Retrospective Conclusions and Predictions

Abstract

This chapter summarises the themes of the interviews and contextualises them in the current environment. Five years after the interviews, indications are that we were talking at a genuine point of settlement in both music business and music industry. The characteristics of the uneasy digital “bargain” that developed between 2000 and 2012 seems to have changed very little since other than in quantitative terms. Among the more significant changes since the interviews were held is the decline of Apple Music’s dominance as a point of online sales for music and, with that decline, the general withering of sales in relation to streaming as an overall source of music revenues. The role of television, or more precisely “screen media”, in the entertainment landscape has also changed substantially since 2012; most notable is the absence of any mention of Netflix in the interviews, which that year had just started to produce its own content with an audience of just over 2 million subscribers. The major record companies have enjoyed a financial renaissance in the interime, collectively reaping billions from streaming services for access to their catalogues, including the multi-billion dollar capitalisation windfall from Spotify’s IPO in April, 2018.