primephonic: classical music in the digital age

Recommendations

Info

primephonic ‘we thought, if only we could get this thing that meant so much to people and make it available using new technologies and new digital channels’ American team saying that they had sold a million downloads, which was the forecast for the first year! So this gave us a tremendous confidence that music still had a real relevance. If we could find the right combination of technology, partners and distribution, and the confidence that music would continue to have a valuable role in people’s lives, if we could bring those things together, then it was a signpost for the way the market might evolve. That said, if you were to look at what happened after iTunes, there was a renewed confidence in the industry and many larger players tried to replicate what Apple had done. Microsoft in particular had a tremendous initiative with many of the world’s retailers involved in consumer electronics manufacturers, but nobody ever really replicated it in the form of music downloads. The industry bubbled as a download industry until 2007 when Spotify came along. Now, at the same time, we were constantly looking at what Rhapsody (the new name for Napster) was doing, and we were seeing that if you deliver a compelling product to a music fan, the levels of engagement were fabulous. I think the reality was that the industry wasn’t prepared to make that transition. And I don’t think consumers were either. So if you think about where the industry was: this was 2003 or 2004 and iTunes had given great confidence to the industry. We thought, if only we could get this thing that meant so much to people and make it available using new technologies and new digital channels. Everything looked very rosy. What actually happened was that the transition from an old CD business into a new digital retail business turned out to be a relatively niche opportunity, in that it didn’t broaden! iTunes was a success in its own right but it was where near reaching the same levels of consumers that the physical CD had ever reached. Frankly, consumers and fans were looking for more depth in a musical experience and for classical music fans, it was just underwhelming. The way that classical recordings were being presented on no- internet services was almost impenetrable. It was a model that was built around pop music and driven by popularity. It was inconceivable to most classical music collectors and fans that they would use digital to replace their old physical music library. To be fair, Apple have done a 38
tech insights better job than most to enrich what they do, but fundamentally those services were about pop music and hit songs and genres other than classical and they certainly didn’t lend themselves to discovery of classical works for the simple fact of the metadata. It was impenetrable. Downloading didn’t take off in the classical world initially. Consumers have always wanted to upgrade to something better, but it wasn’t better in terms of the convenience of discovery. Arguably as important was the denigration of sound quality. The trade-off between convenience and quality certainly lost a lot of consumers who had previously been classical music collectors and jazz music collectors. There was no comparison between what they were being offered as a download and what they had been offered in the physical world. And it wasn’t just those genres that struggled. We reached a ceiling because of so much that was happening in people’s digital lives. If we look at what happened in film and TV over the same period, the quality, experience and convenience was getting better and better. Music, on the other hand, has tried to take the physical experience and copy it across, business model and all, onto a digital platform. So we were constantly trying to find companies that would deliver not only the convenience of digital but at least as good a quality of an experience as we had found in previous formats. If you think about it, during that period Rhapsody was doing reasonably well – it was a service that had a million or so users but it never really broke out into the mainstream because the consumers were finding it difficult to get their heads around not only recurring subscriptions, but also the idea of being able to access music as opposed to collecting music. Music is so important for people’s self-expression and the act of collecting music itself, that ritual of music buying is art of the experience. We then fast-forward to 2007 and the launch of Spotify; not only did Spotify do a lot for the music industry in terms of their techni- cal capability combined with a music obsession, but it was the first time we’d seen that in a single company. And I think ironically it was able to grow, develop and improve because it didn’t come from North America. North America has this tendency to burn brightly and often to burn out but Spotify was able to thrive, initially across a single territory and then in a handful of territories. It really had the breathing space to build and develop and improve on the experience. And meanwhile, all the time Spotify were improving their experience, customers were becoming more accustomed to access music as opposed to ownership, or accessing content based on someone else’s schedule. Spotify allowed audiences to access content according to their own schedules and lifestyles. So I think between 2007 and 2014, we were going through this transition in consumer behaviour and Spotify dragged the music industry kicking and screaming into the streaming era. A lot of the infrastructure that was necessary for the music industry to completely change its model was developed then. But still, it’s fair to say that while Spotify provides a great experience for someone who is a mainstream music lover – someone who wants pop, classical, rock, and many of the contemporary genres – it’s not a finished article when it comes to classical music. For the different ways you want to search the catalogue as a classical music fan or collector, the bar is set pretty high. You want to search by composer or by work, understanding that an overture is not necessarily a full work, for instance. The infrastructure necessary to deliver classical still wasn’t in place by 2014 when I think streaming really started to gain momentum. 39
Page 1: for life on an epic scale printed i
Page 4 and 5: table of contents from the editor..
Page 6 and 7: primephonic Editor Rachel Deloughry
Page 8: primephonic Can Philip Glass really
Page 11 and 12: portrait a teacher in New York simp
Page 13 and 14: title goes here and resting for eve
Page 15 and 16: Welcome to Brooklyn. Powered by tha
Page 17 and 18: work in classical music. There are
Page 19 and 20: LOFTOPERA NATIONAL SAWDUST BARGEMUS
Page 21 and 22: portrait maria callas the voice Fra
Page 23 and 24: portrait voice, often startling in
Page 25 and 26: title goes here recording studio pl
Page 27 and 28: tech insights JEAN-MARIE GEIJSEN In
Page 29 and 30: SUBSCRIBE title goes here 1 YEAR SU
Page 31 and 32: Joost had a prime example about how
Page 33 and 34: point of view ‘we should still be
Page 35 and 36: title goes here Our artists put all
Page 37: tech insights i. an unprecedented t
Page 41 and 42: tech insights ‘it’s being made
Page 43 and 44: tech insights ‘so context is ever
Page 45 and 46: tech insights the streaming user ex
Page 47 and 48: community of the company. In 2015 s
Page 49 and 50: title goes here The energy and emot
Page 51 and 52: title goes here c. 495BC The connec
Page 53 and 54: title goes here ‘i greatly prefer
Page 55 and 56: title goes here music & architectur
Page 57 and 58: catalogue 57
Page 59 and 60: instruments brilliant simplicity to
Page 61 and 62: instruments never truly caught on w
Page 63 and 64: eviews what the critics say JESSICA
Page 65 and 66: eviews Macbeth - is still evident,
Page 67 and 68: HISTO title goes here RIC AL Day by
Page 69 and 70: 1992 CLASSIC FM WAS LAUNCHED 7 Sept
Page 71 and 72: ANYTIME. ANYWHERE. ANY DEVICE! GET

primephonic: classical music in the digital age

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?