De Nieuwe Muziekindustrie: Evolutie of Revolutie?

Digitalization caused a worldwide change in how music is produced, promoted, distributed and consumed. Music is nowadays available everywhere and can easily being edited, send and listened. For years the music industry was orientated on physical sound carriers like long-playing records, cassette-tapes or cds. The industry was characterized as a linear value chain where creation, production, distribution and consumption where logic steps after each other. Digitalization has changed the hierarchy and the relations between these companies in some interesting ways. When we focus on a local level, we see that these worldwide trends have different influences on a local music scenes. Because a city has specific cultural and economical features, (inter)national trends have other consequences than on a worldwide scale. This survey investigated these major influences on the Rotterdam music industry. The research question is: How has digitalization influenced the value chain of production and distribution in the Rotterdam music industry? In Rotterdam the music industry is relatively small, has a lot of small music businesses and has especially famous artists in the dance scene and electronic music. There are approximately 530 businesses with affinity to music in Rotterdam. This results in 6.000 people who work in the music industry of Rotterdam. Rotterdam has some strengths and weaknesses in their musical climate. Rotterdam has excellent educational institutions such as Codarts, Albeda College and SKVR. But the facilities for especially pop- en rock musicians are insufficient. Pop stages and artists are often in financial problems and do not cooperate with each other. Therefore there is a lack of practice rooms and accommodations for young musicians. Generally speaking, the music industry in Rotterdam is still very traditional organized. But in ‘young’, electronic genres businesses are experimenting with digital possibilities on productional and distributional level. Because Rotterdam has a great diversity of young musicians who participate in several underground scenes, digitalization led to a lot of opportunities. In other genres where audiences are older of age, the cd is still an important sound carrier. Because of that, their business models are still ‘old-fashioned’ organized. Respondents expect that the cd also in the future will be popular by especially older audiences. Also fans in particular niche genres will download less, because they want to support the artist. In niche genres the fan is more committed and loyal to the artist. To support them, these fans buy cds or merchandising more easier. Digitalization led to new changes for the whole value chain, but artists can profit most. It becomes for artists possible to produce, distribute and even promote music without interference of a record label or company. This leads to a more powerful position for musicians. They are not committed to labels or record companies, but they can determine their own path of success. Artists can hire companies to do specialized work like marketing, bookings or promotion. But artists are still very dependent of the knowledge and network of records companies and distributors, especially when an artist is a rising star. Record labels need to change their business models to support the artists. They should specialize themselves in activities which are still impractical for artists. Distributors should establish a broad repertoire of artists and labels to earn enough money. They suffer because of the decline in cd-sales, the insufficient profits from digital downloads and the difficulty to earn money from hits. So record companies and distributors are still essential in the music industry of Rotterdam. But for young artists and musicians in underground genres it has became more easier to communicate with fans, distribute music and create a ‘virtual’ scene. It is obvious that nowadays music businesses almost impossible can make enough profit from music recordings only. Artists, record labels, companies and distributors should focus on several disciplines to regain their market shares. Digitalization has certainly led to new ways for especially artists to set up their own businesses, but the margins and profits of digital distribution are very low. Therefore artists in Rotterdam don’t have the time, financial power and expertise to compete with record companies. Nevertheless, thanks to digitalization artists became a more powerful party in the music industry.