ROUGH TRADE HITS NEW YORK AS UK 1000th ALBUM #1 IMMINENT

These are interesting times on both sides of the Atlantic.

This week sees not only the likely announcement of the 1000th #1 UK Album since the charts started in 1956, but also the opening of a 15,000 square foot Rough Trade record store in the heart of Brooklyn, New York. For those who are quick to denounce albums and record stores as passé, this might comes as surprising news. Whilst it's true that the days of nationwide record store chains and million selling albums are largely over, there is a growing renaissance for the better aspects of these long-standing features of the music industry. Recent blogs have covered the rebirth of HMV (Back To The Future For HMV) and the huge increase in vinyl album sales (Vinyl Sales Explode) and so it's only fitting we explore this phenomenon a little further.

58 Years And Counting

The UK's first #1 Album - July 1956

The UK album charts first appeared in 1956 when a grand total of five albums achieved inclusion on 28th July. The long playing record was still a relatively new beast: sales were reliant upon a British public, freshly emerged from the end of war-time rationing and having spare cash to not only buy albums but also the equipment to play them on. The first number one was a landmark release from Frank Sinatra, "Songs For Swinging Lovers", an album that continued his productive working relationship with Nelson Riddle. It stayed in the top spot for three weeks being replace by the Carousel sound-track in August. Increasingly, when albums hit number 1, they tended to stay there for a few weeks - and it wasn't unknown for a release to climb back up the charts and reoccupy that top spot. Indeed, it wasn't until the autumn of 1971 that the 100th different LP achieved number 1 status - this was John Lennon's second solo album after leaving The Beatles, "Imagine". That's a fifteen year gap and meaning an average occupancy at number 1 for each release of nearly 8 weeks.

John Lennon - Imagine - 1971

In the forty years since Imagine, several things have changed the focus within the album charts. Firstly, sales became more diverse with fans buying releases from a wider range of artists. Secondly, competing pressures from  TV and videos saw a different focus on what fans wanted. And thirdly, the CD revolution saw back catalogues becoming increasingly available in a handy format. This all led to much more volatility in the charts and, for example, the next 18 years saw 300 different albums at number 1, the average stay being cut to little more than 3 weeks. And, for the record, that 400th number one was Erasure's "Wild". By the time of the 700th (The Coral's "Magic & Medicine") in 2003, that stay had fallen to barely two weeks and we were witnessing the start of a new facet of chart structure. 

Jake Bugg "Shangrio La" - The UK's 1000th
#1 album?

Download sales had started  having an effect and the concept of "buying an album" was gradually being replaced by fans cherry-picking selected tracks and buying those individually. The net effect was that for a band to hit number 1, far fewer actual sales were now needed and this allowed a much wider range of acts to have their moment in the sun. The last 10 years has been a real roller-coaster ride and now, 10 years on from the 700th album, we are likely to see the 1000th this weekend. For the record, that release will have an average occupancy in the top slot of 1.7 weeks, the lowest figure yet. In 2012, UK album sales declined by over 11% and whilst that still means significant numbers are sold, it is a continuing downward trend. Vinyl is the success story, as we have seen, and in some ways, I liken the current state of the charts to -beer sales in the past 40 years. Here, a situation where a handful of huge breweries produced most of the UK's beer requirements has been replaced by one in which the big breweries are struggling and a vast range of 800 or more small, local breweries have sprung up providing craft ales that serve a discerning niche market. Sound familiar?

So, I'll raise a glass to the 1000th different album to hit number 1, be it Jake Bugg and his second album "Shangri La" or the current favourite, timed for the festive market, Stoke's very own Robbie Williams and "Swings Both Ways". 

Rough Trade New York

Rough Trade NYC - Getting Ready For Opening

I don't imagine that the 1000th UK number 1 album will be bothering the owners of Rough Trade, an iconic record label, management company and increasingly niche record store operator. Their expansion into the USA looks like a savvy move. Their New York store - handily placed in Brooklyn at the epicentre of a lively music scene - has taken their successful UK template and applied it to the Big Apple. They describe the store as a "Cultural Hub" and emphasise that it's "not about the price" (on-line is cheaper) but that "it's about the experience". This is clearly underlined by that UK template which means a funky store (a converted warehouse) with 15,000 square feet of space, a performance area with room for 250 spectators, a cafe and coffee area - and plenty of racks of vinyl, CD and associated musical wares. Rough Trade will never aspire to become a chain store with a downtown site in every city, but they will become a destination for music enthusiasts, backed up by an eclectic and effective website. 

Rough Trade Interior

I've said before that Rough Trade's Brick Lane store in London has caught the zeitgeist, so much so in fact that HMV's re-opening of their original flagship store on Oxford Street has adopted a similar pattern, albeit in a more diverse shopping area than the uber-cool Brick Lane. I truly hope that Rough Trade NYC works for the US market and unless music trends charge forward faster than Rough Trade can adapt, I see no reason why it won't. Vinyl sales - the icing on the cake in the sweet shop window - will prove an attraction and with many hip bands these days issuing their releases on vinyl, CD and download, there'll be a wide range of stock on hand. And whisper it quietly, vinyl is often sold at a premium price in view of its shorter production runs and higher manufacturing costs - so who wouldn't want to try and sell it whilst the fans are still interested?

Spinnaker Records on Main Street, Hyannis
A good small-town store

The rest of the USA may look on with interest, but unless something in addition to the popular annual Record Store Day is developed, the remaining record stores must surely have a precarious existence: their numbers have declined by over 35% in the last five years alone. Enthusiasts and fans will always ensure that selected niche stores survive, but when even the big-ticket chains are ditching music, there must be some cause for concern. Perhaps the right small-town model is a combination of new and used music, knowledge and service - all backed up with the "experience" you just can't get on line.

It'll be very interesting to see what happens next year.

((Post Script - 24th November: Needless to say my usual skills at predicting chart hits continued to fail me as the 1000th UK Album Chart #1 has turned out to be Robbie Williams, rather then my preferred choice, Jake Bugg. No doubt his bank manager will be a little happier now)).

Alan Dorey

23rd November 2013

THE ART OF VINYL

Who would have thought that on the cusp of 2014, flattened lumps of black plastic vinyl would become cool once more? It's hardly cutting-edge technology and is fraught with danger when in use - and yet, here we are, with twelve-inch vinyl record sales burgeoning and becoming rather popular in the process. (See previous blog for some of the sales figures: Vinyl Sales Explode)

For me, it was always the complete package that was of interest. The album sleeve, preferably a gate-fold, a lyric sheet (sometimes) and the occasionally witty (and often relentlessly dull) sleeve notes all adding to the aural delights to be found on the LP itself. And it seems that the continued growth of sales has encouraged an increasing interest in those album sleeves and their artwork . This month sees the publication of the nominees for the Best Art Vinyl Award 2013, an award started in small circumstances back in 2005 and now sharing a rising profile in tandem with that increase in LP sales. 

Best Art Vinyl 2013 - Displays

The award - like so many - isn't completely altruistic as it was launched by the Art Vinyl Company, a business that manufactures bespoke and expensive wall-mounted frames so that you can better "display your vinyl treasures". Needless to say, they "protect" the album sleeve from dust (I use plastic LP sleeves) and once displayed, have a "quick release mechanism" so that you can easily switch albums over without "removing the frame from the wall". Starting prices are £51 (which buys me four or five new LPs) and with gift packs and all the rest, I'm sure it's a profitable business. 

Best Art Vinyl Display Frames

In reality, the frames do look quite stylish - and the Best Art Vinyl Award does seem to have struck a chord this year as several media outlets have covered it, so I shouldn't knock it.

The Temper Trap- 2012 Winners

Previous winners have included The Temper Traps, The Klaxons and The Fleet Foxes, each of which were striking and distinctive examples of the visual packaging of an album and so much better presented on the full majesty of a 12 inch LP rather than a cramped CD or worse, a thumbnail image on a download site. This year's nominees present a fascinating variety of styles and techniques and when all 50 are viewed, it does make the heart soar somewhat with the inventiveness and skill with which the artists present their work. It's almost album-cover porn, somewhat like flicking through the pages of one of those glossy Taschen album-cover retrospectives where overload sometimes detracts from the immediacy of each image. But, it's a Good Thing and yet another demonstration that vinyl will have a future and prove to be somewhat more than the musical cul-de-sac that many predicted when download sales rocketed.

Here are a few of my select choices from this year's nominees:

Atoms For Peace and "Judge, Jury Executioner"

I've always been a fan of artwork that shows strong contrasts, and there's not much stronger than the simple, stark lines of black and white as shown here. It's almost like a woodcut in its intensity and certainly makes it stand out. 

White Lies and "Big TV"

This is a very painterly approach, you can almost see the brush strokes and the combination of a modern day image (a hi-tech helmet) and such bright colours works really well. Again, it's a distinctive image and one that draws you in to explore the contents some more.

Van Dyke Parks and "Song Cycled"

A great lyricist is presented here with a punning piece of artwork: the bold use of primary colours with sun-bleaching overlays is a wonderful cover and although perhaps borrowing a little from the style of, say, Hockney's Californian period, it's a cover that stays in the memory.

The Leisure Society and "All Aboard The Ark"

This stylised image reminds me a little of the 1950s painted posters commissioned by what was then British Railways, posters showing landscapes and scenery from train destinations on their network. Here, simple colours and blocks work extremely well to make this cover stand out.

Paul McCartney and "New"

With his best album in some years, it's only fitting that Macca has a cover to match. It won't win, it is quite derivative, but the vertical and horizontal bars that imply the title of the album is a neat piece of design.

Gabrielle Aplin and "English Rain"

I remember seeing the music press adverts for this release by singer-songwriter Gabrielle Aplin. There was something intriguing about the washed out grey and white background and the stark contrast of the joyous colour figure running across the cover. Some fine photography.

Babyshambles and "Sequel To The Prequel"

From an indie band with its heart in the 1990s comes an album cover that suggests that era too, a cover echoing The Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays and yet lively and vibrant at the same time.

You can catch the full set of nominees right here (Best Art Vinyl 2013) and judge the range of covers for yourselves. If you're so taken, you can also vote for your top three and submit them on-line and who knows, your input might just help push vinyl album sales up a little bit higher.

Ultimately, vinyl is not the future, but it is an interesting cultural sidetrack and one which is fully deserving of support. If this sort of award can play its part, then we shouldn't ignore it. And who knows, maybe the wider public will notice the vinyl revival and see something good in a medium that had almost been confined to the pages of musical history.  

Alan Dorey

17th November 2013  

MOJO MAGAZINE HITS 20

Twenty years ago, I remember seeing the first issue of Mojo on sale at the local newsagent.

It had an intriguing cover depicting John Lennon and Bob Dylan in semi-profile accompanied by the *come on* tag of "The Trip - Dylan and Lennon: A dawn car ride with the alchemists of acid rock". Well it certainly worked as I bought that issue and have done ever since, all the way up to the celebratory 20th anniversary edition (#241) out this week. 

Mojo - Issue 1 - October 1993
Bob Dylan & John Lennon - "The Trip"
The range and quality of content
marked it out on the news stands.
As The Beatles said "It Was 20 Years Ago Today"

For a print magazine which has seen sales slip in recent years (see my previous blog on the subject right here: Print Sales Plummet), it's certainly put a massive effort into the anniversary issue with all manner of promotion and changes afoot. I must declare an interest and say that it's a magazine I rate highly and would love to have around for another 20 years but with the ever-increasing pace of digital change, I'm not sure that will be possible. Its sales have fallen, but it still shifts 80,000 copies a month, an increasing number of which are subscription-based and thus more likely to be loyal readers. It costs money printing large volumes of copies for the news-stands, money that might generate sales - but might not as the returns from vendors come through. A big difference from the early 90s is that subscription deals now are highly attractive. The annual cover price is usually discounted by anything up to 20%, postage and packing is thrown in without cost - and there's some incentive too such as book, DVD or CD-set. 

The days of subscriptions being an afterthought and not terribly attractively promoted are long gone.       

So why has Mojo survived when others such as Q are struggling?

It's all about demographics and purpose.

Mojo and Q are part of the same publishing stable. Q was launched in October 1986 by EMAP, a regional newspaper publisher based in Peterborough that was seeking to grow its base across the whole of the UK. They had realised that the older music fan, those who had spare cash to buy more than the odd CD, wasn't being well served by the weeklies. Q was a glossy, colour monthly aimed at this older market. It was highly successful in its early years and EMAP saw a further demographic age-gap for an upmarket magazine pitched at fans of classic rock and album-orientated music. These were the people who had bought stacks of rock LPs in the 70s and were now in their late 30s and older - but still wanted articles, interviews, reviews and features on the music they liked. It's launch coincided with the rebirth of guitar rock in the 90s and whilst some have seen it as a magazine that simply looks back at the same hoary old bands, it has covered and championed new music too. Mojo was more niche than Q, but it knew and served its target audience far more effectively. And by copying the approach taken by a rival monthly - Uncut, published by "the makers of the NME" - and adding a free CD with each issue, Mojo had staked its claim as an influential magazine. Unlike Uncut which used its cover-mounted CDs to promote a range of new music, Mojo rang the changes and often curated thematic CDs based on (for example) the blues artists that influenced The Rolling Stones. This had the effect of reminding buyers why music was important, but also became a virtuous circle because it reinforced their desire to buy the magazine.

Beatles Special Limited Edition

Mojo also spotted that there was a market for special one-off issues, these being a mixture of editions focused on a single band and those looking at a theme, such as Progressive Rock bands or The British Invasion bands of the 1960s. For a while, these came thick and fast, but in recent years, seem to have fallen by the wayside. I suspect part of this is the relentless move of fans to the internet for news and information, but also - possibly - because the big *themes* have been exhausted for now. Mojo survives, I believe, because of the range of its writing and the greater depth it presents in terms of articles, It attracts good journalists, fine music historians and is well-liked by the artists themselves. All of this, of course, can be found on-line to some extent, but there is still no real substitute for sitting back and reading a quality print magazine. It's not just the feel of the pages and the design that's key, but also the whole package, the immersive feel that it provides. 

Kate Bush doodle on interior cover for #241

Magazines aren't cheap these days - Mojo costs £4.60 (including the CD) - but Mojo continues to hold up, I suspect, because although it has much ephemeral content (its review and news sections, good though they are), it still provides that depth that the internet and other publications don't seem to. Yes, the "same old bands" often reappear, but that's good marketing.


With the 20th anniversary issue, a re-launched website (Mojo Website) and some significant endorsements from a wide range of artists - including a hand-drawn interior cover by Kate Bush - it looks as if it still means business.

I do hope so.  

VINYL SALES EXPLODE; PRINT SALES PLUMMET 

In the fast-changing world of music making and consumption, it's a comfort to know that some long-lived elements of the business are still around.

Audiophiles have long said that Vinyl LPs have a warmer, richer and more organic sound than their digital cousins such as CDs and downloads. It may be a matter of personal taste or aural debate, but there's no doubting the complete experience that comes with a gate-fold LP pressed on 180g vinyl and sporting all manner of readable album notes. And it seems, the UK's record-buying public concurs with the latest figures from the BPI noting that vinyl sales in 2013 are already 100% up on 2012 - and projecting 700,000 albums sold by the year-end. But there's always a balance, isn't there? The yin and the yang, the hot and the cold, the AM and the FM as it were - and so it is here. For just as many music fans are rediscovering vinyl, the remaining weekly and monthly print magazines seem to be in free-fall.

I've written before (right here in fact: So Where Is All This Hot New Music? ) about the rise and fall of the weekly music papers such as Melody Maker and the New Musical Express, their initial replacement by the glossy monthlies (Q, Mojo, Uncut and so forth) and the parallel growth of on-line editions. But it is sad news that the last remaining general rock and pop weekly - the NME, a paper started in 1952 - has seen its latest ABC-audited weekly sales barely break the 20,000 figure. This is shocking news for those of us who still love the printed word: a paper that in its heyday sold over 310,000 copies a week has been reduced to selling barely enough copies to pay for the newsprint, let alone the rest of the overheads.   

NME Relaunch Issue

From a print perspective, the music business is a microcosm of the decline of paper-based magazines, newspapers and books. Just as national papers such as The Guardian and Daily Mail are finding that print-editions can only survive at all because of an increasing web-presence, so it is with the NME which has a good website and a large digital footprint. Divorce that from the print edition and it would soon close down. The quality of the print NME is a shadow of its former self and just this month, has undergone another redesign in what I should imagine is a last gasp attempt to keep its head above water. 

More than that though, the glossy monthlies which started appearing in the late 80s are now finding it tough. At one time, glossy paper, full colour and the space to have extended articles and interviews seemed very attractive - the more so when some publications (Mojo, Uncut) started adding a free cover-mounted CD each month. But today with access to You Tube for videos and to a range of streaming services for songs, most music fans can find what they want themselves. Looking at those ABC sales figures makes for very sad and depressing reading as the table below shows. The thing is, unless those publications can *monetize* their on-line presence, we'll lose them altogether. Some may say that's just a sign of the times, but there's no substitute for proper journalists and experts curating a package of news and features into a lively magazine. Others will say that the blogosphere makes us all journalists now, we can all publish our own views and opinions and thus, surely, widen the appeal of the music business. Who needs the printed word?

Who indeed?

There's no doubt that there are some good blogs and comment pieces to be found on line. Equally, though there is an ever-growing morass of ill-informed and (often) inaccurate comment around too. Comment that isn't edited or filtered, where facts (if they exist) are not checked and opinions that are often either wholly gushing or hyper-critical but rarely informed. I'm not anti-digital - indeed, I embrace many aspects to support my love of music - but I would like to hope that somehow, just as with vinyl, there is room for the printed word to survive.

Let's end on that vinyl success story then. 

With projected sales of 700,000 or more by the end of the year, almost 1% of all UK album sales are now on vinyl. The ever-increasing impact of the annual Record Store Day has played its part, but musicians themselves are finding that limited edition vinyl is attractive to their fans. That vinyl attraction is often easier to turn into reality through crowd-funding services such as Kickstarter and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see vinyl sales hit the million barrier in 2014. As BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor says:

 Daft Punk - Random Access Memories.
Top-selling UK vinyl album so far in 2013
What will happen over the forthcoming
festive season?

“The LP is back in the groove. We’re witnessing a renaissance for records – they’re no longer retromania and are becoming the format of choice for more and more music fans.  This year has been a treat for vinyl aficionados with releases from Daft Punk, David Bowie, Arctic Monkeys and Black Sabbath.

“Whilst sales only account for a small percentage of the overall market, vinyl sales are growing fast as a new generation discovers the magic of 12 inch artwork, liner notes and the unique sound of analogue records, often accompanied by a download code for mp3s."

Let's just hope that all those new music fans who are getting into the vinyl explosion handle their goods with care. CDs may be souless in terms of look and feel, MP3s too *bright* in terms of sound - but at least you can't accidentally scratch your record, crease the sleeve or leave it by a radiator only for the heat to warp your treasured possession into something unplayable.

Such are the joys of vinyl.

Alan Dorey

21st October 2013

FROM YOU TUBE TO iPLAYER

We saw last week that radio broadcasting is at a bit of a crossroads with the change to all-digital broadcasting in the UK likely to be concluded by early 2018. 

It's also fighting hard for audience share and influence with a range of streaming services, particularly in the world of music and new releases.

And is if all of that wasn't enough, You Tube, the video-sharing service now owned by Google, has made large in-roads into its relationships with the major record labels and is often the first port of call for "new music". That's certainly how I use it and very effective it is too. 

Here in the UK, the BBC is not resting on its laurels and we'll explore its secret weapon in the battle against new media shortly. In the meantime, though, let's look at how You Tube has become such a behemoth following its launch back in 2005. It was founded by three former Pay Pal employees who wanted a quick and easy way to share videos and decided to do their own thing. A technology start-up with $11.5m soon followed and the first video was posted on the nascent service on April 23rd 2005. A formal launch took place in November and six months later, 65,000 videos were being posted every day. Advertising was the methodology for making money and following the Google take over in late 2006, this monetisation led to agreements with a number of film and TV outlets to run clips and whole shows and films on the site. 

Alongside all of this, music fans started posting large volumes of singles and album tracks, often with lyric videos or photographic slide-shows to accompany the audio content. Needless to say, the whole area of legally posting recorded music was a bit of a grey area: record companies and rights owners complained bitterly and managed to get significant numbers of postings blocked. But, this was not always the best policy and some of the majors soon realised that they could benefit from You Tube and its vast number of users. Whilst copyright material still shouldn't be posted by users, it is difficult to police and You Tube leave it to the copyright owners to oversee what goes on. Several major copyright owners (usually record companies, record labels, production companies and so forth) have now reached agreement with You Tube and set up a partnership programme - in return for officially making their own content available for free, they would take a cut (55%) of the advertising revenues. Thus new singles and albums were often now promoted on You Tube with videos and clips and in an increasing number of cases, two or three tracks from an album.

To compete with the newer streaming services such as Netflix (for movies) and Spotify (for music), You Tube has tried to jump aboard the streaming bandwagon by launching over 50 subscription channels which provide premium content in return for a monthly fee, the fee ranging from 99c through to $6.99 depending upon the option selected. 

Irrespective of these evolutionary moves, You Tube has become - for many people - the prime source for checking out newly released music and new bands.

So, where does this leave radio?

As I've written elsewhere, radio still has a key role to play in promoting new music. It can do the searching and finding for you - and then present it in an appropriate show with comment from an expert DJ or presenter. Hopefully. But, if radio doesn't move with the times, it will end up a niche player - and this is where that BBC secret weapon comes in. It's not that secret really as it uses the existing BBC iPlayer as a basis. The iPlayer is a powerful tool that allows a vast range of BBC TV and radio broadcasts to be viewed after broadcast without the need to remember to record anything. It has played a massive role in supporting timeshifting viewing and for big shows (such as Dr Who), something in excess of a million viewers will use that method to watch the show - rather than the old-style view-by-appointment. And so it came to pass that this week - October 9th to be precise - new BBC Director General Tony Hall has announced in a key note speech the launch of BBC Playlister.

Playlister is an extension of the radio section of the iPlayer and it takes some of the features that exist in rival streaming services and then cleverly links them directly to its radio broadcasts and music played. It's due for a formal launch in the new year, but I've been playing with a beta test version this week and so far, I'm very impressed with what it does.

If you use the Radio Player to tune in to BBC national stations, you'll already see that it shows the name of the song and artist being played and, by linking straight through to the station website (such as BBC 6 Music), the list of tracks played in the show being listened to is added to in real time. I've found this invaluable in checking out a song and then going on to You Tube or a band website to check it out some more. What Playlister does is expand the information provided and critically, draws together all the tracks played across the national stations, presents them in a user-friendly screen for you - and then allows you to click on a song and listen to it whenever you like.

Playlister not only allows you to listen to a vast range of musical output, track by track, when ever you want, it also lets you set up your own playlists by choosing to save selections from the broadcast items shown. You can also click on the song details on the Radio Player window to save a track to your playlist - a facility which I have found to be very handy indeed. BBC presenters are also putting their own playlists together in a similar way and these too can be accessed quickly and smoothly - and for me, this is a key way to find out about new music across all the key national channels. For those who listen to Radio 1's digital only station, 1-Extra, there's even going to be a visual version of the services through Playlister. Your selections can also be exported to various mobile listening devices, thus providing real portability and, interestingly enough, when they are exported, they go through to......Spotify. So, perhaps there is some "playing safe" involved after all by keeping the rivals close by and involved. At launch date, other music services will be added - including You Tube and Deezer and others will surely emerge too.

No doubt the details will change following the trials with the beta version, but I suspect that this new Playlister will be a valuable service, marrying as it does the best of radio with the flexibility of listening via a streaming service. The BBC aren't paying anything to the third party players involved, so to listen to those playlists, users will need to either sign up to Spotify or make use of You Tube, but I suspect as time goes by, this area will develop further.

So, that's how things rest right now and I'll no doubt return to the theme when Playlist is formally launched in 2014. In the meanwhile, we surely do live in interesting times.

Have fun.

Alan Dorey

9th October 2013

CHANGES ON THE AIRWAVES

The days of traditional radio broadcasting are numbered following an announcement this weekend that the analogue signal in the UK is likely to be phased out by 2018. 

Ever since radio was first introduced to the British public by the (then) British Broadcasting Company in 1922, it has been synonymous with analogue delivery, be it medium or long wave and in more recent years, AM or FM. It has led to all manner of cultural references ranging from "listening to the wireless" and "the airwaves" and so forth, but with the launch of digital broadcasting from 1995 onwards, the analogue writing has been on the wall. It may not have always been terribly visible as early digital radios were somewhat variable in quality, but with the advent of more effective and cheaper units, something like 40% of all listening on the BBC and commercial networks is now digital.

Of course, digital listening lends itself to all manner of devices, so some of the increased listening percentages comes through PCs and laptops, notepads, tablets, smartphones and digital TV. Linda Smith the chief executive of The Radio Centre (which represents commercial radio in the UK) has said that she believes the digital switch-over will be "most likely in the first or second quarter of 2018". This is three years later than a government report recommended back in 2009, but it does recognise that the more than 350 analogue radio stations in the UK need time to adapt their infrastructure - and of course, all manner of other businesses need to prepare for the change too - car manufacturers, radio and electronic retailers and, it goes without saying, many radio listeners.

The BBC are championing the change and they, together with their commercial colleagues, are likely to be making some key announcements about how this will happen at the annual Radio Festival in Salford on October 14th. The government are also expecting to produce some detailed timetable arrangements by the end of the year.

Whilst digital radio is definitely the way ahead for now, it does mean a massive upheaval for the 60% of the listening public who still use analogue radios. The recent phased approach to digital TV switch-over, which concluded last year, gives us some sort of template to work to, but with all those extra radio stations around plus the likelihood that many households have more radios in them than TV receivers, it could be a somewhat more complex exercise.

Of course, digital radio stations such as the BBC's digital-only national stations BBC 6 Music and Radio 4 Extra have grown in popularity and seen their audiences increase over the last two years. They are facing another challenge, however, and this will prove to be more fundamental in some ways: the growth of internet streaming services such as Spotify. Spotify has deals with a range of major record labels that allow it to stream tracks and albums from their artists in return for a fee. In turn, Spotify sells advertising slots in between streaming songs and also takes income from charging listeners for some of its premium services. The listener can choose which songs to listen to from a database, can create their own playlists and, whilst on-line, they can purchase downloadable copies of the songs direct from selected providers. Spotify has grown quickly in the last year and as at the end of 2012, had over 20 million users, a quarter of whom pay for the premium services. 

Apple's all-pervasive iTunes is hard on the rails with its new iTunes Radio service which launched in the USA just last month. It too provides a free streaming service - supported by adverts - and a paid-for premium service. Like Spotify, users can skip tracks, select their own choices and customise their "own" stations using songs from the iTunes library. They can also buy songs direct from their iTunes account and as the database is larger than its Spotify rival, there is every chance that it will prove to be popular. The UK will receive iTunes Radio early in 2014 and Apple then plans to roll it out gradually to the rest of its "empire" through into 2015 and beyond.

So, the world of radio is set for change and it will be very interesting to see what the landscape looks like in a year or two. There is one more challenge that we must add to the mix, and this is the increasing dominance of on-line services such as You Tube and Vevo for exposing new music to the general public - and that's something I'll be exploring in the next New Musical Box blog.

Have fun.

Alan Dorey

5th October 2013 

BACK TO THE FUTURE

I've written extensively this year about the changing nature of the music industry - the challenges and the opportunities. The catalyst for these pieces was the fall and rise of HMV, a business which acted as a prism through which the UK's musical fortunes could be viewed. And like light shining through a prism, there are many colours and strands to that industry and the test will inevitably be, which ones will succeed?

HMV - 363 Oxford Street - 1960s

HMV could well be one of those survivors. Now owned by "distressed business" restructuring company Hilco, HMV have taken a lesson from Marty McFly with a step back to the future. Yesterday (Saturday 28th October) saw the reopening of HMV's spiritual home at 363 Oxford Street, a store originally opened in 1921 in the presence of Sir Edward Elgar but closed for this past 13 years. HMV had moved further down Oxford Street to a bigger store, partly to contain an ever-growing Aladdin's cave of wares - but also to heat up the competition with the then new Virgin Mega Store 500 yards or so down the other side of the road. The business collapse in 2012 saw retrenchment with dozens of store closures, a temporary halt to selling on-line and a major re-think of their raison d'etre. That re-think has seen a new focus on its core business - selling music. Yes, DVDs, T-Shirts and other peripherals will still be there but as Paul McGowan, Hilco's chief executive says

"The whole thing is about taking the business back to the music, back to the heritage... and that means having a presence on Oxford Street"

HMV 363 Oxford Street - Reopening after 13 years 

The refurbished store sees an increased focus on music, including a wider range of vinyl and critically, the whole second floor being given over to a performance stage with top of the range sound systems. HMV is about music and music events, performances, signing sessions and all the things that on-line retailers and download sites can't do. And as far as the store fascia is concerned, there is a suitably retro look to it as if to underline that the excesses of recent years are now over. 

Will it succeed?

Well - there are still many folk out there who believe that HMV no longer exists at all, a notion not aided by lazy print journalism which lumps it in with the High Street stores that succumbed to obliteration in the bow-wave from the financial downturn. In fact, there are still over 150 stores in the UK, a handful in Ireland and over 100 in Canada - which makes it (probably) the largest "traditional" music retailer in the world. The music business has proven to be resilient and I suspect that for some years to come, there will be a market for tangible products, rather than simply relying on streaming or downloading services. Indeed, quite apart from the continued increase in vinyl sales last year, some artists and indie labels have started issuing mix-tapes on audio cassettes appealing, one suspects, to those those of us who experienced the fun of making their own tapes back in the 70s and 80s. 

HMV and the other surviving record stores will always be up against it when it comes to price and choice, but as long as they focus on their strengths, then they'll be around for some years to come. And as HMV's McGowan adds, "....there's no vinyl in Tesco".

In the next blog, it's crystal ball time.  I'll be taking a look at the streaming services such as Spotify and seeing how they're starting to reposition themselves to combat the perceived threat of developments such as the launch of i-tunes radio and the continued expansion of You Tube and Vevo.

See you then.

Alan Dorey

29th September 2013