There is an utterly fascinating article on the front page of today’s "Wall Street Journal" how Anheuser-Busch fucked up its business by making its beer ever lighter, removing its bitterness, in an effort to make the beer more drinkable to more people.<\/p>\n
As a result, the company lost market share and had to discount its product.<\/p>\n
"After World War II…A diverse nation learned to like the same things. As regional varieties gave way to national brands, companies embraced soft-edged, broadly appealing formulas, which gradually lightened products from cigarettes to bread. It was a winning strategy that created success stories such as ranch dressing, Maxwell House coffee and Kraft cheese. A similar strategy in Hollywood produced the mass-market situation comedy and the Hollywood blockbuster. Market research fed the trend with its relentless tendency to find the common denominator."<\/p>\n
God, do you notice a TREND??<\/p>\n
This XM homogenization program is driving me fucking NUTS!\u00c2\u00a0 Not only are they going in the wrong direction, the move is being spearheaded, guided, by the same assholes who fucked up TERRESTRIAL radio.\u00c2\u00a0 What made XM great was it recognized that we live in a diverse country, full of deep niches, and it serviced them.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, I might not be interested in deep hip-hop.\u00c2\u00a0 Or endless pop music.\u00c2\u00a0 But with over a hundred channels, I didn’t have to live there.\u00c2\u00a0 I could stay between channels 40 and 50 in rockville and be happier than a pig in shit.<\/p>\n
But this didn’t work for those in charge.\u00c2\u00a0 They had to streamline the service.\u00c2\u00a0 To make it more palatable to a theoretical EVERYMAN!<\/p>\n
Same deal with the record labels.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want something edgy and different.\u00c2\u00a0 Something that will only sell to a limited group of people.\u00c2\u00a0 They want something that will cut a broad swath across America.\u00c2\u00a0 But by caring only about the bland middle, they lost the edge.<\/p>\n
Used to be people had no choice.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no other way to get the product.\u00c2\u00a0 They were at the MERCY of the controlled system.\u00c2\u00a0 But that is no longer the case.\u00c2\u00a0 With the Internet, ALL MUSIC is available.<\/p>\n
This is the labels’ worst nightmare.\u00c2\u00a0 Their success was based on controlling the retail and radio marketplace.\u00c2\u00a0 An indie could not get a record in a retail store, or if he did, he could not get paid for its sale.\u00c2\u00a0 And we know indies could not get on terrestrial radio.\u00c2\u00a0 And this worked for the nineties, when the major labels also controlled the then music-playing MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 The labels thought that everybody was happy.\u00c2\u00a0 But, everybody was PISSED!<\/p>\n
The story of Napster was not theft of music, but AVAILABILITY of ALL music at a low marginal price.<\/p>\n
And now, on sites like MySpace, a band doesn’t even have to PAY for distribution.\u00c2\u00a0 Fox sponsors them.\u00c2\u00a0 And the public grazes from page to page, looking for exactly what appeals to them.<\/p>\n
There’s no going back.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at TV.\u00c2\u00a0 The public is looking for ever more edgy shows.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got HBO and "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos".\u00c2\u00a0 Then reality TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like the Net, in TV they say it’s a fad.\u00c2\u00a0 People will return to the traditional sitcom and drama.\u00c2\u00a0 Never gonna happen.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a huge segment of the public that is burned out on that fare.\u00c2\u00a0 WE might have grown up adoring Beaver Cleaver, but today’s ten year old says he doesn’t know anybody like him and doesn’t give a shit.<\/p>\n
Mass media is freaking out.\u00c2\u00a0 Hollywood claims piracy is killing their business.\u00c2\u00a0 That they’ve got to protect the windows of distribution.\u00c2\u00a0 But the real story is the public is sick of their bland shoot-em-up fare, dumbed down so it can be understood by people all over the WORLD!\u00c2\u00a0 They’d rather go to cable.\u00c2\u00a0 And watch ultimate fighting, or Orange County Choppers, or…<\/p>\n
The record labels keep on trying to plug a square hole with a round ball.\u00c2\u00a0 The marketplace has changed forever.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, there will be a small segment of broad market fare, like "CSI", but an increasingly large creeping segment will be made up of a ZILLION bands.\u00c2\u00a0 THIS is the long tail.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a demand for everything.\u00c2\u00a0 The key is to make almost all of it available.\u00c2\u00a0 And for those with limited outlets, limited shelf-space, this is problematic, because there’s no limit on the Web.<\/p>\n
The more XM narrows its focus, the more it’s going to cede market share\/mind share to the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe the service will coast today, but once you have a Net alternative in the car, they’re fucked.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they’re playing by the old rules.\u00c2\u00a0 Thinking they control the game, but they’re wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s new technology delivering the same old shit.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s laughable.<\/p>\n
As for the major labels…they signed their death warrant when they started releasing fewer records, and cut staff to make their operation more efficient.\u00c2\u00a0 If they wanted to dominate they’d have to release MORE records.\u00c2\u00a0 And have appropriate staff to do so.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, their market share is going to be slowly eaten up over time, just like network television has been eviscerated by cable.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, most cable outlets get anemic ratings, but when you add them ALL TOGETHER, they DWARF network TV.<\/p>\n
The future is being wrested from the old guard.<\/p>\n
Or, one could say it’s being stolen from them while they’re asleep.<\/p>\n
Or, one could say it’s being taken from them while they’re wide awake, they’re just too dumb to see what’s going on.<\/p>\n
Or, as the old seer said:<\/p>\n
Because something is happening here "Ballad Of A Thin Man" <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is an utterly fascinating article on the front page of today’s "Wall Street Journal" how Anheuser-Busch fucked up its business by making its beer ever lighter, removing its bitterness, in an effort to make the beer more drinkable to more people. As a result, the company lost market share and had to discount its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-6t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?<\/em><\/p>\n
Bob Dylan<\/p>\n