Popular Music: Concentration and Diversity in the Industry, 1974–1980

Abstract

As the number of competing firms declines, so does the number of hit r e c o r k 0 that fewer hits are being released b y fewer producers.In many of the industries of mass communication, concentration is a fact of life (4): a few firms dominate the production and distribution of cultural products. While on the surface, the competitive structure of mass media industries might seem of interest only to economists or lawyers in the antitrust field, the level of concentration directly affects the choices offered to media consumers. Concentration in cultural industries, as in other sectors of the economy, leads to an increasing homogenization or lack of diversity in cultural products. For example, a study of network television showed that as a consequence of the oligopolistic nature of the industry, diversity in programming declined sharply across two decades (5).Similarly, an inverse relationship has been demonstrated (15) between the degree of concentration and diversity in the popular music industry in the years 1948-1973: periods of high concentration coincided with low diversity and periods of competition with less homogeneity in popular songs. Diversity, as measured by the rate of turnover in the top slots on the popularity charts, declined in periods when the number of firms competing in the market was relatively small and rose when the number of competing firms was relatively large. The importance of this relationship between concentration and diversity is magnified by the fact that the output of the popular music industry constitutes the input of those radio formats that rely on popular music. Therefore, the level of concentration affects not only the range of Eric W. Rothenbuhler is a graduate student and John W. Dimmick is Associate Professor, both in the

Selection models in the music industry: How a prior independent experience may affect chart success

“…This time span is consistent with other time-series analyses developed on the recording industry (Peterson and Berger, 1975;Rothenbuhler and Dimmick, 1982;Lopes, 1992;Burke, 1996;Tollison, 1997, 2002).…”

“…Exceptions include: Burke (1996) who examined the dynamics of product differentiation in the British record industry using chart listings from the BPI; Chung and Cox (1994) who described the probability distribution of gold record awards in the US; and Hamlen (1991) who studied if small differences in artists produced large differences in success. In other articles chart sales data have been used to analyse the recording industry, but they have been mainly interested in dealing with trends in the level of concentration or differentiation in the market (Peterson and Berger, 1975;Belinfante and Johnson, 1982;Rothenbuhler and Dimmick, 1982;Lopes, 1992;Alexander, 1997;Black and Greer, 1987).…”

Technological and Social Drivers of Change in the Online Music Industry

“…It has been hard for small record companies to survive; 2. artists have had limited control over the distribution of their music; 3. high levels of industry concentration -the extent to which the major music labels dominate the industry, as measured by relative market share -have resulted in fewer releases of new recordings; and, 4. it has been difficult for music consumers to obtain the music content without purchasing it through approved channels, typically retailers or music clubs (Black and Greer 1987;C artwright 2000;Rothenbuhler and Dimmick, 1982).…”

Copying, superstars, and artistic creation

“…Moreover, the dynamic model in Section 3, in which the number of superstars is endogenized, shows 2 Several papers provide evidence of the strong concentration of sales in the market for popular music. See Rothenbuhler and Dimmick (1982), Crain and Tollison (2002), and Krueger (2005), among others. Krueger (2005), for example, reports that in 2003, the top 1% of artists obtained 56% of concert revenues, with the top 5% taking in 84%.…”