Any self-proclaimed 'news' organization that manipulates the masses in such an overt way is despicable in my book. Fox News has completely thrown caution to the wind lately with a million dollar donation to the GOP (all in the name of 'business interests of course). No news outlet should cross such lines:
This is one of the largest "news" corporations in American yet they are about the farthest from impartial that I've seen.
I stand by my statement. Murdock is a parasite.
If you don't see the same behavior by all the other broadcast companies - and many more news distribution sites, then you're willfully ignorant. And stupid.
I don't it laughable at all. What was lost was the sale of the complete album. People are buying 2-3 tracks at a buck a apiece, instead of buying the $12-13 album. I definitely think that is a concern to all music producers.
Are you suggesting that the $12 CD in a store yields less profit than a $9.99 download of said album?
Music producers may have to be more diligent in what they put out now, because it is much easier for the consumer to scrutinize tracks and buy only what they like. If that is your sentiment, then I completely agree.
Saying that they can't peddle garbage to the masses (suggesting there is something right about doing so) is of no concern to my conscience. A music producer, manager, or whomever needs to see that an act has marketable talent now, instead of just wasting resources on junk.
Not to mention all of the other things that go into distributing a CD. From production to the B+M stores that need to shelve them. It's a huge, wasteful beast that need not exist anymore.
I like CDs. They're my archive medium. I just don't buy many any more. Of course, I don't buy downloadable music either. I just don't like today's music.
Looks like we might not see the .99 cent deal tomorrow after all. Although I am sure a part of the presentation [keynote sorry] about this has been prepared just in case there is a last minute deal.
Edit:
Quote:
Originally Posted by DJRumpy
If Murdoch is involved, I'd rather this effort fail. The man is a parasite and despicable in every sense of the word.
I guess people in Texas are not as uniformly crazy as I thought they were.
How did it twist to where iTunes destroyed the industry.
Digital music destroyed music more than the industry; and if they think they are now getting so much less from single track sales...
So we've gone from 70min to 700min on a CD, a tenth the data, lost the subsonics and anti-aliased the nuance out. There is no product per se, so no production - retailer costs. You can no longer bequeath it (alive or dead) to anyone, it's not even sellable, it has no value. People don't have $2000 iTunes collections, they have $0 iTunes collections that they spent $2000 for the marginal right to listen to.
Excellent post! You didn't even have to mention the poor excuse for music we've been subjected to from the major labels.
Bands & musicians are no longer known for their albums, instead they are now known for their song(s). I say you put an album together that someone wants to hear and they will buy it. I just went out of my way a few weeks ago to get the new Jack Johnson CD. Wouldn't do that for a lot of the other junk on the radio....
Are you suggesting that the $12 CD in a store yields less profit than a $9.99 download of said album?
I think he?s saying that buying a physical album to get the few songs you want is likely to yield more total profit those buying the few songs they want digitally á la carte.
How did it twist to where iTunes destroyed the industry.
Digital music destroyed music more than the industry; and if they think they are now getting so much less from single track sales...
So we've gone from 70min to 700min on a CD, a tenth the data, lost the subsonics and anti-aliased the nuance out. There is no product per se, so no production - retailer costs. You can no longer bequeath it (alive or dead) to anyone, it's not even sellable, it has no value. People don't have $2000 iTunes collections, they have $0 iTunes collections that they spent $2000 for the marginal right to listen to.
That was kinda true before the removal of DRM from iTunes. Now it's simply not the case. I have hundreds of AAC files that I paid for and can play on any compatible device. If I deleted them and gave the files to one of my kids, it would be the same as giving them my CDs. Different in a legal sense, but I wouldn't be too worried if I got called into court in that case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cy_starkman
As for the producers of tv shows, the retail price isn't their sale. They sell a batch to KMart, you might buy it a couple of months later for 1/2 price. The producer though has already cut and run.
I'd say their main opposition isn't a 99c retail price point. It's that they don't want to switch from lump sum to accumulation, it also changes who bares the risk; not like Apple cares if you don't sell many units of a crap show. KMart already paid, Apple only pays per sale, the file space is irrelevant.
Apple could change tactics. Offer the studios a flat lump sum, like a physical retailer, deal is Apple keeps the money. Offer two flat fees. Right to sell for 5 years or right to sell in perpetuity. Either that or 99c. Want neither, fine, we're moving to this model and only that content will be available on iTunes.
Alternatively offer the video houses a free financial consultant to help show them how they can transition from a lump sum to an accumulation model.
Either way they should see the value in selling nothing for money instead of having to go through all the trouble of making something for money.
This "lump sum payment" issue is a red herring. I'm almost certain that that's now how things work nowadays. Wal-Mart and before that just-in-time warehousing changed all that. Did you know that Wal-Mart doesn't buy products wholesale and sell them retail? They effectively act like a giant swap meet. Wholesalers/vendors only get paid by Wal-Mart when the product actually sells.
Any sane person would view the fact that Fox is the 'only news channel that leans to the right' to mean that Fox is extreme and out of the mainstream.
Any person who agrees with the other news channels would agree with that. Using the general population's beliefs as the mainstream, however, would yield a different conclusion. As for a Fox content deal being a "Pack [sic] with Satan," I'd rather have the option *not* to rent Glenn Beck than not have the option to rent "Bones," "Family Guy," "Fringe," "House," "The Simpsons," or "24."
Are you suggesting that the $12 CD in a store yields less profit than a $9.99 download of said album?
Of course. Apple keeps 30% of the album, so the publisher gets $7 on a iTunes $9.99 sale.
If the CD is being sold through retail, the retailer keeps around 50%. That means that the publisher receives $6.50-7.00. But that doesn't factor in all the costs of physically producing the CD, packaging, waste, and shipping.
They probably DO make more on an album sale via iTunes.
The problem for publishers is that most iTunes purchases are individual songs. They probably make less when I buy a $0.99 track than when I buy a $12 CD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kwatson
I'll have to assume that you don't really listen critically to your music, or at least not on anything more than earbuds. A downloaded track has nowhere near the detail nor dynamic range of a CD, as it's both compressed, in a bitstream sense, and compressed, in a musical sense. That's a real benefit of CDs (and vinyl...) to some, who still *listen* to their music as a foreground activity.
Also, as others have mentioned, CDs are albums, with planned multitrack content (often, amazingly, longer than 2-3 minutes per track . That's a benefit to some, who who still *listen* to their music as a foreground activity, and aren't afflicted with ADD.
For a tiny percentage of people, the quality matters. Heck, some people are still buying vinyl. But for the majority of the market, it just doesn't matter.
As for the 'album vs individual tracks' comment, you can also buy albums on iTunes, so your point is moot. Heck, a publisher can choose not to offer individual tracks at all.
Are you suggesting that the $12 CD in a store yields less profit than a $9.99 download of said album?
Nope. I'm only saying that people no longer buy entire albums of music. People buy only the cream of the album and leave the filler. As a consumer, this is great. As a music producer, I'm not so sure. This takes away some of the financial incentive to produce music.
And does this matter to us as consumers. Maybe. Let me speculate a little. Albums no longer sell well. So producers now have to concentrate on the "hit single". You end up with producers spending an inordinate amount of time, money and effort to get some glamorous little sex kitten a hit. You're trying to appeal to the most popular musical genre and audience. You have to gamble heavily on creating those hits, lessening the funds you have to produce other bands. I personally dislike most of the new music I hear today. Could this be because the funds to produce the type of music I like is not available? Damned if I know. I only know that if there were a single answer to the problem, it would be fixed and we wouldn't have anything to complain about.
This "lump sum payment" issue is a red herring. I'm almost certain that that's now how things work nowadays. Wal-Mart and before that just-in-time warehousing changed all that. Did you know that Wal-Mart doesn't buy products wholesale and sell them retail? They effectively act like a giant swap meet. Wholesalers/vendors only get paid by Wal-Mart when the product actually sells.
Yup. Walmart has suppliers line up and offer discounts to be sold in the store. Since shoppers there don't care about brands at any time one brand can be thrown out in favor of the other. You've already talked about JIT so I'm not gonna repeat that. What I do want to say is that Walmart to their suppliers is what iTunes is to the music industry: they dictate the pricing and ask for deals.
"TV executives reportedly believe that the plan would break the current economic model."
And that's a very very good thing. I work in the industry so I know some stuff the average person does not.
For example. The Nielsen Ratings, those 12 million viewers counts etc, doesn't even count 1 million viewers. They count 25k with an additional 100k during 12 weeks of the year. Weeks timed at points where tons of shows have failed in ratings before the first week hits. When they say a show got 12 million viewers they really mean more like 1000 and if the sample is accurate it would be 12 million. but this is not like sampling units on a production line. This is about people, psychology plays a part, personal taste plays a part. And the sampling is very likely not enough. Plus the demos are based on the Census so they are 1 to 10 years way out of date at any given point.
BUT those numbers are the all holy. They are how the advertisers pay out and that is the only money that is used in budget make good to decide a show is a hit or fail. There's no credit for hulu, official site streaming, netflix, itunes buys, amazon buys etc. That's all community pot money. And yet you can have a show that falls short of its promised '12 million viewers' but gets a million itunes buys in the first two days after airing every one of the 6 weeks it is on the air and no one stops to say 'wait, somethings going on here.' Nope, they just cancel it.
If a plan like this goes into effect yes it will force a change. But perhaps a good change. Perhaps networks will give credit for all sources of money and make the math simple. the show is recovering its budget and increasing viewers (seen via increases in downloads etc) it stays. If not, it goes.
Especially if it is as I have heard and it's actually $1 a month per show. So a kind of Zune like system where so long as you keep paying the fee you can have unlimited downloading. Even if its just the current season and the files are timed to delete after 24-48 hours (you can always download it again), many folks would probably go for it. And the nets can track viewers, continued payments etc. And so what if cable subscriptions go down. It will be a lot of the folks paying you for cable based internet. So you'll drop my 'two service' discount and raise my internet bill back up that $15. fine. I'm still saving $50
If you don't see the same behavior by all the other broadcast companies - and many more news distribution sites, then you're willfully ignorant. And stupid.
All the other news organizations gave a million dollars to republican governors? Please post links.
I think he?s saying that buying a physical album to get the few songs you want is likely to yield more total profit those buying the few songs they want digitally á la carte.
Yeah, but you have to figure into that argument that if someone only wants one or two songs off a CD, will they buy the whole thing. I would never buy a whole CD on impulse from a single track, but I have bought single songs from iTunes. So are they gaining or loosing?
apple stepped in and gave them a low overhead way to make money again.
no brick and mortar
no discs
no shipping
no carbon / paper / plastic
how soon we forget how bad it had gotten !!
No...Curmudgeon had it right. While it's true that pirates would have killed the business if legit digital downloads didn't come along, what is killing the music business right now is the transition back to the single as the primary music "product". I don't have the numbers in front of me, but digital downloads are not even coming close to making up for the loss of CD album sales. In fact, even if Apple (and others) had charged $2 a track instead of a dollar, it STILL wouldn't have made up for those losses. (And manufacturing/distribution cost was the lowest cost in producing the product - general overhead, sales, marketing and artist advances are the highest costs.)
And unlike the 1950s and early 60s, where an artist would go into a studio and record 2-3 tracks in a single session, artists spend six months to a year on an album, working in multiple studios and with multiple producers and multiple mixing and mastering engineers/studios. Singles cannot sustain that kind of recording/production.
At the current rate of decline, which is about 20% a year, there won't be much of a music industry left in five years.
Yeah, but you have to figure into that argument that if someone only wants one or two songs off a CD, will they buy the whole thing. I would never buy a whole CD on impulse from a single track, but I have bought single songs from iTunes. So are they gaining or loosing?
There is certainly an argument to be made on that point, but the counterargument is that the revenue and profit is still heavily in favour of CD sales for those wanting only a few songs.
Another argument is that the Internet already hurt the labels by making digital copies easily transferable, but that Apple's model of per song purchases was the best method for making digital downloads a profit center for the labels.
Comments
Do da name William Randolph Hearst strike a familiar note?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst
.
...rosebud
Any self-proclaimed 'news' organization that manipulates the masses in such an overt way is despicable in my book. Fox News has completely thrown caution to the wind lately with a million dollar donation to the GOP (all in the name of 'business interests of course). No news outlet should cross such lines:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11014504
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...mosque-planner
http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2010/0...s-mehlman.html
http://mediamatters.org/reports/200904080025
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_New..._controversies
This is one of the largest "news" corporations in American yet they are about the farthest from impartial that I've seen.
I stand by my statement. Murdock is a parasite.
If you don't see the same behavior by all the other broadcast companies - and many more news distribution sites, then you're willfully ignorant. And stupid.
I don't it laughable at all. What was lost was the sale of the complete album. People are buying 2-3 tracks at a buck a apiece, instead of buying the $12-13 album. I definitely think that is a concern to all music producers.
Are you suggesting that the $12 CD in a store yields less profit than a $9.99 download of said album?
Music producers may have to be more diligent in what they put out now, because it is much easier for the consumer to scrutinize tracks and buy only what they like. If that is your sentiment, then I completely agree.
Saying that they can't peddle garbage to the masses (suggesting there is something right about doing so) is of no concern to my conscience. A music producer, manager, or whomever needs to see that an act has marketable talent now, instead of just wasting resources on junk.
+1.
Not to mention all of the other things that go into distributing a CD. From production to the B+M stores that need to shelve them. It's a huge, wasteful beast that need not exist anymore.
I like CDs. They're my archive medium. I just don't buy many any more. Of course, I don't buy downloadable music either. I just don't like today's music.
Edit:
If Murdoch is involved, I'd rather this effort fail. The man is a parasite and despicable in every sense of the word.
I guess people in Texas are not as uniformly crazy as I thought they were.
How did it twist to where iTunes destroyed the industry.
Digital music destroyed music more than the industry; and if they think they are now getting so much less from single track sales...
So we've gone from 70min to 700min on a CD, a tenth the data, lost the subsonics and anti-aliased the nuance out. There is no product per se, so no production - retailer costs. You can no longer bequeath it (alive or dead) to anyone, it's not even sellable, it has no value. People don't have $2000 iTunes collections, they have $0 iTunes collections that they spent $2000 for the marginal right to listen to.
Excellent post! You didn't even have to mention the poor excuse for music we've been subjected to from the major labels.
Bands & musicians are no longer known for their albums, instead they are now known for their song(s). I say you put an album together that someone wants to hear and they will buy it. I just went out of my way a few weeks ago to get the new Jack Johnson CD. Wouldn't do that for a lot of the other junk on the radio....
Are you suggesting that the $12 CD in a store yields less profit than a $9.99 download of said album?
I think he?s saying that buying a physical album to get the few songs you want is likely to yield more total profit those buying the few songs they want digitally á la carte.
How did it twist to where iTunes destroyed the industry.
Digital music destroyed music more than the industry; and if they think they are now getting so much less from single track sales...
So we've gone from 70min to 700min on a CD, a tenth the data, lost the subsonics and anti-aliased the nuance out. There is no product per se, so no production - retailer costs. You can no longer bequeath it (alive or dead) to anyone, it's not even sellable, it has no value. People don't have $2000 iTunes collections, they have $0 iTunes collections that they spent $2000 for the marginal right to listen to.
That was kinda true before the removal of DRM from iTunes. Now it's simply not the case. I have hundreds of AAC files that I paid for and can play on any compatible device. If I deleted them and gave the files to one of my kids, it would be the same as giving them my CDs. Different in a legal sense, but I wouldn't be too worried if I got called into court in that case.
As for the producers of tv shows, the retail price isn't their sale. They sell a batch to KMart, you might buy it a couple of months later for 1/2 price. The producer though has already cut and run.
I'd say their main opposition isn't a 99c retail price point. It's that they don't want to switch from lump sum to accumulation, it also changes who bares the risk; not like Apple cares if you don't sell many units of a crap show. KMart already paid, Apple only pays per sale, the file space is irrelevant.
Apple could change tactics. Offer the studios a flat lump sum, like a physical retailer, deal is Apple keeps the money. Offer two flat fees. Right to sell for 5 years or right to sell in perpetuity. Either that or 99c. Want neither, fine, we're moving to this model and only that content will be available on iTunes.
Alternatively offer the video houses a free financial consultant to help show them how they can transition from a lump sum to an accumulation model.
Either way they should see the value in selling nothing for money instead of having to go through all the trouble of making something for money.
This "lump sum payment" issue is a red herring. I'm almost certain that that's now how things work nowadays. Wal-Mart and before that just-in-time warehousing changed all that. Did you know that Wal-Mart doesn't buy products wholesale and sell them retail? They effectively act like a giant swap meet. Wholesalers/vendors only get paid by Wal-Mart when the product actually sells.
Any sane person would view the fact that Fox is the 'only news channel that leans to the right' to mean that Fox is extreme and out of the mainstream.
Any person who agrees with the other news channels would agree with that. Using the general population's beliefs as the mainstream, however, would yield a different conclusion. As for a Fox content deal being a "Pack [sic] with Satan," I'd rather have the option *not* to rent Glenn Beck than not have the option to rent "Bones," "Family Guy," "Fringe," "House," "The Simpsons," or "24."
Are you suggesting that the $12 CD in a store yields less profit than a $9.99 download of said album?
Of course. Apple keeps 30% of the album, so the publisher gets $7 on a iTunes $9.99 sale.
If the CD is being sold through retail, the retailer keeps around 50%. That means that the publisher receives $6.50-7.00. But that doesn't factor in all the costs of physically producing the CD, packaging, waste, and shipping.
They probably DO make more on an album sale via iTunes.
The problem for publishers is that most iTunes purchases are individual songs. They probably make less when I buy a $0.99 track than when I buy a $12 CD.
I'll have to assume that you don't really listen critically to your music, or at least not on anything more than earbuds. A downloaded track has nowhere near the detail nor dynamic range of a CD, as it's both compressed, in a bitstream sense, and compressed, in a musical sense. That's a real benefit of CDs (and vinyl...) to some, who still *listen* to their music as a foreground activity.
Also, as others have mentioned, CDs are albums, with planned multitrack content (often, amazingly, longer than 2-3 minutes per track
For a tiny percentage of people, the quality matters. Heck, some people are still buying vinyl. But for the majority of the market, it just doesn't matter.
As for the 'album vs individual tracks' comment, you can also buy albums on iTunes, so your point is moot. Heck, a publisher can choose not to offer individual tracks at all.
Are you suggesting that the $12 CD in a store yields less profit than a $9.99 download of said album?
Nope. I'm only saying that people no longer buy entire albums of music. People buy only the cream of the album and leave the filler. As a consumer, this is great. As a music producer, I'm not so sure. This takes away some of the financial incentive to produce music.
And does this matter to us as consumers. Maybe. Let me speculate a little. Albums no longer sell well. So producers now have to concentrate on the "hit single". You end up with producers spending an inordinate amount of time, money and effort to get some glamorous little sex kitten a hit. You're trying to appeal to the most popular musical genre and audience. You have to gamble heavily on creating those hits, lessening the funds you have to produce other bands. I personally dislike most of the new music I hear today. Could this be because the funds to produce the type of music I like is not available? Damned if I know. I only know that if there were a single answer to the problem, it would be fixed and we wouldn't have anything to complain about.
This "lump sum payment" issue is a red herring. I'm almost certain that that's now how things work nowadays. Wal-Mart and before that just-in-time warehousing changed all that. Did you know that Wal-Mart doesn't buy products wholesale and sell them retail? They effectively act like a giant swap meet. Wholesalers/vendors only get paid by Wal-Mart when the product actually sells.
Yup. Walmart has suppliers line up and offer discounts to be sold in the store. Since shoppers there don't care about brands at any time one brand can be thrown out in favor of the other. You've already talked about JIT so I'm not gonna repeat that. What I do want to say is that Walmart to their suppliers is what iTunes is to the music industry: they dictate the pricing and ask for deals.
...rosebud
lol!
.
And that's a very very good thing. I work in the industry so I know some stuff the average person does not.
For example. The Nielsen Ratings, those 12 million viewers counts etc, doesn't even count 1 million viewers. They count 25k with an additional 100k during 12 weeks of the year. Weeks timed at points where tons of shows have failed in ratings before the first week hits. When they say a show got 12 million viewers they really mean more like 1000 and if the sample is accurate it would be 12 million. but this is not like sampling units on a production line. This is about people, psychology plays a part, personal taste plays a part. And the sampling is very likely not enough. Plus the demos are based on the Census so they are 1 to 10 years way out of date at any given point.
BUT those numbers are the all holy. They are how the advertisers pay out and that is the only money that is used in budget make good to decide a show is a hit or fail. There's no credit for hulu, official site streaming, netflix, itunes buys, amazon buys etc. That's all community pot money. And yet you can have a show that falls short of its promised '12 million viewers' but gets a million itunes buys in the first two days after airing every one of the 6 weeks it is on the air and no one stops to say 'wait, somethings going on here.' Nope, they just cancel it.
If a plan like this goes into effect yes it will force a change. But perhaps a good change. Perhaps networks will give credit for all sources of money and make the math simple. the show is recovering its budget and increasing viewers (seen via increases in downloads etc) it stays. If not, it goes.
Especially if it is as I have heard and it's actually $1 a month per show. So a kind of Zune like system where so long as you keep paying the fee you can have unlimited downloading. Even if its just the current season and the files are timed to delete after 24-48 hours (you can always download it again), many folks would probably go for it. And the nets can track viewers, continued payments etc. And so what if cable subscriptions go down. It will be a lot of the folks paying you for cable based internet. So you'll drop my 'two service' discount and raise my internet bill back up that $15. fine. I'm still saving $50
If you don't see the same behavior by all the other broadcast companies - and many more news distribution sites, then you're willfully ignorant. And stupid.
All the other news organizations gave a million dollars to republican governors? Please post links.
I think he?s saying that buying a physical album to get the few songs you want is likely to yield more total profit those buying the few songs they want digitally á la carte.
Yeah, but you have to figure into that argument that if someone only wants one or two songs off a CD, will they buy the whole thing. I would never buy a whole CD on impulse from a single track, but I have bought single songs from iTunes. So are they gaining or loosing?
the pirates killed the music business
apple stepped in and gave them a low overhead way to make money again.
no brick and mortar
no discs
no shipping
no carbon / paper / plastic
how soon we forget how bad it had gotten !!
No...Curmudgeon had it right. While it's true that pirates would have killed the business if legit digital downloads didn't come along, what is killing the music business right now is the transition back to the single as the primary music "product". I don't have the numbers in front of me, but digital downloads are not even coming close to making up for the loss of CD album sales. In fact, even if Apple (and others) had charged $2 a track instead of a dollar, it STILL wouldn't have made up for those losses. (And manufacturing/distribution cost was the lowest cost in producing the product - general overhead, sales, marketing and artist advances are the highest costs.)
And unlike the 1950s and early 60s, where an artist would go into a studio and record 2-3 tracks in a single session, artists spend six months to a year on an album, working in multiple studios and with multiple producers and multiple mixing and mastering engineers/studios. Singles cannot sustain that kind of recording/production.
At the current rate of decline, which is about 20% a year, there won't be much of a music industry left in five years.
If Murdoch is involved, I'd rather this effort fail. The man is a parasite and despicable in every sense of the word.
I agree, but why do I find myself cheering for him in this case? Think of it as a Nixon to China event.
Yeah, but you have to figure into that argument that if someone only wants one or two songs off a CD, will they buy the whole thing. I would never buy a whole CD on impulse from a single track, but I have bought single songs from iTunes. So are they gaining or loosing?
There is certainly an argument to be made on that point, but the counterargument is that the revenue and profit is still heavily in favour of CD sales for those wanting only a few songs.
Another argument is that the Internet already hurt the labels by making digital copies easily transferable, but that Apple's model of per song purchases was the best method for making digital downloads a profit center for the labels.
While most in the TV industry are opposed to Apple's proposed plan for 99 cent episode rentals
Ahem! It's a rumour.
I guess you don't want the Simpsons, Family Guy, or 24 on your iPad?
Love the Simpsons & Family Guy.