Record labels are predicting that this month's launch of three new mobile phone music services will usher a return of rising sales after years of decline.
Apple's music-playing iPhone grabbed the headlines with its arrival in Britain last week. But music executives are just as excited about the new unlimited downloads service launched on Vodafone. At the same time Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, has opened a digital music store here.
The world's biggest music company, Universal, is backing the MusicStation, the Vodafone service. Rob Wells, head of digital at Universal's international division, predicts the £1.99-a-week subscription service will have mass market appeal. "We are at a turning point in the UK," he says, predicting digital music sales here could offset falling CD sales within a year.
Global sales have been falling since 2000, down another 5% to $19.6bn (£9.4bn) last year, according to industry group IFPI. Although digital sales are rising fast, at a tenth of the total market, they have yet to make up for tumbling CD sales.
One place where the gap has been closed is Japan. Total music sales there edged up 1% last year. Japan's success in offsetting falling CD sales - something the IFPI calls reaching the "holy grail" - is largely attributed to the prevalence of mobile downloads.
"Mobile is obviously extremely important because you have the market reach and secondly, the type of demographics that are very important to the music industry will almost certainly have music-enabled mobile phones." There are already indications that mobile music sales are picking up in the UK. The Orange UK network says its music sales jumped 70% over the past six months and it expects them to double by the end of 2007.
PricewaterhouseCoopers analysts say that new handsets are helping the mobile music market move away from mere ringtones to full song downloads. They expect the UK mobile music market to almost double from a predicted $83m this year to $156m in 2011. The music industry's optimism is underscored by several barriers to mass market mobile sales that have disappeared, such as high data delivery tariffs.
UK industry association BPI also cites support from new business models such as subscription schemes and enhanced handsets - four out of 10 UK mobiles can now play music.
Philip Makinson at telecoms specialists Greenwich Consulting says at £1.99 a week MusicStation brings big changes for music buyers but not necessarily for music sellers.
"Can something like this save the music industry? Well, MusicStation per se in the short term no. Because firstly it's only on Vodafone at the moment and secondly it's very cheap, meaning that the actual revenue for the music industry per user can only be quite small."
1.how is the institution going to be affected by this change?2.how are music sales represented at this moment in time?
3.how will this affect how the audience buys and listens to music?
4.how has this change started?
7 comments:
455 words!
1. The institution will be affected by this change in a positive way as it will increase the amount of legal music downloads and create more money for the mobile industrys.
2. The representation of global sales have been decreasing for many years but in the UK certain networks such as Orange are on the increase.
3. The affect that this will have on the way people consume and listen to music is that more money will be crculated and many more people will listen to music computer based or on the mobile.
4. This change has started by the amountof people that use mobile music services such as Vodafone which is a cheaper and legal way of attaining music. More people are buying music from these services than accessesing them illegaly.
1. change will affect the institution because it will increase the music sales and give them more money
2. representation of global sales has mostly been decreasing, except fo some networks (Orange)
3. its pretty cheap and is unlimited so it should make the audiences happy
4. More and more companies have started including this extra feature with people spending lots of money on appliances such as the iPhone so they can have unlimited music
1. A big change will take place in a good light. Business will be hitting the roofs as the downloading will be legal.
3.It doesnt seem to have any negative catches that people wont not respond to.
4.This new change should divert peoples attention from illegal downloading and help them focus to do it legally.
1.The institution will have a positive change due to them earning more money.
2.Representation of global sales has mainly been decreasing, however Orange are increasing.
3.It will affect the audience because it is cheaper and unlimited.
4.It will change as the audience will be convinced to buy music legally.
article...not artical
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1) change will affect the institution because it will make them more money by increasing the music sales.
2)Representation of global sales has been decreasing, except Orange.
3)The audience preferr cheaper services so therefore theyll us eit more an itll make them happy.
4)More an more music companies have released this downloading service.
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