BBC iPlayer steams ahead with internet usage

Comment: Internet traffic to the iPlayer site is growing rapidly supported by outside advertising posterboards as well as reminders during TV advertising. However a lot of internet traffic seems to be sucked up by their kservices P2P network which aims to share the downloaded files with other iPlayer users.

UK Internet traffic to the BBC’s iPlayer website increased 14-fold between the week ending 8 December 2007 and the week ending 5 January. The online catch-up TV service ranked as the 80th most visited website in the UK for the week ending 5 January 2008, having peaked at number 62 on New Year’s Day.

The BBC heavily promoted iPlayer on TV and in the press over the Christmas period and it seems to have paid off. Searches for ‘iPlayer’ increased 15-fold over the last month, and one fifth of the site’s traffic came from search engines last week. UK TV viewers are also finding iPlayer when searching for their favourite BBC programs online: ‘eastenders’ was the most popular non-navigational search term sending traffic to the site over the last month. Other popular program searches sending traffic to the site were ‘live at the apollo’, ‘three men in another boat’ and ‘holby city’.

source: hitwise.com

Apple to standardise iTunes prices in Europe

comment: The reason that Apple charges different retail prices in each market is due to the differences in wholesale prices charged in each market by the major labels. Apple could use this as leverage against the labels to lower their prices in all major EU markets

Apple today announced that within six months it will lower the prices it charges for music on its UK iTunes Store to match the already standardised pricing on iTunes across Europe in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain. Apple currently must pay some record labels more to distribute their music in the UK than it pays them to distribute the same music elsewhere in Europe. Apple will reconsider its continuing relationship in the UK with any record label that does not lower its wholesale prices in the UK to the pan-European level within six months.

UK album retail sales dip 11% for 2007

Album unbundling, copyright theft and difficult retail conditions contributed to a drop in album sales of 10.8% in 2007 say the British Phonographic Industry.

The continued growth of download sales helped the singles market grow by 29.3% during 2007, which became the third biggest year on record for the format.

Singles

 

2006 = 67.0m

2007 = 86.6m

Change = +29.3%

 

Albums

 

2006 = 154.7m

2007 = 138.1m

Change = -10.8% Source: BPI website

Pandora to block UK music streaming services

Comment: Pandora has been around for some time and grown in reputation as a free music discovery service. This is becoming a niche space because of the impact of internet radio or streaming licencing costs.

In an email to users, Pandora founder Tim Westergren wrote:

“After over a year of trying, this has proved impossible. Both the PPL (which represents the record labels) and the MCPS/PRS Alliance (which represents music publishers) have demanded per track performance minima rates which are far too high to allow ad supported radio to operate and so, hugely disappointing and depressing to us as it is, we have to block the last territory outside of the US.”

Source:  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/08/pandora_uk_closes/

UK Digital sales grow by 50% in 2007

The British Phonographic Industry, which represents the British recorded-music business, said total music download sales for the year topped 77 million, a 50 percent increase over 2006.

2.94m online music tracks were downloaded in the UK in the last week of 2007, according to the BPI, a record industry body. The figure is double that for the same time in 2006, when 1.47m tracks were downloaded, and nearly three times that for the same week in 2005, when only 1m songs were downloaded.

Source: http://www.strategyeye.com

Happy New Year and welcome 2008

My role as music product manager in a global organisation does allow for some time out .. today is the first official day back in the office … so happy new year.

A few interesting stories that I will certainly be watching

  • Warner and Amazon announced DRM Free for their USA store  – I wonder how long before Amazon launches in the UK
  • Fox announces video content on Itunes – but its still DRM’d
  • Billboard says 2008 will be the year we get digital album artwork as part of our online purchases – great news!