The Economist published a very sobering article on Ticketmaster – Live Nation merger recently. You can read it here.
We cannot help but agree with some of their assertions: We also believe that the music industry is transforming and in some ways, it is going back to its performance-focused roots. For several decades, the recorded music could only be distributed in CDs, tapes, or vinyl and live performances mostly served the purpose of promoting and driving album sales.
Now recorded music consumption and exchange are going all-digital and the old arithmetic don’t seem to hold. Artists will have to rely more on touring and live performances in general to make money.
There are challenges regarding that – ticket pricing, quality of management and business partners, quality of venues, etc – but there is no turning back. So the industry needs to find a way to support more gigs and better gigs!
That said, it is not clear how creating a ticketing/promoting behemoth would help further this cause – we have doubts – but clearly the Economist feels more optimistic about it. And so the debate goes on…
No related posts.
Tags: digital music, The Economist, the future of music industry, Ticketmaster Live Nation merger