Panel Discussion: The Future Of Music Consumption, Streaming & Live Music

As part of US magazine Pollstar’s Pollstar Live! conference, one panel looked at the future of music consumption, streaming and live music.

Discussing the issue were Marc Geiger (WME), Scott Greenstein (Sirius XM), Gayle Troberman (iHeartMedia), Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks) and Roger Lynch (Pandora).

Taking from Pollstar’s report on the session, the belief is that with music being everywhere and on every imaginable device, the music market is going to be a financial windfall.

The market would "dwarf where we are now,” said Cuban.

The changing distribution landscape will see the music consumer even more powerful than ever.

Their spending pattern is going to change drastically but no one is sure how.

But because music is everywhere, consumers will lean even more on curating, especially from experts and taste-makers, to provide a guide where they can find the good stuff.

Said Troberman: "We are at an inflection point.

“We’ve been living in a visually driven medium, and what’s happening is we’re moving into a voice-driven era, when I can just say what I want, listen to anything, anytime, anywhere on a range of devices.

“I think we’re going to see massive shakeups in listening behaviour when it’s fully in control of the consumers."

Data providing companies will make a killing, providing consumer data on trends and behaviour “before they (the fans) even know it themselves.”

Cuban, according to the Pollstar report, opined, “Amazon’s got the edge, Google is lost, and Facebook is trying to figure out what their role is in music altogether."

Personalisation is the key to reaching consumers in the new world.

This means, for instance, bands sending personal messages for fans to buy their new record or come to their show.

1.6 billion such messages have already been sent by Pandora amounting to "many tens of millions of dollars worth of media."

Comedy will also become big business, in that it is also a live experience and also needs to be curated.

Getting music in cars will remain a focus because a lot of focussed listening goes on in vehicles and brands will spend billions to get to those consumers.

However, as far as drivers are concerned, the content can’t be, for obvious reasons, interactive or video.

Promoters have to realise that people don’t go to concerts to hear music, as such, they can hear it better at home.

What they want is an experience, and a shared experience, which includes having fun and having a drink with friends.

“We lose track of the fact that we don’t ever talk about the experience when we try to sell concerts, and I think that’s a huge failure of the music industry.“