One of the things that we have to address in our Mass Communication classes are the ways digital technology affects how traditional media industries can make money. Essentially, thanks to the Internet and mobile networks, we can listen to music, read stories or news articles, and watch television programs, movies and other video online, more or less when and where we want. We don’t have to buy physical copies of books or CDs or DVDs and we’re not tied into the radio and television networks’ broadcast line-ups. This makes it a great time to be a media user in many ways, but it’s a challenge for media companies. The traditional models for making money on their products are dissolving from underneath them, just like the sand underneath your feet when you stand in the surf. They’re not yet sure what – if anything – will replace them. (Previous posts on this blog have addressed how this affects the newspaper industry, book industry, and television industry.) The last few days have provided some particularly dramatic illustrations of how things are changing and how the definition of what makes for a “successful” media product is being re-defined.
The first example comes from Billboard, which has been compiling lists of the “hottest” or most popular songs for decades.
Historically, the list was based on a combination of record/CD sales and radio airplay. They previously started counting paid digital downloads and “plays” on legal streaming services like Spotify. This week, according to Ben Sisario (2013) of The New York Times, they announced they’ll also be counting popularity on YouTube in order to create the charts. There have been plenty of songs recently that have been more popular online than on the radio or in record stores. (I can’t get the lyrics of Psy’s “Gangnam Style” out of my head, and I’m not even sure what they mean.) However, what apparently helped tip Billboard into making this change is the near-overnight sensation that is “Harlem Shake.” This has, of course, become a YouTube hit. According to Sisario’s article, download sales and Spotify streams are going up, but the core of the phenomena is user-generated videos of people dancing to the opening 30 seconds of the track. Sisaro reports more than 4 thousand of these videos are going up each day. It has not just gone viral, it’s become a meme. (BTW, considering the most of these videos are staying up, it seems the label of the artist that did the mix and which would own the copyright, has a deal with YouTube that gives them a cut of the ad revenue that runs against all those user-versions.) Billboard’s editorial director is quoted in the article as saying that “The notion that a song has to sell in order to be a hit feels a little two or three years ago to me.” I imagine large number of music company executives morosely pouring themselves a large glass of scotch at that notion.
The second example comes from Nielsen, which has been going back and forth with TV networks about how to count viewers for years. Nielsen ratings, of course, are the standard through which a TV program’s success is judged because it’s the metric that is used to determine ad prices. The current standard is to count the people who watch the ads that run during a particular program either when it airs live or who record it and play it back on a DVR within the following three days. According to The Times’ Brian Stelter (2013), Nielsen announced that they are going to expand the notion of what counts as a “TV household” to include those that have a broadband internet connection hooked up to a TV set. Now, this still won’t capture people who stream shows through subscription services like Netflix where there are no ads. However, it does have the potential to capture those who view through services like those offered by Aereo (which allows you to watch broadcast TV through a computer without an antenna) and on the networks’ websites (such as Hulu or ABC.com). This is just the latest in what’s been an ongoing debate about these sorts of issues. Don’t expect it to be the last.
