Editorial Articles

Why isn’t the live music industry smitten with the internet?

Live (adjective) having life, or able to explode. A worrying definition if you’re banking on the future of music being based around the live performance...

The music industry has had a turbulent time of late. The way that people engage with music has shifted dramatically, simply selling albums is no longer profitable, piracy is as much as a concern as a casual sailing trip off the coast of Somalia; and the only market actually making money out of music is the live event. So will the live experience be embraced by the internet with as much love and good will as its recorded music video and mp3 siblings? The jury’s still out.

2010, bang smack in the midst of political and financial uncertainty, and yet, Glastonbury sells out in 24 hours. It’s no big surprise though. For a number of years, revenue generated through live music has grown substantially; so much so that the live music market is now worth an estimated £1 billion a year. Surely the next logical step would be to make the live music experience available to a worldwide audience online? So what’s holding it back? Is there an internal industry fear that live streaming gigs online will spell the end of the live audience, and replace the need for bands to tour? I doubt that. Will infiltrating the market with an accessible platform for any old garage band to perform live and in front of a global online audience make a mockery of the live performance, and drown out the real talent? Not likely. So why isn’t the industry embracing the internet and the ability to stream live to millions of people worldwide, 24 hours a day?

At the moment, streaming live and online is not cost-free (at least, not it you want to do it well), and it’s still a little hazy as to how the labels and artists make real returns from their investment by streaming a concert live. If you’re U2, then giving something back to your fans and streaming a promotional concert live on YouTube for free is most certainly an option. For your average multi-platinum artist, this isn’t quite the case. One method that has been toyed with is to sell online tickets, and to charge online viewers for the privilege of watching a live concert from the comfort of their home, or office if they don’t have a computer; but how much would you charge, and would people pay it? Will someone just record the live event and put it on YouTube an hour later anyway?

With the out-going cost of live streaming hanging over the labels head, there’s no guarantee that enough people will watch the gig to make the return. So the label has to pump more money into marketing the event so that fans know about it in the first place. So if that’s not a clear cut money spinner, then what else?

To some, the only short term option is to sell their digital rights to the brand with the highest bid.

How about the download stores themselves? Could we possibly see the likes of Apple teaming up with labels, in an attempt to use live content to promote album launches and sell albums through their iTunes store?

It seems like a no-brainer that live streaming will become synonymous with live concerts in the coming years, as more and more venues lay fibre optic cable, planting the seeds for digital growth.

Whatever the industry decides, live streaming has an important role to play in the music industry in the coming years. We live in a world that’s very different from the one that most industry execs experienced, and the way we consume music has changed dramatically in a matter of years, let alone decades.

James Wilkinson
Director, Streaming Tank
Twitter: streamingtank
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