http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/indus...06670752.story
Quote:
The Bieber issue is probably more complex. The Hot 100 chart is driven largely by radio play and digital sales, with lesser slices of streaming and on-demand music rolled in. Would Bieber have had a no. 1 had his team consented to streaming the song on services such as Rhapsody and Spotify?
One way of looking at this is to simply strip away streaming services from the entire Hot 100. In that scenario, yes, "Boyfriend" is the no. 1 song based on radio play and digital sales. But at this point in the evolution of the music fan experience, I'd just as soon strip away radio or digital sales as streaming songs. Spotify et al are a massive and important slice of the music consumption pie.
So then the next question would be, what would have happened if Team Bieber had streamed the song? That's impossible to know, of course. Would fans have streamed for free instead of buying the single? It's the question that every marketing and promotion and product-manager executive at every label turns around in their heads every day.
It's worth noting that key digital executives at most major labels- including Bieber's own Universal Music Group-now have gone on record as saying that Spotify doesn't cannibalize sales. So really, if that's the case, then why wasn't Bieber's "Boyfriend" streaming? I suppose the notion that Spotify doesn't cannibalize sales is not mutually exclusive to the notion that it might cannibalize sales in the short, immediate term. I can't think of another reason why the song wouldn't be streaming on Spotify.
Unless, of course, iTunes "incentivized" Team Bieber and/or UMG to make sure that the song was only available digitally on iTunes.
But of course, that would probably never happen.
Bill Werde is Billboard's editorial director.
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So the Itunes exclusive might have been costly?
No sales from other outlets like Amazon MP3/Google Play/Rhapsody
No on-demand streams (like Spotify/Rhapsody)
No passive streams (like AOL Radio)