Case Study

This is the case study of two record companies that targets a British audience. One will be a major label, and one will be an independant label. Case study should look at the production, consumption, distribution and marketing and exchange. Domestic expenditure on music in all forms totals almost £5 billion a year and music activities generate the equivalent of 126,000 full time jobs in the UK.

The UK is the third largest market in the world for sales of music behind only the USA and Japan. Sales in the UK amounted to 10.4% of all music sold globally in 2004. As a source of repertoirs, the UK is second only to the USA.

Britain is a nation of music lovers and we buy more music than any other country - 3.2 CDs per person per  year.

The way audiences listen to music has changed due to digitilisation.
The way we buy music, share music and listen to music has changed due to digitilisation.

More than 31,000 new album titles (including re-issues) were released in the UK last year, second only to the US - which demonstrates the commitment to investment from UK record companies.

Uk record companies invest 17% of turnover in A and R. DTI data shows that other industries with traditions of heavy R and D expenditure such as pharmaceuticals actually soen a smaller proprtion of revenues on developing new products than the UK record industry invests in the development of new artists.

British artistsaccounted for 49.9% of artist's albums sold in the UK in 2005 - the highest annual since 1998. This represented sales of 62m units - the highest ever total in a single year by British musicians.

To develop a case study on two particular record labels.

This institution must be located in the contempory music industry.

This institution must produce and/or distribute music in the UK.

When researching your chosen record labels you must focus on 3 key areas: Production, Distribution, Consumption and Exchange.