Where Spotify Could Go Wrong
Spotify has taken what is the most logical course in making music freely available by effectively running an on-line “radio station” supported by some advertising. Radio as a form of music content delivery has worked well since the early 20th century, and this is really a new take on the idea, with the added ability to be able to remove advertising by paying subscription. I do wonder, however, how well the advertising model is really working, and therefore how much hope is being pinned on the subscription model.
I listen to Spotify a lot as a free user – mostly because as a medium it may be of interest to some of my clients. However, I hear very few adverts, and many of those are for Spotify itself. My impression is that they are not selling advertising space effectively at the moment.
That maybe, as I have found, that for independent producers, getting the relevant information is very difficult. It may also be that advertisers think that with Spotify emphasising the subscription model, the free, advert supported model is being treated as an “also ran,” and who would want to advertise on that!
Certainly, it is noticeable that the mobile move is subscription only, so I assume that either they are not interested in the advertising version, or the advertising version is not working and they are desperate for subscriptions – it would be interesting to find out which.
In the long run, I suspect services like Spotify will be available as a bundle with your broadband, as I think broadband will move more and more to the Sky TV business model (Giving you free rain of anything you like is of no interest to the mass corporations – they want to tie you into THEIR version of the internet, and that is how Murdoch will solve his problems.)
This bundling makes sense as it will not be seen as “yet another thing to pay for.”
But that will not be good for the rest of us, or even the music industry. For while that means that people can listen to music “legally,” it possibly splits the market into HAVES and HAVE NOTS.
Back in the 50s, 60s and even 70s, the record companies were able to offer two very simple offerings – the single and the album. Singles, especially through outlets like Woolies, were very cheap and fun to own. People (normally kids) who wanted to follow their band, could easily afford singles and buy very cheap record decks to play them on (even cheaper with cassettes). Saving up pocket money to buy a single was a real kick – it wasn’t very hard to do and going down to the local record shop on the Saturday to buy the record with your mates was a real sense of freedom. You couldn’t afford albums, but that didn’t seem to matter much.
However, with subscription models, especially if they get wrapped up in company controlled internet connections, the cheap option wont be there – it will be so linked into monthly fees for services you only use 1% of and sold as “the best deal” that if you cant afford the package you will be left out in the cold completely.
What we need now is a competitor to Spotify that is completely advert lead – lots of ads, really creative ones, with a primary emphasis of selling records, concert tickets, memorabilia and so on – as much that is relevant to the music market as possible.
Fans will like it because the ads will be part of the fun, record companies will like it because it is all about their products, and it will be open to anyone with a connection.
Better still, put it on air, and then all you need is a remarkable little piece of kit called a tranny radio….
Oh.
Related posts:
- Look Mummy – I am on Spotify!
- High Speed Hype
- A Million People Can be Wrong
- Why my music is copyright
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