How Quickly Is The Music Industry Shrinking?
We all know the music biz is in trouble: Its health is generally measured by sales figures, with reports of the financial failures of major labels a close second. But for people working in the trenches, the industry’s health is measured by one simple metric: whether or not people are getting fired. This is applicable broadly, too. Arguably the biz can absorb the various changes going on, and may be making more revenue from other sources even as sales decline. But if they’re not making money, that will be reflected starkly in companies either closing completely or cutting large numbers of employees. To find out what the trend is on this score, I went through five years’ worth of Billboard Bulletin stories looking for news of closings and staff cuts, and summarized my findings on a couple of charts:
The data are divided up into indies and majors, with the yellow line representing the total number of companies that closed (chart 1) or companies that made major staff cuts (chart 2). Some findings:
It’s possible, of course, that all these closings and cuts are for the best. Maybe shedding all these employees will allow major labels to operate at a profit again. And maybe weeding out the failing companies will allow the successful startups to thrive. That may end up being true. But for the people at the heart of it, the ones going in every day and putting their time in, things don’t look good.