What impact does media ownership have upon the range of products available to audiences in the music industry?
Media ownership is being increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer firms, and thus most of the content that we have access to, while it may not seem like it at first, is being controlled by very few people. I think this is a problem and frankly stifles competition between new companies and limits the customer's choice. This isn't a good thing and makes the customer feel like they're trapped, however I will go into detail on this.
First of all, we have to look at what media ownership is. The term media ownership in itself is fairly self-explanatory, however when we look at the media owners in the industry, we can see that there is a problem. Over time, fewer and fewer companies are owning more and more media. As of 2015, Comcast Corporation is the largest media conglomerate in the US, with The Walt Disney Company, News Corp and Time Warner ranking second, third and fourth respectively. However, this is for all of media and we have to look at the music industry specifically. When we look in detail at the music industry, we see quite a sad sight. From the Neilsen SoundScan report in 2012, "the big four" record label companies control almost 90% of the market. To be specific, Universal Music Group (who own EMI Music) control 32.41% + 6.78% of EMI Group, Sony Music Entertainment (who own publishing arm of EMI Group) control 30.25%, and Warner Music Group control 19.15%. This leaves only 11.42% of the market to independent musicians and labels. Most people in this group are left to fight over the little space in a completely over-saturated market. Platforms like Bandcamp and SoundCloud are flooded every day with new wannabe musicians and songwriters and there is only so much space for advertisement on their websites. Unless you can pay your way onto the front page of SoundCloud by continuously paying to promote your own music, all you have is pot luck that people stumble onto your music and share it. There are so many people fighting for one space that people often get buried and give up. Unfortunately, the way to get into the music industry these days is to get lucky. All it needs is one person to pick up on you and they share it and suddenly you branch out and become a fairly well-known name. There is very little in the way of clever marketing and advertising trickery to get yourself recognised.
The concentration of media ownership now has meant that there is very little variation in music now-a-days. Of course, there are exceptions, however these are few and far between. It is not very often that we hear someone who started off in their bedroom recording music and putting it on SoundCloud or Bandcamp who has risen to fame and stardom. More often we hear of people who got to the final of X-Factor, or those who were already culminating a decent following deciding to try out songwriting. These people often get signed directly onto one of the aforementioned "big four" record labels and get a free pass into the spotlight. It can be hard to recognise that a lot of people put blood, sweat and tears into trying to "make it", when all we hear of are celebrity success stories who got lucky and could simply waltz into whatever industry took their fancy. Most of the music produced by these record labels are simply made to be listened to by the majority of the public and they simply grind out top 40 songs. Often people at the bottom of the food chain scramble for any opportunity for publicity, whether it be a tiny gig in a garage somewhere or a post on a small indie Facebook page. The big four record labels all have a common business model. It is predicated on scale. They invest in music and develop talent, of course, but the end goal is to shift as many units to as many people as possible. For example, the value of Universal Music Group, the biggest label in the big four, has trebled in the past 4 years to give them an approximate net worth of €20bn ($22bn, £17bn) according to the annual shareholders' meeting in Paris on 25th April, 2017.
There is definitely an increase in the amount of indie music in the industry and it is most certainly a growing force, gaining more and more influence. Indie labels and musicians are getting recognised more often and are having more of a voice in the industry, however it isn't enough. While a tenth of the music industry is still a considerable amount in terms of monetary value, when we think about how many people would fall under the indie category it most certainly doesn't amount to much when we split it out between each and every artist in the category. In the US alone there are about 70k musicians tracked by BLS and another 700k from census data. If we think about the world as a whole there are bound to be several million aspiring songwriters and composers. It is so easy now a days to make music, whether it's sitting in your room recording it on your phone, using a DAW like GarageBand which comes free on Macs and iDevices or even torrenting one like FL Studio or Cubase considering how easy it is to do. Because of the accessibility of music production it has encouraged more and more people to try it out and they have found that it's something they like. They make more and more music and it just adds to the pile of great talent that may never even be seen.
There is still a massive amount of content for anyone of any taste out there somewhere. The chances are, if you can think of a genre, it exists somewhere. In a sense, media ownership hasn't really affected anyone as, if you are willing to dig deep enough, the music you are looking for will be there. However, it is the lack of this content that is given a chance in the spotlight. The convergence of media ownership has meant that there is more content easily available to the consumer but all the content has become too similar. There is still a vast range of content available but most of it is hidden under the layer that the big four labels put up, trying to drag you in to consume their content instead of the content that is most likely more what you're looking for that is being produced and made by indie artists.
The concentration of media ownership now has meant that there is very little variation in music now-a-days. Of course, there are exceptions, however these are few and far between. It is not very often that we hear someone who started off in their bedroom recording music and putting it on SoundCloud or Bandcamp who has risen to fame and stardom. More often we hear of people who got to the final of X-Factor, or those who were already culminating a decent following deciding to try out songwriting. These people often get signed directly onto one of the aforementioned "big four" record labels and get a free pass into the spotlight. It can be hard to recognise that a lot of people put blood, sweat and tears into trying to "make it", when all we hear of are celebrity success stories who got lucky and could simply waltz into whatever industry took their fancy. Most of the music produced by these record labels are simply made to be listened to by the majority of the public and they simply grind out top 40 songs. Often people at the bottom of the food chain scramble for any opportunity for publicity, whether it be a tiny gig in a garage somewhere or a post on a small indie Facebook page. The big four record labels all have a common business model. It is predicated on scale. They invest in music and develop talent, of course, but the end goal is to shift as many units to as many people as possible. For example, the value of Universal Music Group, the biggest label in the big four, has trebled in the past 4 years to give them an approximate net worth of €20bn ($22bn, £17bn) according to the annual shareholders' meeting in Paris on 25th April, 2017.
There is definitely an increase in the amount of indie music in the industry and it is most certainly a growing force, gaining more and more influence. Indie labels and musicians are getting recognised more often and are having more of a voice in the industry, however it isn't enough. While a tenth of the music industry is still a considerable amount in terms of monetary value, when we think about how many people would fall under the indie category it most certainly doesn't amount to much when we split it out between each and every artist in the category. In the US alone there are about 70k musicians tracked by BLS and another 700k from census data. If we think about the world as a whole there are bound to be several million aspiring songwriters and composers. It is so easy now a days to make music, whether it's sitting in your room recording it on your phone, using a DAW like GarageBand which comes free on Macs and iDevices or even torrenting one like FL Studio or Cubase considering how easy it is to do. Because of the accessibility of music production it has encouraged more and more people to try it out and they have found that it's something they like. They make more and more music and it just adds to the pile of great talent that may never even be seen.
There is still a massive amount of content for anyone of any taste out there somewhere. The chances are, if you can think of a genre, it exists somewhere. In a sense, media ownership hasn't really affected anyone as, if you are willing to dig deep enough, the music you are looking for will be there. However, it is the lack of this content that is given a chance in the spotlight. The convergence of media ownership has meant that there is more content easily available to the consumer but all the content has become too similar. There is still a vast range of content available but most of it is hidden under the layer that the big four labels put up, trying to drag you in to consume their content instead of the content that is most likely more what you're looking for that is being produced and made by indie artists.
