Independent music artists and their access to distribution and communication channels

• Autor(a) principal: Pontes, Alexandre Pamplona Ramos de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/16286
• topic: Recorded music indutry; Communication channels; Distribution channels; Indepent artists; Marketing; Mercado da música; Tecnologia digital; Indústria da comunicação; Rede de comunicação; Artista; Portugal; Indústria musical; Canais de comunicação; Canais de distribuição; Artistas independentes

The intangibility of recorded music as a product led to a revolution within the industry in the digital era. The importance of physical editions has been decreasing ever since, due to the emergence of piracy and, subsequently, streaming services. While the business-toconsumer, or B2C, models of the industry have clearly changed, the impact on businessto-business, or B2B, interactions is not so clear. There is lack of empirical studies on how relevant major labels are for communicating and distributing the product and, so far, divergent conclusions have been reached. Therefore, this study analyses independent artists’ access to communication and distribution channels, allowing for the understanding of whether the digital era has made it possible for these artists to promote and deliver their product in an effective and successful manner. Results indicate a more favourable scenario for distribution than for communication. On the one hand, although digital channels have come to benefit independent artists concerning the access to both areas, digital distribution has revealed itself to be more straightforward and inexpensive than communication. As well as this, digital distribution has increasingly been gaining importance over the traditional one. On the other hand, regarding communication, several new possibilities have emerged, which are quite more accessible for independent artists. However, these new opportunities are subject to market saturation. In addition to this, the importance of traditional communication channels was not as affected as in distribution. Actually, some traditional communication means may even have increased their relevance.