Introducing our guests: Sarita Stewart

The 8th Vienna Music Business Research Days from Sep. 12-14, 2017 are devoted to the question “Unchaining the Digital Music Business?”. Over the past few years new gatekeeping processes in the digital music business have emerged and international music business experts, therefore, highlight the role of new and old gatekeepers as well as the impact of innovative technologies such as the blockchain on structures and processes in the musis biz. Find the program here.

Sarita Stewart, Assistant Professor in the Entertainment Industry Studies program in the Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business at Belmont University in Nashville/USA, is one of the panel discussants on “New Gatekeeping Processes in the Digital Music Business”. Along with Sally Gross (Westminster University, London),  Scott Cohen (The Orchard, London and New York) and Jake Beaumont-Nesbitt (International Music Managers Forum, London) she discusses the role of new and old gatekeepers in the digitized music industry.

Dr. Sarita Stewart teaches in the area of public relations, music marketing, and consumer research. Her main research focus is the topic of music consumption, with accompanying interests in the areas of video games, social media, and mood management. She also serves as a Series Editor for the forthcoming Springer Music Business Research series.

Dr. Stewart also presents a paper on “The use of the artist-fan engagement model as a strategy tool” at the preceding conference day on September 13.

Stewart’s previous entertainment industry experience includes stints as Director of Marketing at Curb Records; U.S. Marketing Manager at AKG Acoustics; as well as entrepreneurial endeavors in the field of artist management. Stewart holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Oregon State University, Masters in Business Administration from the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, and a Ph.D. in Communication from The University of Alabama.

 

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8th Vienna Music Business Research Days on “Unchaining the Digital Music Business?”

The 8th Vienna Music Business Research Days will be held again at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna from September 12-14, 2017. This year’s conference topic is “Unchaining the Digital Music?”. Digitization has brought music streaming to the centre of the music industry’s value-added network and new gatekeeping processes have been established by new and “old” players of music business.

The morning session of the the invited conference day on September 14, therefore, will focus on new gatekeeping process in the digital business with a introductory talk by Daniel Nordgård of University of Agder/Norway and a panel discussion with Sally Gross (Westminster University, London), Sarita Stewart (Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business, Belmont University Nashville/USA), Scott Cohen (The Orchard, London and New York), Jake Beaumont-Nesbitt (International Music Managers Forum, London) moderated by Daniel Nordgård.

George Musgrave of the University of Westminster in London will wrap up the panel discussion with his talk on  “Control and Autonomy in the Digital Music Business” providing a model for new gatekeeping processes in the digital music industry.

 

In the afternoon session the keynotes by Paul Crick (Senior Managing Consultant, Digital Transformation, Media & Entertainment, IBM, Flintham/UK) and Wolfgang Senges (Strategic Consultant in Digital Media, ContentSphere, Berlin) will explain the fundamentals of blockchain technology and how it could disrupt the music industry again. Please read my blogpost “The Music Business in the Blockchain” to learn more about the impact of blockchain technology In the following panel discussion both keynote speakers will discuss the question “Unchaining the Digital Music Business?” by new technologies such as the blockchain with Carlotta de Ninni (Mycelia for Music Foundation, London), Kelly Snook (Professor of Media Arts Technology, University of Brighton/UK), Peter Harris (resonate, Berlin).

On September 12, the VMBR-Days 2017 will traditionally be opened by the  Young Scholars’ Workshop. Master and PhD students from Austria, Barbados, Canada, Germany, Serbia and South Africa will present their research result in a closed workshop to an international group of highly regarded music business researchers.

The next conference day on Sep. 13 will be devoted to a broad range of music business research papers submitted by academics from all around the globe.

Find the conference’s program – including registration details – here: https://musicbusinessresearch.wordpress.com/vienna-music-business-research-days-2/

 

Music Business Research 2016 – in retrospective

Dear readers of the music business research blog,

2016 seems to be the pivotal year in the recorded music industry. Although no annual statistics have been published until yet, we can take it for granted that the positive trend of 2015 continued in 2016. In 2015, the global recorded music market expanded by 3.4%. The US-market slightly grew by 0.9% and the German recorded music sales even increased by 4.4%.

The booming music streaming market was of course the main driver for the economic recovery of the recorded music business in 2015 and we can expect a further growth in 2016 and the upcoming year. The revenue growth of the streaming business compensated for the decline in CD sales, despite decreasing music download sales as highlighted in “The fate of the CD – an international CD-market analysis”. However, an in-depth analysis of the statistics unveils very different market dynamics in various countries. Whereas music streaming is the main business of the recorded music industry in Scandinavia, CD sales are still relevant in Germany and in Japan (see “The Music Streaming Market Revisited, 2011-2015”).