The Pinoy Music Consumer Today Jong AzoresJong Azores

Academic CoordinatorAcademic Coordinator

Meridian International College Meridian International College

Delivered at the Electronic Music Delivered at the Electronic Music Conference & Audio ExpoConference & Audio Expo

July 5, 2012July 5, 2012

SMX Convention CenterSMX Convention Center

SM Aura, Global City, Taguig SM Aura, Global City, Taguig

Evolving Trends Fashioned by Pinoy Music Consumers (PMC)

The Philippine music industry continues to please its audience and in a way, the various music businesses earn decent profit. Pinoys enjoy listening to music whether OPM or foreign, not just English songs but also Japanese and now Korean popAs recorded music becomes promotional items, live concerts becomes musicians and recording artists best source of incomeListeners are more mobile in privacy absorbing music personally

world's top 10 music downloaderhttp://www.abs-cbnnews.com/lifestyle/11/15/12/ph-worlds-10th-top-consumer-music-downloads

Musicmetric Digital Music Index (DMI), "the most in-depth study ever of the global digital music landscape," lists the Philippines the world's 10th most active digital music consumer in its September 2012 edition, with 8,380,208 downloads (includes both legit and illegal).

The United States tops the list with 96,681,133 downloads, trailed by the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Spain, India, France and the Philippines, respectively.

"The aim is to help the industry understand who and where the fans are, which types of artist fans are engaging with the most and how fans interact with music through the many online consumption channels.“

PCM is world class digital consumer!

Speakers to Headphones

When walkman was the dominant mobile player, people still opt listening to their stereos loud enough to share with everyone around. Today’s music lovers stays clasped by headphones listening from their phone media players. Music enjoyment has become very private and truly underground.

Radio to Personal Playlist

Some listeners found their liberty creating their own playlist! Limited by memory storage, they are able to select songs and sequence them at will. These people are at bliss, liberated from the mercy of radio format, dictates, and rotation.

Crispy to Compressed Sound

While listening to music remains in stereo, the quality of preferred sound has diminished. Mp3 as a compressed format loses the rich, hi-fidelity, and character of full audio perspective from vinyl records, tapes, and CDs. As music became sound files, listeners willingly go for the degraded quality to save on memory storage.

Music piracy Is No Longer A Profitable Business

Suddenly, the PMC is no longer attracted to street peddlers’ offering music in CD. The configuration has become obsolete by torrent, peer sharing, & bluetooth. Why spend the hard earned Peso when music can be had for FREE!

Music may, as Gerd Leonhard say, become “like water”. http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2008/04/24/the_future_of_music_like.htm

Media Player Displaced CD Player

The Compact Disc "Big Bang", in the digital audio world as a configuration lorded the industry for a short time. The first successful CD to be launched was Brothers in Arms in 1985. Now, CD is not even the preferred data storage.

Media players do not skip; keeping CDs needs much care; Media players are easier to manipulate than the hardware dependent CD players. Most cell phones have media players.

Why buy?

Buying downloads is a moral issue. Even if it’s wrong to download music, PMC like their local politicians do not heed this issue for they know they can easily get away from it. Baby A. Gil of The Philippine Star writes: Gary Granada songs are not really downloadable for free. He is simply charging you zero pesos. http://www.philstar.com/entertainment/2013/05/24/945593/gary-granada-writes-musical-textbook

Peer Sharing

Peer sharing existed even before the internet: A friend records a tape copy from an LP to cassette and shares it to others. It has just become simpler now at very large scale. Actually the notion of peer-to-peer sharing in the internet is a miscalculation. The sharing between or among the people in the internet are not peers at all.

Music files are quickly shared via bluetooth.

An enthusiastic fan will never realize the mistake of sharing or giving away his idol’s music.

It’s not easy going legal

Price may not always be the issue. The manner of payment discourages paid downloads oClick Music: prepaid vendors oMyMusicStore Philippines: SMART mobile number, Paypal, Credit CardsoOpm2go: SMART mobile number, Pre-paid cards, Paypal, Credit Cards

New Music Sources In the USA…despite hundreds of digital discovery options and hundreds of millions invested in 'disruptive' startups, music discovery is mostly happening on traditional radio, traditional TV, and through word-of-mouth. http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130326discovery

Traditional Radio

FM radio in Metro Manila has remained traditional! Even current-pop stations playlists are dominated by hit-backs. As Record companies revenues are no longer record sale dependent, samplers or promotional singles to stations has become rare or non-existent. Radio used to make the “hits”; now, it follows the audiences’ impulses: Pusong Bato has long been an underground hit became viral, radio picked it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pusong_Bato

TV & Movie

Television & films as new music source is an art requiring creativity and sensibility. The impact of a scene and synched music turns out to be an unforgettable experience. The audience wanting more of that scenario are willing to pay to relive that experience. ABS-CBN and Star Cinema has developed this art persisting income from CD sales.

Word of mouth

Fan pressure influence others to like a musical artist or song. Their testimonies and behaviour define the norm of a generation and their music serve as their anthem.

Internet Video & Streaming

Youtube was designed not as a music service but music is its number one content globally. People have cleverly appropriated technology to meet their music needs. http://www.aalto.fi/en/current/news/view/2013-06-18/

Social Media

The global conversation that takes place around events and the experiences people share based on what people watch teaches about consumer preferences. More importantly, their activity influences behaviour which counts for everything… http://socialmediatoday.com/briansolis/506188/music-film-tv-how-social-media-changed-entertainment-experience

Survival in the new landscape

The disruption in the record business has dethroned lawyers and accountants. The new music business landscape calls for a creative direction to revive the once vibrant trade. A new formula to regulate a system disturbed by technology must be developed.Artists weather new or established are levelled in terms of digital distribution and marketing however, making decent profit form their recordings are still ambiguous.

Professionalize the music industry, further

Professionalism means higher standards of presentation and communication, as well as greater attention to business and marketing strategy. It seems like the best business practices remain effective and efficient to meet the disruptions in this music world until its rules are finally set for consumers to abide with. Being "professional" not only means being punctual, communicating accordingly, and dressing appropriately but at this point seeking the needed education and training to be able to understand these new realities as a new order is in place.

The music industry chain

The record industry is just a part of the music business. Its fallen state brings about new and better opportunities. The PMC who forms part of the industry are musicians (mobile & transnational), the manufacturers of music instruments, music educators (performance, promotion, production, etc.), … PCMs are:

us, we ourselves! us, we ourselves!

Observe, Measure, Learn!

We all see the realities of our industry and are still happy to be engaged in it for life. Learning from these realities will lead us to understand and eventually conduct our behaviours appropriately. We have to translate PMCs’ activities into insights, turn these insights into actionable strategies and programs, then maybe a better music industry would improve.

I'm not going to conform to some consumer need.

Billie Joe Armstrong