6 Lessons Indie Labels & Musicians Have Learned About Streaming Music
With tighter budgets and thinner margins, the loss of revenue as music consumption shifts online is particularly concerning for independent artists and labels. But they're quickly learning to adapt.
Organized by UK music trade organization AIM, the recent Music Connected conference brought together record labels, distributors and music marketers. Here are some key takeaways, as reported by Stuart Dredge in The Guardian:
1. Indies are worried streaming revenue, but making the best of it.
"Technology is what’s moved people away from owning and into as easy access to music as possible. You can’t fight technology, we just have to find as many ways of getting people onto that boat as possible.” – Nicolas Rizzi of The Orchard.
2. Indies can beat the Majors online
“As indies we over-index on streaming, and within streaming we over-index on premium, because the type of music we’re releasing will appeal to early adopters. – Gerald Youna of Beggars Group.
3. There's concern about Soundcloud
“If you’re a brand new band with no fans yet, and you start promoting on SoundCloud it’s going to be very hard to migrate those fans over to Spotify and the other licensed services.” - Gerald Youna of Beggars Group
4. Despite low payouts YouTube still gets a thumbs up
“It’s more of a help than any kind of hindrance. We’re exposed to far more audience than we would be on any other platform. It’s the largest streaming music service in the world, so it’s obviously a help.” - Leon Grant Bussinger of Warp Records
5. Beware of Playlist Payola
“We’ve been asked for money. They seem to think that they can make money from it. It seems clear to me that someone’s been paying them money, otherwise they wouldn’t be so confident that they can charge… It’s not a surprise. Clearly payola worked well in American radio, so why wouldn’t it work well on Spotify?” – Will Cooper of PIAS
6. Email lists matter
“Every time we work with clients who have large email lists, you can see that they drive a hell of a lot of sales,” – Darren Hemmings of Motive Unknown
Much more online at The Guardian.
