Reports: Entertainment and Fandom

2013 was the recorded music industry’s 14th successive year of revenue decline. The prolonged death rattle of the CD continues to drag the global market down with it and things just got worse with the paid download entering its own tailspin. Streaming and Subscriptions are the great hope and are growing at unprecedented rates.

Accelerating smartphone and tablet adoption around the world is supercharging an already buoyant app store economy. A combination of Apple’s tightly integrated ecosystem and Google’s aggressive marketing strategy are helping propel apps further into consumers’ consciousness.

The 21st century decline in recorded music revenues continues to send shockwaves throughout the music industry and although there are encouraging signs of digital-driven growth, the impact on artists is less clear. The concentration of the majority of recorded music revenue around a small share of musical works has led to the emergence a Superstar artist economy.

Natives and Immigrants demarcate the digital world. While Digital Immigrants bear the baggage of their analogue era past, Digital Natives have only ever know ubiquitous connectivity and content availability. Consequently the digital music behaviour of Digital Natives evolves at a dramatic pace and markedly over indexes against the Digital Immigrants.

10 years after the launch of the iTunes Store and 5 years after the launch of Spotify, digital music remains a largely niche sector, with the notable exception of YouTube. Despite a decade of contraction the CD remains the most pervasive music product while radio is the dominant consumption platform.