Sasha Frere-Jones reads in recent concert ticket bonus offerings the completion of the transition of recorded music from standalone product to mere advertisement for concerts.
If you buy a top-price ticket to one of No Doubt’s upcoming shows (between $50 and $150, roughly), you will receive a free download of the band’s entire catalogue. This makes sense, as touring is the one verifiably healthy part of the music business. Prince will release a new three-CD bundle on March 29, available exclusively at Target for $11.98. That may seem like a rollback to bargain prices of yesteryear (even though one of the CDs is by Prince’s protégée Bria Valente), but it’s more likely that Prince is seeing into the future—again. In 2004, he gave away a copy of his “Musicology” CD to everyone who attended one of his concerts, making concrete what is now almost axiomatic: recordings have become advertisements for shows.
As anyone who follows the movie industry knows, theatrical releases long ago became the most expensive commercials in the world for selling DVDs which generate most of the profits. Many movies don't even make back their production costs during their run in theaters, but investors count on sales of $17 DVDs to cover the shortfall and then some (international sales help, too, but DVD was the gamechanger.
Concert ticket sales have made up for the erosion of recorded music sales due to piracy. If DVD sales for television programming go down due to piracy, TV folks don't have an obvious backup plan like musicians have with concerts. If advertising can't cover TV production costs and DVD sales disappear, I suspect we'll all be watching a lot more reality TV.
It's one reason I want to see Hulu succeed, to provide an alternate revenue stream to continue to subsidize the production of shows in genres other than reality TV, which really isn't my cup of tea.
Posted by eugene at March 26, 2009 1:19 AM