Only 3-4 Digital Music Services Will Survive Next 12 Months, Says Digital Exec
Let the culling begin. There is only “room for three or four” digital music services, and we’ll see a number of them close in the next twelve months," according to Deezer UK’s Managing Director Mark Foster. Since launching in the UK in September, Deezer claims 1.4 million premium subscribers, in large part thanks to a bundling deal with mobile provider Orange. So, what about his competition?
Twelve months seems a short time for so many companies to call it quits. But after factoring in the cost of all of the free streaming happening on Facebook and elsewhere, the price-tag for staying open looms larger. Then there are antsy rightsholders who may want bigger, not smaller payments when contracts come up for renewal.
“We’ll be one of (survivors), no question. Whether we’ll be bigger than Spotify, I don’t know," Foster told Music Week. "There’ll inevitably be a shake-out – as with any market where you get a lot of people coming in with great ideas – over the next twelve months, you’ll get four or five big players coming out of the pack. Some will fall away. That’s market dynamics”.
What do you think the next 12 months will bring? Who will survive?
Record labels and artists will always be the survivors.
Tech comes and goes.
Aol, Myspace, etc.
Record labels could go, too. I’d argue that management companies will be the new record labels.
I disagree. I think it’s reasonable to think that at the following juggernauts will survive: Pandora, Last.fm, Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud & Grooveshark all seem to have enough users that it seems pretty unlikely they’ll fold. Services like Blip.fm, Turntable.fm, Swift.fm, 8tracks & HypeMachine all seem to have healthy niche markets that have enough good content to continue to foster attention. The above only states the obvious. Yes there will be fallout but my feeling is that the digital music space will continue to be a dynamic market.
There must be 2,000 music “services” in one form or another – in more than 100 languages online. These services vary from radio + ad model to fully interactive. To insinuate only 3 or 4 of them will survive is pretty small thinking…if you ask me….not that anyone did. Penny Penny.
That wholly depends on you definition of “digital music service” — and even with a very narrow view, I still feel the quote is a big stretch. Do you include music marketing companies, tools for artists, music analytics, music discovery sites and aggregators, or just freemium streaming services?