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

Abstract

The is article analyses the two main approaches for artists’ selection in the recording industry: the direct model in which large major companies directly choose new artists from the supply market, and the agency model in which small independent labels realise the first choice and, subsequently, large organisations pick their new artists among those pre-selected by independents. An empirical analysis of chart sales reveals that artists selected through the agency model exhibit a longer presence on the chart due to repeated successes, while they are slower to reach heavy success once they have entered the chart. Conversely, the direct model leads to artists with a faster path to a strong success, but the same artists have a shorter presence on the chart due to the sporadic nature of their success. The profile of artists selected through these two models is also found to be different: big international soloist stars are more frequently selected through the direct model, while national bands are more frequently selected through the agency model. The insights suggest important implications for management in the cultural industries and especially in the recording industry. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006Artist selection, Cultural industries, Music market,

Recognition and renown, the structure of cultural markets: evidence from French poetry

“…The major poets of the time pull the market forward on the strength of their stable reputations. By contrast, speculative markets like the contemporary markets for art or pop music (Ordanini 2006) rely on reputations that fluctuate wildly in the short term, even if history will later settle the matter of reputation, as shown in the classical art market (Moulin 2009). This suggests that research on cultural markets should explore the mechanisms of reputation-building as well as aesthetic features to understand cultural markets as well as artists' careers.…”

“…Reputation concentrates in a small number of names (Rosen 1981;Merton 1968Merton , 1988, and the disparities among them widen as one's reputation increases. 5 The processes shaping recognition and renown may involve different actors (firms, critics and evaluators, peers), logics, and distribution networks (Ordanini 2006). I propose that cultural markets array themselves according to recognition and renown, which is why artists move from recognition generated with small firms to the renown that hinges on the involvement of large-scale firms.…”

Past, present and future: music economics at the crossroads

“…There has also been a trickle of problematic attempts to predict success in the music sector using data on chart positions (most usually the US Billboard album or singles charts) or the award of gold records (e.g. Cox et al 1995;Hamlen 1991Hamlen , 1994Strobl and Tucker 2000;Ordanini 2006;Giles 2006Giles , 2007Dubini and Provera 2008;Hendricks and Sorensen 2009;Moe and Earl 2009 {Swedish charts};Elliott and Simmons 2011 {UK Charts}). Some of this work is comparable to a prominent area of research in the study of films as the focus is on skewness in terms of there being a small number of very successful entities and a large number of very unsuccessful ones.…”

Selection models in the music industry: Comment

“…The identification in the Appendix to Ordanini (2006) of the artists as either non-Italian (international) or Italian (domestic) and as 'band' or 'not band' is misprinted, as acknowledged in Ordanini's (2007) reply to this comment. When I correct for this error, and when the means for the success variables are run looking only at Italian versus Non-Italian, the results are surprisingly similar to those of the Agency versus Direct, as shown in my Table 4.…”

“…re-calculation of the means of these variables using the data Ordanini (2006) provides in his Appendix.…”