Blog: attention recession

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Misaligned incentives make the music business a zero-sum game

Cover image for Misaligned incentives make the music business a zero-sum game
Tatiana Cirisano
“Pop Stars Aren’t Popping Like They Used To”, Billboard ’s Elias Leight writes in a recent article, in which record label executives stress over the struggle to break new artists. The article (or at least, the headline) stirred up a storm on Twitter — ahem, X — last week, where many users took the opportunity to slam record labels’ misguided focus on virality.
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Welcome to the era of attention inflation

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Perry Gresham
The covid pandemic and associated lockdown dynamic allowed entertainment consumption to reach new heights amongst a temporary surplus of free time. However, after restrictions eased, consumers found the constraints on their newfound time tighten, and had to make sacrifices, often preferring to return to real life activities at the expense of digital entertainment.
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Music is not a level playing field — it is a field of all levels

Cover image for Music is not a level playing field — it is a field of all levels
Tatiana Cirisano
We have heard it (and said it) many times before: the music industry has never been as competitive as it is today. But the challenge is not just that today’s landscape is ultra-competitive, it is also that new artists chasing success are competing against artists who came up before the landscape became so fragmented , as well as the entire history of music — not just that which is new.
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The record label addiction to virality is about the attention recession, too

Cover image for The record label addiction to virality is about the attention recession, too
Tatiana Cirisano
In a painfully-of-the-moment twist of irony, Halsey went viral on TikTok this week for speaking out about the pressure to do just that. “Basically I have a song that I love that I wanna release ASAP, but … my record company is saying that I can’t release it unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok,” they said .
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The Attention Recession: How inflation and the pandemic are reshaping entertainment

Cover image for The Attention Recession: How inflation and the pandemic are reshaping entertainment
Mark Mulligan
Netflix and Meta were the canaries in the proverbial mine for the attention recession and it is looking increasingly likely that difficult times lie ahead. If the attention crunch was not enough on its own, it has been compounded by the perfect storm of headwinds: the cost of living crisis, rising interest rates, energy and global grain supply constraints, and the Russo-Ukrainian war.
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