Music Industry as an Example of Bad Decisions

Two articles popped up recently that use the music industry as an example of what not to do in adapting to the realities of 21st century business.

An article in Publisher's Weekly, BookExpo America 2009: Book Publishers: Please Don’t Be Like the Music Industry!, covers a panel at this year's BookExpo America and remarks made during a panel discussion on how publishers can succeed:

The short answer to book publishers is: don’t act like the music labels and turn your companies into a disruptive force that comes between  readers and the real product—writing and writers.

In an article in SeekingAlpha, Can the TV Business Avoid the Music Industry’s Fate?, Ashkan Karbasfrooshan makes several interesting points about the evolution of traditional media in the Internet Age. He cites Magna Insights data that illustrates the impact of online video on traditional video:

Regular readers know that I don’t think anything will “kill” television outright, but [the data suggests]  that online video will shrink traditional video, as was the case in music. There is a rationale to support this argument:- if the traditional media companies don’t legally make their content available online, then there is the threat of piracy. Think of music labels.

If they do publish their content online, then they shrink their businesses via the threat of cannibalization. This is what happened to print companies, the more aggressive ones actually shrunk much quicker than those who weren’t very aggressive (think NYTimes (NYT), or the Chronicle).

The game has changed, across the board.

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