Is the U.S. Music Download Boom over?

The latest report of Nielsen Music reveals that music downloads in the USA are at a turning point.

While music downloads in Germany are still going up - by 19% in the first half of the year, the numbers in the U.S. haven’t grown in the same period. It seems that the U.S. market for music downloads is saturated.

As the United States market is regarded as a predicting market for Europe, losing dynamics there is already making the music industry here in Europe nervous.

Nielsen General Manager Jean Littolff is looking for explanations: “As soon as the traditional music buyers have completed to transfer their CDs to MP3 the download potential for ‘old music’ will go down rapidly.”

There might also be other reasons to consider, says music consultant Christoph Pöschl (CEO Brand Support):
“After people have downloaded all the songs from their lives' soundtracks, it is really hard for them to find new songs and 'new old songs' that sound like the favorites they used to love in the past. Therefore recommendation management connected with people’s personal sound preference will become more important in the future in order to motivate people to listen to and buy new
'old music' and new music that sounds familiar.”

New Study: 6 Types of Social Media Users

Social Media is THE hot topic in all media discussions at the moment. We at Brand Support know this from discussing the possibilities social media platforms offer with our clients. Now a new global study called “MePublic” and presented by MTV Networks and car manufacturer Volkswagen gives you an idea who uses social media and to what extent. For the study, young people (14-29-year-olds) in 10 countries (Mexico, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy) were asked how they use social networks.

The study identifies 6 different types of users:

The “Mediacs” are the largest group with 23%. They are very much committed to social networks and spend more than 160 minutes there every day. More than a quarter of Mediacs (28%) access the communities via mobile phones.

The “Tagtics” (22%) tend to use the platforms to get specific pieces of information. They are not as committed as the Mediacs.

The third largest group (17%) can already be referred to as skeptics: “Skipits” keep their distance from social networks. They have a hard time recognizing the point of such communities. It must be added that they also use other media less.

“Funatics” are mainly looking for entertainment in social networks and prefer to observe what the others are doing instead of becoming active themselves. Two thirds of Funatics are female.

“Crewsers” (13%) see social networks mainly as a place for exchange with friends.

Almost as big as the Crewsers group is the group of those who do not want to use social networks or tried it once and then quit: the “Nobuddies” (12%). As their reasons for quitting they named having no time, being afraid of becoming addicted or being harassed by others. A quarter of "Nobuddies" does not want to join the networks because of data protection concerns.

It should be noted that social networks are only used daily by a little more than half of all 14-29-year-olds (58%). In the study, television is in first place with 69% daily use.

As radio people we certainly have to add that in reality our “good old radio” is in the lead, which is still used by approx. 80% of the total population and by more than 70% of 14-29-year-olds every day.

Sources: wuv (German), Volkswagen press release (English)

Broadcast Symposium 2010

The continuation of a tradition: bci & Foster Kent Broadcast Symposium on November 13 in Nürnberg!

bci and Foster Kent, the music production company from Salzburg (Austria) are starting the ‚autumn sound campaign‘ on the radio: Meeting point for an intense, creative and future-oriented exchange at the „Broadcast Symposium“ is November 13 in Nürnberg (Germany). With this event the bci Group and Foster Kent are continuing an established tradition.

The focus will be on new trends from the areas of ‘Acoustic CI’, ‘On Air Marketing’ and ‘New Media’. The Broadcast Symposium is specially tailored for the medium radio and the choice of all topics is based on the daily business at a radio station.

The event is addressed at all station managers, program directors and managers as well as heads of design.

The one-day symposium will create the right atmosphere for an intense exchange and discussions with speakers and colleagues. This event gives you the opportunity to get to know methods, techniques and tips and tricks of other ‘radio people’.

Don’t miss Jochen Lukas’ workshop “Data meets Creativity – Defining your perfect (music) positioning with research”. We hope to see you there!