I. FORMATS AND MUSIC INDUSTRY MARKETING
The development of CD-Rom technology - and various similar formats - has been discussed and analysed elsewhere (see for instance: Lambert and Ropiequet eds [1986] and Rickett [1991]) and will not be repeated in this brief study. Basically, the CD-Rom comprises an interactive audio-visual compact disc where various levels of audio, textual and/or graphic-pictorial information can be accessed along various pre-programmed paths. The most pertinent general context for this article is not however the development of the CD-Rom technology itself, which has not been premised or dependent on music related formats, or the musical divisions of today's global multi-media conglomerates; but rather how that technology fits in with the recent history of the music industry's exploitation of (a variety of) formats.
The last hundred and ten years has seen a gradual succession, or, more recently, diversification and succession, of commercially retailed recorded sound formats; most notably the vinyl disc, the audio-tape cassette and most recently the (audio) CD. The CD has been a particularly agreeable format for the industry, not only in terms of both sales of new playback hardware and the production of new material on CD to cater for this but also for the revival of marketing possibilities for back catalogue material, which has often (or perhaps even largely) been undertaken by consumers who have already purchased the specific music on a previous format. In the mid 1990s, CD has become established as the leading Western music format with the form now the basic (material) product of the (still highly lucrative) Western music industry. But this success, this 'victory' for the format also has an economic downside for the aggressive, expansionist dynamic of contemporary Western media industries - stability. The very success of the CD identifies it as a form to be superseded, suggests the opportunity for a new 'bigger, better' product which will both create a hardware market for new playback technologies and a demand for software to serve and exploit that market. The rise of the CD-Rom as a format has occurred at the same time as another development in the music market, the (relative) decline in sales of popular music CDs to the "young male record buyers who used to be the mainstream of the record industry" (Roxworthy: 50). Simultaneously, this demographic sector has increased its purchase of computer games software and hardware. Given the industry's continuing fixation on this section of the consumer market 3, these developments have been largely perceived as correlated and the industry has been looking for ways to market its traditional product (ie music) in this area. In this regard at least, the music CD-Rom, looks a highly promising development.
The development (and mass manufacturing and marketing of) music CD-Roms appeals to the music industry for three principal reasons:
The 'integrated product' option outlined in b. (above) is a significant one, since music video has both provided the stylistic inspiration for the majority of CD-Rom visuals produced to date or, more often, provided the actual visual material used for moving image sequences. Indeed, many completed and 'in progress' music CD-Roms, fundamentally comprises the repackaging of music videos, with CD quality sound, on a new audio-visual format. This represents a welcome use of such visual material by record companies. Despite various attempts to get TV services to pay for music video play; and the continuing retail of music video cassettes 4, the music industry has yet to find a way of making music video as lucrative a product as its traditional audio material. In economic terms at least, music video has therefore remained a kind of half way form between a marketing device and a product-in-itself. CD-Roms offer a new unified audio-visual form where the visual packaging of the video becomes an important part of the new (inter-active, audio-visual) product.
There are also other levels and product precursors which feed into CD-Roms and give them their distinct flavour (at least in this, their infancy). The most obvious of these are the souvenir concert brochure; the artist's biography; the documentary film; the in-depth interview etc.- all important parts of the multi-media exploitation of the (allied) commodities 'music' and 'star'. The advantage of the CD-Rom is that the production of all these can be supervised and co-ordinated 'in-house'. The very convergence of all these forms in one format, through one central production agency, 'empowered' by the music company, offers the company (or theoretically the artist) a greater degree of power over the promotion of their music/music related product. It is, of course, only a matter of time until the first, unauthorised bootleg CD-Roms appear but the concentration of component production offers a potential increase in marketing focus and overall product design by music companies. This is all the more attractive given that the interactive multimedia business is currently estimated to be worth $350M annually and that, in the last fiscal year, Apple Computers sold 1.1 Million CD-Rom drives and from now on, 60% of all its computers will have the CD-Rom drive built into them 5.
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