyrocket 1000% from announcement day the previous year, spelling good news for producers at Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment. Superfly President Jonathan Mayers says although he’s always uptight, he’s not bothered anymore by the projected Bonnaroo bills, he says “Let people spread rumors, let people debate. Just be glad people care.” Bonnaroo is steadily progressing towards and era where they could sell out tickets to the festival without a single artist being announced. They want it to be that way because they want people to be excited, not about seeing a particular artist but about going to Bonnaroo, and they are dedicated to building trust with their audience that no matter the line-up they will deliver a great experience.

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With the rapid success of digital music, artist, labels and publishers have been suffering because of lack of reliable digital music royalty reporting, leading to performance rights organizations being unable to distribute rightful royalties to the appropriate parties. SoundExchange, a NPO tasked to distribute digital performance rights royalties for satellite radio and internet music streams ended 2008 with $40 million in royalties that couldn’t be distributed due to lack of data and other $39 million in escrow for artists and labels who neglected to register with SoundExchange. There are ways to improve reporting, but there are many steps that the industry must take now. Artists and copyright holders should first register with SoundExchange, and also another PRO such as ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. Copyright holders must include all relevant meta-data on digitally released tracks, including at the very least artist, copyright holder or label, and track and album titles. Music services also need to take responsibility for accurate reporting. Copyright holders must register their works to make tracking data easier, and finally the music community must promote the exchange of data and payments by standardizing reporting. The bottom line is everyone can do more to ensure that performance royalties are being paid to the appropriate people.

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Facebook has once again denied rumors of its intention to launch a music service. This leaves record labels and artists struggling to figure out how to take advantage of the world's most popular social network. Despite the absence of an official music service there is still opportunity for those capable of thinking out of the box. Facebook reported that it has nearly half a million apps, used by 70% of its users on a monthly basis. Games are the most popular category and users have shown a willingness to pay for associated content. With this in mind record labels should view Facebook as important a platform for music applications as the iPhone. U.K based theBizmo is the first company to attempt to capitalize with their music related game "Hit or Not". Players set up a virtual record company and rate and recommend real songs by real artists. Those who are able to predict the tracks that become popular are compensated with points and virtual cash. There is no reason individual labels cannot create a similar type of A&R game for their acts. Additionally games based on individual artists similar to the successful "I Am T-Pain app for iPhone could prove to be lucrative in the future.

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The partnership between Google and the major music companies signify a shift regarding the outlook on piracy and catalog availability. Record companies hope Vevo will enable them greater control and prove capable in attracting its own audience. Both Vevo and Youtube hope to increase ad revenue by gaining higher CPMs through the deal. Warner Music Groups unwillingness to join Vevo reflects the labels on going reluctance to embrace digital music. WMG continues to promote individual artists instead of its entire catalog. The label has paired with Hulu as a showcase for its select talent.

Universal Music Group remains the pioneer behind digital experimentation. Its leadership in Vevo and its early signing of distribution deals with the free-to-download services reinforcing the fact. UMG’s approach to digital experimentation seems justified compared to the conservative approach of WGM. In three of the past four quarters UMG’s digital revenue as a percentage of its total revenue has been much higher than that of WMG’s.

Acquisitions on the part of Apple and MySpace forecast future availability of streaming and cloud-based services. Apple’s acquisition of Lala indicates future plans to release a music service that makes full use of the iPhone. MySpace continues to gravitate toward a music portal strategy with the purchase of Imeem. MySpace was likely attracted to Imeem not only for its technology but also for its current audience (around 19 million unique monthly users).

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Music and fashion share an illustrious history together, it's relationship is important but the tricks of the trade remain mysterious. These segments seek out expert advice on how to make the crossover.
How to Get a Fragrance Licensing Deal: The most important thing for launching your own fragrance as an artist is to know your fan base, and have a strong demographic that you can hone in on when developing the scent. Value your brand equity, it's something you can't entrust to just anyone so make sure the fragrance house really understands your brand and your fan base. Lastly of course comes promotion, just because you are a successful artist doesn't mean your fragrance will succeed, you will have to put some marketing dollars into getting the name of your new fragrance out there for it to have a shot at success.
How to Grow a Brand: Strategy is as important when you are releasing a new product as it is when you are releasing a new album, so for Gwen Stefani starting her L.A.M.B. brand with apparel then slowly branching out to handbags, shoes and fragrance is was good way to achieve growth without overextending herself. It's also a good idea to remember that the integrity of your brand and products should be more important than growing the brand. As an artist it's of great importance to stay in creative control.
How to Launch Your Own Fashion Line: If as an artist you want to launch your own fashion line, it's pretty important to have a real interest in fashion itself, not just growing your brand. Don't necessarily follow trends, make clothes you like, if neon is big but you hate it, put out a line in rich jewel tones, or whatever really grabs you. People respond well to products they can't get just anywhere, don't try to start a fashion empire, but keep your clothes personal, and your items "limited-edition", it will make fans who do buy into your product line feel really special.
How to Get Your Music Played on The Runway: Musicians often work with designers in order to get outfitted for special events, and usually designers that agree to work with artists like the artist's music too, it's a great way to make connections and a win-win for both the artist and designer for the artist's music to be played at the designers fashion shows as well as for the designer's clothes to be work at artist's live music shows and other public appearances. Pitching relevant tracks is also important, be familiar with what genre of music a designer normally plays at their shows.
How to Get a Synch in a Fashion TV Show: Give options when you're submitting music for consideration for placement in a TV Show, include a track with and without vocals, often times instrumental tracks are used where there is dialogue going on. Getting to know independent music supervisors and music supervisors at networks is also a great foot in the door to having one of your songs placed. Watch shows you think your music could be placed in and follow the trends, that way you'll know what the networks want, and if they want your music!

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The power of mobile platforms in music is expected to reach new heights this year, spelling a big change when it comes to approaching A&R. In order to improve music sales artists and labels need to think about offering digital bundling of artists' work. Sharing music, which as always seemed like an industry threat, may be a big key to future sales as social networking tools become a big part of how people share and talk about music they like. The mobile music experience has been in development for the past few years, including mobile music in automobiles, which if executed correctly may become the main way consumers access and purchase new music. A&R needs to step up and change with the times because content delivery is becoming more and more cross-platform. Artists also need to be sure to have a team behind them that is not only technologically savvy, but understands both old and new media and how to optimize traditional media into a mobile format. New companies popping up everywhere are showing they understand the benefits of cross-platform media. One of these, Tunewiki, has shown that exploiting lyrics through their "Lyrics Legend" is a way to grow revenue. The music and management companies that most quickly understand how to make innovated bundled content will reap the rewards that cross-platform mobile content promises for the future of the music business.