Digital Lifescapes

Market disruptions continue to upset the U.S. music recording industry. As a result, the changes have shrunk it in half in just over a decade, according to the latest market study by eMarketer. The legacy big media company's past experiments with digital media seemed promising, but they haven't generated enough revenue to stem losses from the sale of compact discs. Analysts now wonder if cloud-based music streaming services could revive the industry. Regardless, it's clear that the legacy music recording industry must reduce its traditional high-cost operating model -- in order to be competitive with low-cost indie performing artists that sell their content direct to online distributors and/or consumers. Can the old guard survive, given this scenario? "The short answer is maybe," said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst. "Key trends are pointing in the right direction, including positive technology adoption forecasts, a profusion of social sharing ac...

As the South by Southwest Festival of 2009 comes to an end, let's acknowledge the open unConference events -- as people from all over the world connected together and joined their Indie Music or Independent Film "community of interest" while in Austin, Texas. I've launched the GeoBrava Media project, in celebration of all the independent talent that stays true to their art-form -- passionately creating new digital media content -- regardless that their work is considered unCommercial by the legacy big-media companies. Free and Open Distribution Models The rise of the unLabel music production and open distribution model is a revolt in response to the traditional record label's business practices. Ditto, with the rise of the unStudio video production and open distribution phenomenon. A multitude of social media networking sites are creating the new open marketplace online, where the vast market supply is freely exposed to the awaiting eclectic market demand. The ...

Austin, Texas, is the most Digital Savvy city, according to a new market analysis from consumer and media research firm Scarborough Research. Twelve percent of Austin adults are Digital Savvy, and they are almost twice as likely as the national average to be in this leading-edge consumer segment. Las Vegas, NV, Sacramento and San Diego are also leading Digital Savvy cities, with 10 percent of their residents having this higher level of technological orientation and adoption. Nationally, six percent of all consumers are classified as Digital Savvy. The ranking of Digital Savvy cities is part of a just-released Scarborough market study report. In terms of purchasing patterns, Digitally Savvy consumers are a luxury-oriented group. They are 56 percent more likely than the average consumer to own or lease a luxury vehicle; 175 percent more likely to have spent $500 or more on men's or women's business clothing during the past year and 49 percent more likely to own a second home. Onl...

AngelouEconomics has released their first comprehensive economic impact assessment on the City of Austin from the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music, Film and Interactive Conference and Festival. Few entertainment industry events in the world can compare to the depth and breadth of SXSW -- given the range of activities, performers, presenters, and visitor attendees. In 2007, SXSW featured nine days of industry conference activities, six days of trade shows, a five-night music festival featuring over 1,500 artists in more than 70 venues, plus nine days and nights of film festival with more than 275 screenings in six venues. In total, it's estimated that the event last year was attended by more than 125,000 people. According to the AngelouEconomics assessment, the 2007 SXSW events were directly and indirectly responsible for injecting about $95 million into Austin's local economy. Digital Media Entrepreneurs That said, while the creative residents of Austin contribute to the city...

According to a StrategyEye report, we are now way beyond the tipping-point for upheaval within the traditional music recording industry. In fact, the primary value proposition of a legacy record label seems to have totally capsized and sank. Apparently, the rock band "Nine Inch Nails" is the latest to announce that they will no longer use music labels to market their work. Instead they will operate as free-agents , with online digital distribution a major focus of their direct marketing efforts. The move follows the announcement by Radiohead that they will no longer operate under the control of a music label, releasing their work directly to fans, with consumers able to "set their own price" for the band's latest album entitled "In Rainbows." Visitor traffic to Radiohead's Web site is reported to have increased by eleven-fold following the announcement. Music industry analysts are now warning that many other top recording artists are likely to fol...

BMI will distribute more than $732 million in royalties for its 2006-2007 fiscal year to the songwriters, composers and copyright owners that it represents -- an eight percent increase over the prior fiscal year. The rise in revenues is attributed to the company's robust music catalog, successful licensing of music across a diverse range of media, and revenue growth in foreign markets. BMI also posted record-setting revenues of more than $839 million, up seven percent from the prior year. This milestone represents the highest annual revenues and royalty distributions ever reported by a performing rights society. The increased usage of BMI's diverse repertoire throughout many broadcast mediums has, over the past several years, recast the traditional revenue structure from one dominated by conventional over-the-air broadcasting to a new picture in which cable networks, satellite audio and video services, and emerging digital media contribute increasingly significant revenue strea...

The recent "DRM-free" music tracks that were announced by Apple and Amazon.com do not herald the death of Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions on digital media, according to In-Stat's latest market assessment. Instead, the DRM-free model will likely be viewed as a music industry-only experiment -- albeit one that will be closely monitored to see if a viable business model emerges, the high-tech market research firm says. "The amount of digital content flowing over telecommunications networks is enormous and growing," says Mike Paxton, In-Stat analyst. "Much of this content is already protected by some type of DRM or content protection scheme. As the creation of digital content expands, it is fueling demand for more DRM solutions and content protection technologies." I also believe that the big media companies will cling to their DRM security blankets for the near-term -- until they can overcome their fear of free-wheeling digital media formats...

By 2011, consumers will be spending in excess of 50 percent more on entertainment content than they did last year, but it likely won't be for using the same content via different media, according to a new industry report by Understanding & Solutions. The upsurge of content, combined with much-improved delivery infrastructures, is increasingly allowing consumers to choose when, where and how they consume their entertainment. Recent industry activity and the take-up of home video, TV, music and gaming across multiple delivery platforms are already laying the foundations for significant growth in the sector, particular through three key categories. - Home Video and TV : electronic sell-through and online VoD, linear programming, TV based video-on-demand (VoD), mobile TV and theatrical box office. - Music : online, mobile, and subscription radio. - Gaming : online and mobile gaming. "Going forward, we'll see the highest percentage growth coming from mobile and online,...

In today's consumer electronics products, hardware IC features play little role in protecting copyrighted content. Popular digital rights management schemes that depend on secure software implementations such as Windows DRM, Fairplay, and AACS are routinely targeted and hacked. However, processor companies are enhancing their architectures and embracing security features that will simplify secure software implementations and make it much more difficult to copy and share protected content. By 2013, more than 60 million CE devices are expected to ship with hardware security. That is one of the key conclusions of a new study and market assessment from ABI Research entitled "Hardware Security in the Consumer Electronics Market." "There are basically no secure processors in consumer electronics right now. They will start showing up in commercially available devices in the next couple of years, and will take hold rapidly starting in 2009," says principal analyst Steve...

According to a new study from Strategy Analytics, the video and music industries are unlikely to follow the Apple and EMI recent decision to abandon Digital Rights Management (DRM). The report entitled "A Roadmap for DRM: Business Impact for Content Owners and Technology Vendors," draws on extensive interviews with senior executives in the media, entertainment and consumer electronics industries. It concludes that DRM will still play a critical role in the emergence of the digital marketplace. But to remain valid, according to Strategy Analytics, DRM will have to sink into the background of the value chain, enabling new choices for consumers, while also opening up new revenue streams for creators and content owners. "In the right form, DRM can help expand the size of the music and video markets," comments Martin Olausson, Director of the Strategy Analytics Digital Media Strategies service. "Ultimately, DRM is needed to harness the commercial value of the rip, m...

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics Digital Media Strategies service, the global online music market will grow 62 percent this year, to reach $2.7 billion, and will ramp to over $6.6 billion in 2011. Strategy Analytics believes that while the U.S. represented almost three quarters of the global market in 2006, the U.S. share of the market will have been reduced to less than half by 2011. "The recent move by EMI and Apple to drop DRM from premium tracks will produce a temperate increase in single track download revenues in the short to medium term," comments Martin Olausson, Director of Strategy Analytics Digital Media Strategies service. "However, long term revenue growth will come from hybrid subscription based services." "The music labels are finally starting to see digital sales having a positive impact on the bottom line," adds David Mercer, VP and Principal Analyst at Strategy Analytics. "This year will likely be the turning ...

Lawsuits, acquisitions, and experimentation are now the tools being used to craft the User Generated Content (UGC) landscape, and even with all that has transpired, we still only have an unfinished foreground in place, according to an In-Stat market study. Business models continue to adapt and change, as do experimentations with advertising, making the overall landscape of this market appear to be as dynamic as a feather in the wind, the high-tech market research firm says. "Three companies in particular have and will likely continue to make headlines: Google, YouTube, and Viacom," says Michael Inouye, In-Stat analyst. "The U.S. continues to be the market leader and will be for the foreseeable future," he says. The In-Stat report is entitled "User-Generated Content: How About Just Content?" which reminds me of why it's time to drop the whole user generated rhetoric, because it doesn't describe the meaningful phenomenon within the marketplace. Inde...

New distribution channels for online music and video are beginning to have a significant impact on the old music and video industry players, reports In-Stat. Online sales of digital music represented 6 percent of the total worldwide music market in 2006, up from 4 percent in 2005, according to In-Stat's best estimates. By 2011, In-Stat forecasts that online sales of digital music will represent 26 percent of all music purchased worldwide. I believe that this assessment is misleading, when taken literally, since most market research analysts monitor the share of traditional record labels sales that occur via online channels -- they typically don't include independent recording artist sales that are direct-to-consumer. As a result, analysts tend to understate the online market, because these Indie sales are difficult to aggregate and quantify. Likewise, analysts that monitor the video industry have a similar tendency to understate the size and growth of the online sales channel. ...

Since the beginning of time, storytelling was considered a core human trait for conveying events by combining gestures, expressions, sounds, images and words. Sharing stories was an essential part of culture and a means of instilling tribal knowledge. In fact, prehistoric cave drawings demonstrate the early use of symbolic figures representing the elements of simple storylines. As language skills evolved, oral stories were passed from generation to generation primarily by human memory. Later, with the development of writing, stories were recorded, then transcribed and shared more broadly. In the classical cultures of the world, the act of storytelling was believed to be inclusive -- everyone has stories to tell. Moreover, while some people were recognized for telling stories in a more engaging way than their peer group, the basic ability is innate to all humans. However, as civilizations progressed, communication of a narrative evolved into an art and science. Chronicled events...

Digital content providers and distributors will do battle for consumer mind-share in 2007, according to the latest research from the Strategy Analytics Digital Media Strategies service. "Digital Media Strategies: Hypercompetition and the Battle for Survival" notes that as barriers to entry melt away, and revenue opportunities become ever more fleeting, increased channel friction and a highly competitive environment in the media and entertainment market is likely to follow. "An increasing number of content providers are experimenting with direct-to-consumer distribution via the Internet," comments Martin Olausson, Director of Strategy Analytics Digital Media Strategies (DMS) service. "At the same time, scores of major telecom operators and competitive broadband service providers are launching wide-scale distribution of Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) and on-demand content services; and they are rapidly establishing themselves as important content distribution partne...

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival announced its complete lineup of panels, short films, retrospectives, and new additions to the feature film schedule. The panels lineup will conclude on Tuesday, March 13 with a special session entitled "Ready for Primetime: TV Comedy Today" featuring notable TV performers and producers such as Seth MacFarlane ('Family Guy'), Al Jean ('The Simpsons'), Rob Corddry (Fox's new show 'The Winner,' 'The Daily Show'), and more. Other notable additions to the panels lineup include: "A Conversation with Bill Paxton" on Saturday, March 10, the addition of filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell ('Shortbus') to the Monday, March 12 session "Sex Scenes Stay Hard," and a multimedia presentation by acclaimed animator Emily Hubley. The complete panels lineup and schedule will be on the SXSW Web site on Friday, February 16. "The panels aspect of the SXSW Film Festival has a...

Experiencing flat U.S. unit sales since 1997 would be a disaster for most media sectors, although it's actually fine for a few. As an example, the music recording industry and broadcast TV networks would welcome a level business environment with no apparent decline. In the movie theater business, Kagan Research estimates that the 2006 total of 1.4 billion U.S. admissions matches the industry's 1997 total. Yet it's still pretty good times for film exhibitors. But, is this grounds for a celebration? Yes, and no. It's good considering that platforms for movies have mushroomed over the past decade because of booms in cable video-on-demand, Internet streaming and high definition DVDs. Also, holding steady comes despite a narrowing of the window between theatrical and home video release of the same film. Of course, flatlining is really no reason for joy because it means no growth, and U.S. cinema admissions have fallen for four st...