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By Chris Anderson
The Rise and Fall of the Hit
The era of the blockbuster is so over. The niche is now king,
and the entertainment industry—from music to movies to TV—
will never be the same.
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On March 21, 2000, Jive Records
released No Strings Attached, the much-anticipated second
album from NSync. The album debuted strong. It sold 1.1 million copies its irst day and
2.4 million in the irst week, making it the fastest-selling album ever. It went on to top the
charts for eight weeks, moving 10 million copies by the end of the year. The music industry
had cracked the commercial code. With NSync, a pop-idol boy band fronted by the charismatic
Justin Timberlake, Jive had perfected the elusive formula for making a hit. In retrospect it was
so obvious: What worked for the Monkees could now be replicated on an industrial scale. It
was all about looks and scripted personalities. The music itself, which was outsourced to a
small army of professionals (there are 60 people credited with creating No Strings Attached),
hardly mattered.
The Number of albums going gold or platinum
has dropped since 2001.
1,000
800
600
400
200
60
’90 ’91 ’92 ’93 ’94 ’95 ’96 ’97 ’98 ’99 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06
Labels were on a roll. Between 1990 and 2000, album sales had doubled, the fastest growth
rate in the history of the industry. Half of the top-grossing 100 albums ever were sold during
that decade.
But even as NSync was celebrating its huge launch, the ground was shifting. Total music sales
fell during 2000, for only the second time in a decade. Over the next few years, even after
the economy recovered, the music industry continued to sufer. Something fundamental had
changed. Sales fell 2.5 percent in 2001, 6.8 percent in 2002, and just kept dropping. By the
end of 2005 (down another 8.3 percent), album sales in the US had declined 20 percent from
their 1999 peak. Twenty-one of the all-time top 100 albums were released in the ive-year
period between 1996 and 2000. The next ive years produced only two—Norah Jones’ Come
Away With Me and OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below—ranking 79 and 91, respectively.
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It’s altogether possible that NSync’s irst-week record may never be broken. The band could
go down in history not just for launching Timberlake but also for marking the peak of the hit
bubble—the last bit of manufactured pop to use the 20th century’s ine-tuned marketing
machine to its fullest before the gears were stripped and the wheels fell of.
But the traditional model of marketing and
selling music no longer works.
Music itself hasn’t gone out of favor—just the opposite. There has never been a better time to
be an artist or a fan, and there has never been more music made or listened to. But the
traditional model of marketing and selling music no longer works. The big players in the
distribution system—major record labels, retail giants—depend on huge, platinum hits. These
days, though, there are not nearly enough of those to support the industry in the style to
which it has become accustomed. We are witnessing the end of an era.
What caused a generation of
the industry’s best customers—fans in their teens and
twenties—to abandon the record store? The labels cried piracy: Napster and other online ile-
sharing networks, along with CD burning and trading, had given rise to an underground
economy of stolen music. Of course, there’s something to that. Despite countless record-
industry lawsuits, traic on the peer-to-peer ile-trading networks has continued to grow,
and about 10 million users now share music iles each day.
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But technology didn’t just allow fans to sidestep the cash register. It also ofered massive,
unprecedented choice in terms of what they could hear. Technology ofered unprecedented
choice in terms of what they could here. The average ile-trading network has more songs
than any music store—by a factor of more than 100. Music fans had the opportunity for
limitless choice, and they took it. Today, listeners have not only stopped buying as many CDs,
they’re also losing their taste for the blockbuster hits that used to bring throngs into record
stores on release day. If they have to choose between a packaged act and something new,
more and more people are opting for exploration.
Technology ofered unprecedented choice in
terms of what they could hear.
Technology also gave consumers a new way to buy music. Rather than having to purchase an
entire album to get a couple of good tracks, they can buy songs à la carte for 99 cents each.
The online music industry is primarily a singles business, which depresses album sales
further. Meanwhile, the music marketing machine has lost its power. When consumers were
buying mainly from record stores, prominent in-store displays could drive tremendous
demand, which is why the labels paid so much for them. But now most of the largest record
store chains, from Tower Records to Sam Goody, are either in bankruptcy or emerging from it
with greatly diminished clout. MTV doesn’t play much music anymore, and money-losing Spin
magazine was just, well, spun of for a ire-sale sum.
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When it comes to lost marketing
power, nothing compares to the decline of rock radio. In
1993, Americans spent an average of 23 hours and 15 minutes per week tuned to a local
station. As of summer 2005, that igure had dropped to 19 hours and 15 minutes. Time spent
listening to the radio is now at a 12-year low, and rock music is among the formats sufering
the most. Since 1998, the rock radio audience has dropped 26 percent. What’s killing rock
radio? A perfect storm of competition. Start with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which
added more than 700 FM stations to the dial. This fragmented the market and depressed the
economics of the incumbents. At the same time, the limits of ownership in each market were
relaxed, which led to a nationwide rollup by Clear Channel and Ininity, whose operating
eiciencies included bringing cookie-cutter playlists to once-distinctive local stations.
Mainstream rock is losing listeners:
talk radio is growing
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
News/Talk
Adult contemporary
Ratings for the top two radio formats
10
Fall
1998
Fall
1999
Fall
2000
Fall
2001
Fall
2002
Fall
2003
Fall
2004
Fall
2005
Pratically every other setor of mass media
and entertainment has witnessed a similar shift
away from hits.
Then came the cell phone, which gave people something else to do during their commutes.
And inally, the iPod, the ultimate personal radio. With 10,000 of your favorite songs on tap,
who needs FM?
Practically every other sector of mass media and entertainment has witnessed a similar shift
away from hits. Last year the Hollywood box oice take fell 6 percent, continuing a decline in
attendance per capita that started in 2001. The average top 25 blockbusters in any given year
so far this decade have accounted for 5 percent less of the total box oice gross than in the
1990s, even as they’ve cost 57 percent more to make.
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