Snowcrashing

Irving Azoff on Artists as Brands

Posted on 06. Jun, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci in Music Industry Trends

Last week at the All Things Digital: D conference hosted by Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, music mogul and Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff, talked about the status of the music industry today.

Artists (and presumably their labels, managers, etc.) no longer make money off the release of their actual music. “Recorded music is more a marketing tool than a revenue source” for acts now, said Azoff. Today,“recorded music is down to less than 6%” of major musical acts’ revenues, he claimed.  Artists walk in to his office, Azoff said, “who used to make $300,000 to $500,000 a year in royalties [from selling recordings]. And now that’s diminished to less than $50,000” a year.

The money is made off their live shows and merchandising The digitization of music and downloading has not killed the music business, it has reshaped it immensely.

It is not about the product, but the packaging and distribution. Azoff stressed that music artists must be brands, with a capital B. He cites new deals like his client Aguilera working with Procter and Gamble to launch a line of fragrances.

How about the music start-ups where TicketMaster has a stake as Playlist Project and iLike? According to Azoff, they can survive, and they’re excellent marketing opportunities. But they’ll have to find other ways of making money. Can they? “I don’t know.” Advertising? “I don’t know.

Azoff is obivously speaking out of his personal interest as Ticketmaster CEO, nontheless the talk has interesting ideas. Just skip over the non-answers on the TicketMaster-LiveNation merger.

Here’s the full video:

Tags: Artists as Brands, Music Industry Trends, Recorded Music Decline