Playlists, Not Radio
Radio is killing the music business.
Alta kachers and record labels pay fealty to this antiquated medium to their detriment. In an on demand society where the playlist is king the business keeps focusing on getting airplay and there are not enough slots and not enough people listening.
It’s like they’re coal miners fighting for market share in a world that’s become about natural gas, solar and wind.
The revolution has happened. It’s just that those with power refuse to acknowledge it. Sales are a dead metric, like counting the number of landlines in a mobile world, it’s all about streams. But how do you get people to stream if they don’t know what playlist to check out? Paul Simon put out a new album. Reviews say it’s good, I haven’t listened to it. Where do I start? Same deal with Tom Petty’s Mudcrutch. The acts make LPs in a singles world, get traditional publicity in an online social world, and then they blame the system when their new projects gain no traction.
Source: Lefsetz Letter