oh. my. god.

The chart below is from today's New York Times and a column by Charles Blow about the truly dire state of the music industry. I'm an aficionado of graphic displays of information, and this is one of the most stark, revealing and stunning statements I've ever seen of where the biz is. In a situation like this, the majors can only afford to work potential pop superstars. It's a cataclysm for innovative artists who don't draw massive audiences right away. Who's going to fix this? 

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Comments

[Betty]

I saw this in the NYT but wanted to know:

-how different would these graphics look if units shipped reflected a broader reporting system? RIAA says its data is collected directly from the majors and estimated "where possible" for the remaining parts of the market.

-how different would these graphics look if they reflected ONLY "the remaining parts of the market" -- i.e., the non-majors? And especially if they reflected what occurs outside of the "major indies"?

-would these graphics look very different if based on units shipped, rather than "value of units shipped in current dollars"?

I ask because so many of the artists I care about, including many who have relatively successful careers, have always been, to some extent at least, under the radar with respect to these kinds of metrics. And as dire as the situation is for the music biz, I keep thinking that it is the traditional superstars and traditional major labels who are hurt the most as the biz changes, while it is the niche artists who are more likely to have honed the skills and techniques for surviving and being nimble in the changed & changing environment.

But these are questions more than opinions, since I haven't seen the kind of analysis that pulls together reliable data to test my theory.

[George]

You ask an interesting question.

Imagine that a royalty is placed on all music played on the radio. At some point, that royalty money will exceed the money brought in by hard sales to fans and consumers. If you're a profit-making record label, and a huge portion of your income is derived from radio royalty, what kind of music will you seek to create and market? Answer: The kind of music that gets radio airplay. Based on the experience of the last 50 years, what does that music sound like?

Once again, what does this mean for innovative artists who don't get radio airplay? Who's going to fix this?