Over the holiday break I was in the car coming back from the shops when I overheard a news story on Radio 2 (yes, I am old) where they were reporting that a new study by the Will Page of the PRS in the UK had disproved Chris Anderson’s Long Tail theory, and that by stating that the majority of music sales last year were by a small percentage of the total tracks or albums available they had definitive proof that Chris’s theory was false.
Whilst I was listening to this and getting my head around what they were reporting I found myself getting more and more annoyed by what I was hearing.
This article by The Times goes into it in a bit more details, stating…
However, a new study by Will Page, chief economist of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the not-for-profit royalty collection society, suggests that the niche market is not an untapped goldmine and that online sales success still relies on big hits.
Page is saying that the endless choice offered by unlimited storage and virtual shelfspace online isn’t being used, and that consumers stick to “the hits” within a 52,000 (for single tracks) and 173,00 (for albums) range.
“Hang on” I thought!
52,000 different songs?
173,000 different albums?
Since when were there that many new albums and tracks released in a year. Are they trying to tell us that last year there were 52,000 new songs released and these formed “the hits” of 2008?
and 173,000 albums? were there that many last year? Can someone tell me? because I don’t know, but I suspect that not just “the hits” of 2008.
During the radio interview Jeff Buckley’s song Hallelujah was used as a key example of the Long Tail NOT working and that was representative of a hit (something they say over here as well). But surely, the fact that that song – which has had tiny if not non-existant sales for many years, suddenly shooting up to number 2 in he chart is the perfect example of a Long Tail spike?
it’s just like Touching The Void becoming a best seller due to it being still listed on Amazon.com when a competitors book becomes popular.
It doesn’t disprove the Long Tail – it reinforces it as a theory.
Chris Anderson never said that millions of small and independent artists would make a fortune from Long Tail economics.
He DID say that large retailers, like Amazon or Apple with iTunes and unlimited virtual shelfspace WOULD make lots of money from all of the small and tiny individual sales underneath the tail.
He also said the head would continue to make as much if not more of the sales that the long tail is making. he did not say the head would disappear – but that both would co-exist, a state that can only be allowed and maintained within a digital virtually free storage environment, something which itself allows the long tail priniciple to exist in the first place.
I know Chris has responded now to the article, as the piece in The Times clearly states, but I wanted to blog about this even though it was a few weeks ago now.
This blog also commented on the report, but it tries to reinforce the point that LT is broken – but as Seth Godin correctly points out in his comment, someone, somewhere hasn’t got the point of what the LT is really about.
When you write, “80 percent of sales came from 52,000 tracks” and present this as evidence of disproving the theory, you are making a huge mistake. Chris never said that EVERYTHING would be bought sooner or later. He said that it spreads out over time. (Seth Godin)
It seems to me like Mr Page wanted to get a bit of cheap PR spotlight on him at a pretty quiet time of the year in the media and choose a good time to stick his oar in and savage Long Tail theory with some stats which don’t seem to back up his argument. It’s a rough rule of thumb isn’t it in PR fields that you get great coverage if you are willing to be out on a limb or contentious? Case in point.
As far as I can see Long Tail theory still stands. It may have taken a hit with this from it’s own PR point of view, but this certainly doesn’t disprove it – it does the exact opposite in fact.
Howard
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