Primary Wave is a new type of music publisher founded in New York City in January 2006 by former Virgin Records CEO, Larry Mestel. Primary Wave does not aim at the acquisition and exploitation of classical publishing rights, but instead purchases the artist’s share of publishing rights and master rights, primarily to monetise their use…

Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) is an interesting case of a company exiting the music business in the 2000s and re-entering it in 2009 to invest billions of dollars in publishing and master catalogues and to become the fourth largest music company in the world behind the three majors – Universal, Sony and Warner. BMG’s re-entry…

In July 2021, the fully updated 2nd edition of “The Economics of Music” has been published by Agenda Publishing, which was reviewed by the eminent cultural economist David Throsby in the TIMES Literary Supplement: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-music-business/ Promotional text: The music industry is one of the most dynamic business sectors. It has had to evolve and…

Dear all, The music business highlight of 2018 was Spotify’s IPO on April 3rd. The public listing of the music streaming service at the New York Stock Exchange was warmly welcomed by the investors with a price per share of US $166 and a market capitalization of US $26.5bn.[1] In the following Spotify’s stock price…

Today on July 21st, national Australian radio station ABC broadcast a longer interview by Peter Tschmuck on the “Future of Music” in “The Music Show” presented by Andrew Ford. This episode will be repeated on Saturday and Sunday 9pm, Wednesday and Thursday 11pm (Australian eastern time). http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/musicshow/the-future-of-music/10018986

Universal Music Group’s parent company Vivendi announced plans to spin-off the world’s largest music major company as a standalone entity on the stock market. It is no incident that the French media and telecommunication conglomerate Vivendi considers such a strategy. Spotify’s public listing early in April this year was a financial success and it seems…

The UK recorded music industry body BPI (British Phonographic Industry) reported a remarkable increase of recorded music sales from 2015 to 2016. According to BPI the growth was mainly driven by music streaming revenue, which increased by 61.0 per cent in a year-to-year comparison. Thus, as BPI (2017) points out, “(…) streaming accounted for 30…

When the Economist article “The Trust Machine. The Promise of the Blockchain” was published in October 2015, a broader audience beyond the bitcoin community has become interested in the disruptive potential of the cryptocurrency’s technology. Meanwhile, further articles on the blockchain have appeared in the main press and Don & Alex Tapscott published “Blockchain Revolution”…

Dear readers of the music business research blog, 2016 seems to be the pivotal year in the recorded music industry. Although no annual statistics have been published until yet, we can take it for granted that the positive trend of 2015 continued in 2016. In 2015, the global recorded music market expanded by 3.4%. The…

On December 8, Warner Music Group (WMG) released the annual report for the financial year 2016 ending on September 30, 2016 reporting the highest revenue of US$ 3.25bn since Access Industries has acquired WMG in 2011. WMG also reported its best profit performance – measured in operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) – of…

Dear readers of the music business research blog, 2015 Music streaming was again the main topic in the music business. In June, Apple Inc. introduced the long rumoured music streaming portal Apple Music to the public. Instead of a freemium tier Apple Music is built around an online radio station – Beats 1 – and…

Music streaming is on the rise. In the recent IFPI report “Recording Industry in Numbers 2014” IFPI CEO Frances Moore is cited with “Streaming is now a mainstream part of the modern music industry.” (IFPI 2015: 5) Indeed, global subscription streaming revenue increased by 39.0 per cent and ad-supported streaming revenue by 38.6 per cent…

Dear readers of the music business research blog, Music streaming dominated the music business year 2014. Taylor Swift attracted global media attention when she pulled her music catalogue from Spotify music streaming service blaming the Swedish company for insufficient royalty payments. She, thus, followed the footsteps of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and other artists who have…

In mid of July 2013 Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke caused for controversies when he pulled his song catalogue and those of his band Atoms For Peace from music streaming service Spotify. His straight forward argument was as cited in The Guardian that “new artists get paid fuck all with this model”. Several artists take the…

Dear friends of the music business research blog. Thank you for visiting the blog in 2012. It was again a very eventful year for the music business/industry. The US and EU regulators cleared the merger of the recorded music arms of Universal and EMI. The Anschutz Group announced the selling of AEG, the world’s second…

On September 12, 2011 the EU Council of Ministers passed the copyright term extension in sound recordings from 50 to 70 years, which was proposed by the European Commission in 2008 and voted on by the European Parliament in 2009. The term extension was welcomed by the music industry bodies and several musicians. The newly…

It’s now the third time that Will Page and Chris Carey from PRS for Music added up the UK music industry. The main result is that total UK music revenues fell 4.8 percent to £3.775bn in 2010 compared to £3.964bn the previous year. This figure includes the retail value of recorded music (-7.9% to £1.237bn)…

For several years the Australian music industry was dominated by a few players who enjoyed a more or less monopolistic position. In the infant period of the industry Edison Co. dominated the record business with its cylinders and from 1931 on EMI had the monopoly of record distribution in Australia, which was not challenged until…

The launch of music locker services by online retailer Amazon and search engine Google opens a new round of discussion on the future of music distribution. Are cloud based music services the main business models of the future music industry or is it just a hype with a lot of hot air in the cloud?…

The British alternative rock band Radiohead caused a sensation when they announced on their website on October 1, 2007 that the new album In Rainbows was completed and would be released in 10 days for free. Fans were instructed to obtain a registration code in order to download the new album in MP3-format. Music consumers…