Music Industry must learn to play new tune - analysis

Another downbringing Christmas has struck over the UK recorded music markets. Numbers have been recorded and analysed by TNS, market researcher, and the numbers are:
In 2008, 123million physical albums were sold, compared to 2007 were 131million were sold, and 2006, were 151million albums were sold. The average price last year was around 7.72pounds ($11.70) which shows a decrease from twenty-five percent from 2000 on. The numbers have dropped drastically, and the revenues have gone up.
David Joseph, chief executive chairman of Universal Music UK says, there is an economic downturn towards the music industry in the last few years. However, Universal Music UK is still signing and breaking domestic artists, as this is their prime reason for existing. During the last ten years, almost a decade, the music industry has been at the bottom of the market; though 2009 is supposed to bring a difference. Digital sales have gone up and the industry is migrating to different levels such as the use of mobile phones. Last year ten million digital albums were sold, which shows an increase of sixty-five percent from 2007. Charlie Marshall, of Ingenious Consulting however, is not convinced. He believes even though the digital market has grown majorly, he believes it cannot replace the revenues. Though there are positive sides to digital albums and songs. With the digitalisation the shipping should go down, and therefore money will be saved; however this has not been proven yet. Nokia already enables downloads onto the mobile phone with paying through the phone credit/bill. MySpaceMusic, an extention networking site, and Sony Ericsson's all-you-can-eat PlayNow Plus is supposed to come out this year.
Mark Mulligan, a research Director at Jupiter talks about the music business models. He says most business models give their music away with no charge, making no or rarely no money. This is hard for the record labels, and the only way to fight the "free"music seems to be one must hit back with "free"music; which will end nowhere. Efforts have been made to halt illegal downloading, however this plan has failed. There are too many websites in the net that give easy access to illegaly downloaded music. David Joseph also says the music models have changed with past years, and are continueing to do so. More and more music is moving towards the television; as many music channels are increasingly being watched. HipHop artists such as P.Diddy multi-task and use different ways to bring out their music. P.Diddy for example has his own record label, a clothes line, and the best-selling men's fragrence in the United States. He uses his music to make money in different forms. A similar task is done by Jay-Z, who also has more than just a record label nowdays. Video games are also increasingly being sold, and with it music. Games such as Guitar Hero or SingStar have been sold way more often last year than in the previous years. Songs for games are being downloaded and bought regularly online; which generates the copyright revenues. The music industry is changing its model, and using different ways to get onto the market; it is the customers support to buy albums that is often missing to keep it from falling.