My family tends to stream far more music from the mainstream than buying albums thanks to an Apple Music family subscription . My album purchases tend to be either ‘asking the band after the gig’ or physical orders from personal websites because iTunes doesn’t have a lot of Finnish new-age female-fronted power punk bands. Turns out that we’re not alone, with Chartattack reporting that 2015 saw ‘new’ US album sales beaten by back catalogue tracks.

The term “catalogue” refers to albums released more than 18 months ago. According to Nielsen’s annual year end music report, catalogue albums outsold current releases by 4.3 million copies, something never before seen in the industry. Just 10 years ago, current music sales outpaced catalogue music by over 150 million albums.

Of course if you take Adele out of the equation, and her 7.4 million physical sales, the ratio of new to old sales looks even more skewed. Just one more sign of the massive change in the old norms of the music industry.

You might recall that after this year’s radio broadcast of the  Edinburgh Fringe chat show came to the end, I decided to keep the format alive and showcase all the fun things in Edinburgh each week (that would have been the moment for a David Tennant-esque “I don’t want to go…”). It’s three months later, and Edinburgh Nights is still on the air, at 3pm every Friday, with a podcast available to listen again to the show (if you’re in Edinburgh), or to listen fresh to the whole hour if you are further afield.

It’s a show that continues to evolve, but being able to highlight the great bands playing in the capital, give some airtime to the theatre shows around Edinburgh, and to go beyond the ten minute set from the comedians playing the Festival city, are all adding up to an exciting hour every week.

If you’re not yet listening, head over to iTunes and subscribe to the podcast, and if you are a regular listener, why not think about leaving a review?

Horace Deidu looks at the average spend of an Apple user, which is dropping as the user base increases (with my emphasis).

This can be read as: “Each of the current 575 million accounts generates about half the revenue of the 100 million accounts of 2009.” One would expect such a decline as an user base expands and this approximate 50% decline in revenues per account seems reasonable for a six-fold base increase. In absolute terms the graph shows that an iTunes account generates about $3.2/month in transactions.  Put another way, during the last year, an average of $40/yr of economic value is generated by every iTunes account.

As Apple continues to push iOS devices to the lower end of the markets, the user base is changing and that will impact on the average spend. There’s a huge difference between selling to the geekerati of the world, and shifting as many handsets out of the door of the Carphone Warehouse on a £10 a month contract .

Update: From the Official Charts website.

Three versions of the song are currently figuring in the Top 200 – Judy Garland’s version at 54, Ella Fitzgerald’s 1961 cover is at 146 and the Munchkins‘ version at 183. Contrary to some reports, all three versions qualify under industry chart rules.

At 51 seconds, Judy Garland’s version of ‘Ding-dong, The Witch Is Dead’, currently at #11 in the iTunes Singles Chart in the UK, is too short to be eligible for the Official Top 40 this weekend.

Short of some sort of rule bending, the number one is going to be a big name artists such as Pink, Nelly, or Duke Dumont. Not Liza Minelli’s Mum.

For many studios and other content providers, mobile apps are a new source of income and a powerful way to engage audiences, sell games and merchandise. But these revenues are threatened if developers do not pay licensing fees.

Pop quiz: Do you think the studios will have a reasonable definition of ‘fair use’, licence the images of their latest blockbuster movie to app developers for a workable fee, or  squelch every app with a flood of DMCA takedowns to the mobile stores so they can control the entire marketing message of said movie?

I popped into iTunes yesterday to grab some links, and while I was there, check that the Fringe podcast is showing up and getting fed through properly (to which the answer is almost, as the new album art needs picked up), and I glanced at the top lists in the Arts section. As you do.

Wow.

The individual episodes list had one of the Fringe podcasts in ninth place. And if you count The Archers and The Archers Omnibus as one show (which for PR purposes I think I will), the Fringe podcast made #3 in the overall charts!

The other big hitters from the Fringe in podcast land, namely Live at the Gilded Balloon (link), Richard Herring (link) and the Pleasance Podcast (link) are duking it out in the comedy section, and that’s fine by me. I’ve always wanted the Edinburgh Fringe Podcast to reflect the 2500 shows at the Fringe, not just the 500 in the comedy section.

It might be a bit of a judgement call, but I always try to get one comedy, one theatre and one performance piece interview in each show, along with varied news, the Children’s Sunday special, the reportage from the Royal Mile (due this weekend), and a mix of big names, Fringe specialists, and those new to the largest arts festival on the planet. And it seems you all like that mix as well.

So to all the listeners out there, thank you (and thanks to The Stage as well, who help make it happen every year). And if you haven’t caught up yet, here’s the show in iTunes – and the RSS feed for everyone else.

Music publisher BMG are ready to bid for music publisher EMI. Music publisher Warner are likely to pitch in as well, while music publisher Sony and music publisher Universal won’t sit on the dock of the bay either. Apart from the fact that this would keep Competition Lawyers and Regulators lots of work to do, it worries me that so much musical power is being concentrated in fewer and fewer companies.

That’s fertile ground for a cartel to operate in. And not just in music sales, but in contracts with young and upcoming bands, leverage on digital providers such as Spotify and iTunes, and the chilling effect on the media (you can’t interview Hip Young Things until you say nice things about the thirty seventh Lady Gaga album… oh hold on, weren’t you critical of our redub of Revolver to include more Yoko Ono? And you need a cover story this month? What a shame). The divide between the major labels, the indies, and the independent online bands is going to grow, and I’m interested, albeit warily, to see where it goes.

GetJar, which bills itself as “the world’s largest free app store” and distributes apps for Android, BlackBerry, Java, Symbian and the mobile web, received a cease and desist letter from Apple’s attorneys over the use of the phrase “app store.”

Perhaps Steve Jobs’ company is counting on GetJar having smaller pocket than Amazon… and then using it as a precedent on others?

In the haste to get the new podcast, Room 404, open in time for the B3ta Newsletter, the normal way of starting a new show didn’t actually happen – there was only one podcast available when people started to flood in, the next guests weren’t lined up, the format of the show was still in flux…

…and there was no listing for Room 404 in iTunes. Much as RSS feeds are readable by many devices and clients, I’ve continued to hear that “people will listen once it’s in iTunes.”

Well, it’s in iTunes now, what are you waiting for?

Follow Room 404 on iTunes with this link.

It’s always fun to watch the Edinburgh Fringe podcast climb up the rankings inside iTunes every year, and 2010 is no different. There’s been steady progress, and now only two mighty Arts podcasts are preventing a number one.

Yes, The Archers and the Radio 4 Food Programme are doing what they do every year and are just ahead of the EdFringe Podcast. I suspect Ambridge (as always) is a little bit out of reach, but there are six shows left in this daily run from the Fringe – perhaps the Foodies are in range?

You can subscribe to the pocast (or leave a star rating and review, those are appreciated as well) at bit.ly/fringepodcast.

Well that explains where the extra traffic to the podcast is coming from…

Last week the Unofficial Eurovision Podcast was chosen as a “New and Notable” podcast in iTunes, which generated a fair amount of interest in the podcast, and it’s been good to hear from a lot of the delegation press people here at Eurovision they’ve listened to the podcast.

iTunes have promoted the cast just a little bit more, by placing it in one of the six front page spots at the very top of the store…

It’s currently sitting 5th in the performing arts chart, all just in time for the commentaries and the final push to the Grand Final!

Even after just a week in iTunes, The Unofficial Eurovision Song Contest Podcast is gathering subscribers and recognition. It’s been bouncing around the performing Arts category and has, so far, peaked at number 6.

I’d always planned the first week of the Eurovision Podcast to deal with two issues – the first was to kick the tyres, get all the RSS feeds and directory listings sorted, and generally make sure it works before opening the taps up on the bigger shows.

The second issue was how to bring up to speed those people who are new to Eurovision, or perhaps just watch it out of habit once a year. The later podcasts are going to be a bit more specialised and in-depth, so I wanted to provide an entry route for those new to the Song Contest.

So “The Quick Guides to Eurovision” filled up the first with with an introduction to the show, discussions about the songs, the rules, scoring, and of course what is Political Voting. neatly covering the two issues highlighted above.

Now that everyone is at least in the same building in knowledge of the contest, the fun stuff really starts. Tomorrow will see me start the traditional forced fan march that is previewing each song… but I think I can bring some flair and excitement to that as well.

Stand by, Eurovision Juke Box Jury is just around the corner!

While it might have been knocking around the rotation of the “Featured Podcasts” in the Arts section of iTunes for all of August, the Edinburgh Fringe Podcast from myself, The Stage and The Podcast Network is now a lot more prominent in iTunes this week.

We’re the number one Staff Favourite, slap bang in the middle of the page, the middle of the carousel of podcasts, and I’m watching us have an indian summer at the end of the Fringe and a final climb up the iTunes charts.

As I write this, the show is sitting at #3 in the Arts charts. Rather famously, we were only beaten to the top slot last year by Radio 4’s The Archers, and while I’ve been joking that this is a group that you really don’t want to upset I’m interested to see if this placing, along with a final push from all of you reading this, could take us one step further.

So if you could all click through and subscribe to the podcast in iTunes that would be fantastic. And if you’ve already subscribed then you do realise you don’t get any duplication if you click again? Maybe you could leave a review of the podcast instead…

In the run up to August 7th and the start of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, I’m getting the word out about this years Fringe podcast in a variety of ways that only the internet can.

So, taking a leaf out of all the good podcasters promotional playbooks, I’m reaching out to the magazines and newspapers, the websites and blog, and also asking people who’ve listened to the show to jump over to iTunes and leave a review.

Visit the Edinburgh Fringe Show on iTunes, or subscribe with the regular RSS feed.

In case you missed it, a company today launched a new laptop, upgraded some software, and did something that another company did during 2008. Unfortunately there isn’t a burning bush on the roof of the Moscone Center, so all the fans can come down now and try to hide their personal disappointment.

“Your children are not special.”
Bill Hicks.