An interesting point given the post from yesterday about the movie industry. Mediapost have highlighted the huge sales volume that occurs from Digital Music sales. The $2bn equates to 795million single track sales. Essentially this equates to less than 25% of all music sales, but is predicted to top 25% by 2010.
Although this is very interesting and exciting on its own, outside of the music industry it highlights an area of intrigue for Hollywood. The reversal of fortunes for many parts in the music industry has come after a time when many believed the peer 2 peer sharing would totally destruct music. A case of digital killed the music star! However, revenue is booming as consumers can now access sales points from many different areas. iTunes is clearly the obvious one but newcomers like eMusic are taking up the challenge with subscription models offering 40 downloads for £14.99 plus other options.
This is the route that Hollywood should really push itself down. Yes, they need to be concerned about peer 2 peer file sharing or piracy, but they also need to make sure they put their content in as many accessible areas as possible in order to create the turnaround the music industry has seen.
Their strategic approach of caution is understandable but the first studio to take a real risk and offer up their content for live streaming or download could go along way to opening up a widescreen window of opportunity.
