ºìÌÒÊÓƵ Blog - By Tag: global-media-industry-series

While we at ºìÌÒÊÓƵ have been talking about how the has difficulties for many involved in the , there is another way that this new trend impacts the industry: it is changing the business model of these companies forever.

Since many of these companies work with the internet and are focused primarily on providing their services that way, they are much smaller, more nimble, and entrepreneurial than their traditional counterparts. One simple way to confirm this is to look at the employees used by each firm.  Pandora and Netflix have around 500 and 2,000 employees respectively. That is far less than 126,000 employees that Comcast uses. To prove this isn’t a size issue, Google only has around 50,000 employees!

It can be argued that there is nothing more universal in the world than music. Music has brought people and together from the beginning of time. To many people and cultures, music is an important part of life—an art form that enhances life’s appeal. Today, music is not only an art but also an extremely important industry in the global economy. Just as and have changed the course of many other industries in the world, these two factors have both dramatically transformed the music industry for better or for worse. Consumers, artists, retailers, record labels, and businesses have all been affected by these changes. Now the question is: “Has globalization created a sustainable shift in the music industry and how have these changes affected the art of music?”

When taking a company, product, or service internationally one has to take into consideration the variability of laws they will encounter. This tends to be quite the process, and a very complex one at that. Few may be more complex (and more of a hindrance) to business expansion than copyright law, . This makes for a wide array of complications that music empires have to deal with and has even derailed some.

One third of the world’s population is , a surprising statistic considering where we started not too long ago.  As more people become connected, consumer consumption patterns around the globe are changing. The as well, caused by cultural differences as well as different regulations across countries. Many regions, such as Scandinavia and , are a much different market than the . We will explore these differences by analyzing how they affect consumption patterns and their impact on business in a global context.