We’ve all read it time and time again, from the exasperated complaints of singers to the mundane babblings of newspaper writers. They all say the same thing: the internet is killing show business. A closer examination of the facts strongly disputes what others have said about the subject.
While it is hard to deny the fact that piracy does exist, music is still very much a thriving business. In the past, the options were extremely limited. You had commercial record shops, private record shops, and the big box stores.
The increase of variety may have changed things a bit. Once upon a time, you would have to purchase the entire album to listen to the one song you really wanted to hear. Currently, you can download individual songs on demand. This may have shifted the scale, but consumers are faring much better.
Services such as YouTube, Grooveshark, and Pandora offer a tremendous variety of music choices, and on the surface it would appear that they have influenced music sales. However, there are typically distractions that prevent one from enjoying the total listening experience (i.e. annoying advertisements, excruciatingly slow download speed, and undesired adaptations of songs).
If you examine Google docs, you’ll immediately notice that music and film sales have increased annually, despite what the critics have been telling us year after year. Statistics tell a different tale.
A professional writer from Mediamorphis has argued that the music industry has expanded yearly.
A quality movie will have no problem attracting scores of film goers. James Cameron’s Avatar
Who says that crowds aren’t going to movies these days? A film that is currently climbing up the charts is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. The concluding movie in the celebrated Harry Potter series
Some movie enthusiasts prefer to stay at home and watch the flick on a digital streaming format, a DVD, or Blu-ray. With the rising price of gasoline, finding entertainment without leaving the house is becoming a very appealing option to cash-strapped families. Yep, they’re still watching.
The bottom line is, the age of the consumer has finally arrived. There are simply more options and more niches than there have ever been. The anamolies that we call music, film, and entertainment — they are very much alive indeed. LLAP
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Image: zirconicusso / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
