About This Blog

Mark Mulligan

This is the blog of Mark Mulligan, where you will find opinion and insight on the music industry’s often painful journey towards creating a new business around music. Mark’s been analyzing the digital music market for over a decade, right from the days when there wasn’t much of one to talk of, and when DRM was ‘Rights Management’ not ‘Rights Protection’.

Mark endeavours to strike a balanced approach that is sensitive to the needs and concerns of the music labels but equally understands the realities of consumer behaviour and the business needs of technology companies and telcos.  But this blog is a conversation, not a soap box (well ok it’s a bit of one) but nonetheless your feedback is not just welcome, it’s essential. So please leave comments.

It’s taken the industry a long time and a lot of pain to get from the fear-dominated days of the original Naptser to where we are now, but there’s still plenty of distance to go. In fact we’re on the precipice of an impasse as the industry slowly wakes up to the fact that so many current music products are out of step with consumer demand.

About Mark

For 11 years Mark was a Vice President and Research Director at Jupiter Research (later acquired by Forrester Research). In his role as a music analyst and senior research manager, Mark worked right across the digital music value chain, with all the leading digital music services and technology companies, the major record labels, rights bodies, retailers, hardware companies and telcos.

Mark Mulligan, analystMark is routinely quoted and interviewed by top tier media (TV, radio, print and online) and speaks at leading music events such as Midem, Popkom, Canadian Music Week, London Calling, In The City.

In addition to following the music industry professionally, Mark lives and breathes music. He is a classically trained musician and is in the third generation of guitar players in his family (currently working on gently prodding his children to becoming the fourth) and his grandparents and father have all been music teachers and have all played in bands.  Mark also has a small, fully digital, recording studio which he uses to make lots of not so subtle bleeps, beats and squeeks.  ‘Back in the day’ he had a three single record deal and had his music played on BBC Radio 1.

To contact me please email musicindustryblog AT gmail DOT COM

Here are some of my recent press quotes (for more click here)

These are videos of some of my conference keynotes and interviews:

Comments
  1. Hi Mark,

    Just wondering what your initial thoughts are on the launch of Amazon’s MP3 store in the UK?

    Cheers

    Ben

  2. Bruce Warila says:

    Where is your RSS Feed? The Twitter feed is obvious. Can’t find one for posts?

  3. wickedmike says:

    Just made a profile and yours is the first blog i visited. The sudden realization is that there’s no contact email. Had to go back to mine to reinforce that discovery:) Hopefully you will find a hunger strike for music an industry interest – http://wickedmike.wordpress.com. Ta.

  4. TonsoTunez says:

    Mark …

    You’ve posted nothing new since March 20th. Have you retired?

    Tonso

  5. After reading the article, I just feel that I really need more information on the topic. Could you share some resources please?

  6. Glenda the good witch says:

    So, should I blog on wordpress instead of what I had been doing? Who is the audience?

  7. Chris says:

    Hey Mark,

    Do you have an email address I can use to get in touch with you? I was looking around the site and couldn’t seem to find anything.

    Thanks,
    Chris

  8. TonsoTunez says:

    Mark … Love your blog, but note that you haven’t posted anything new since 5/19 … have you decided to hang ‘em up?

    Tonso

  9. Rhiannon says:

    Hi Mark,

    Could you send me your email address please?

    Thanks!

    Rhiannon

  10. hitsingularity says:

    Hi Mark

    I too was wondering if you had an email address I could contact you at.

    Mine is tom@hitsingularity.com

    Thanks!

    - tom

  11. How can I be in direct touch with you? I’d like to discuss our free new music download site, which showcases rising and aspiring artists, bands and indie labels.

    It’s a direct distro solution that you may want to examine for your blog, and for Forrester.

  12. plockroy says:

    I think Mark’s email address is hidden for obvious reasons.

    Try to find let’s say, Bono’s email address…

    You get the idea…

    cheers,
    Plockroy

    http://www.twitter.com/palominded

  13. Ethan says:

    Mark,

    We’re looking to get reviews of our new publication, “The Japanese Music Industry Bible.” Any interest in helping us out?

    Thanks
    Ethan

  14. 7pXGxT Hello, YA serche drocher!!!
    p.s. serchedrocher!

  15. Hey Mark

    I had received your name from John Andrews, who used to be CEO of Forrester a few years ago. I am in the venture business, but now dedicating my time to a new ‘social-retailing’ concept around music – that is unique. Indeed, would like to vet some of our developments – also, saw your 21st century music matrix – ironically it dovetails into exactly what we are calling Peachtunes – I dont see many posts here so I hope that you catch this, yet dont feel comfortable articulating too much about Peachfuzz on this open mic forum. please drop me an email at the above and we can communicate, thanks.

  16. Hi Mark, Hope you’re well? Would like to get in touch with you properly to discuss a forthcoming event we’re planning and would like to invite you take part with some analysis…July 14th, central London. It’s on the Wadsworth report that we produced recently (and indeed I believe you purchased-thanks!)

    Am aware you’ve now left Forrester so no proper contact info for you anymore!

    Regards

    Jonathan

    jonathan@musictank.co.uk

  17. Gary says:

    Just wondering if you had any insight on the best way for producers to connect with artists online?

    Serious artists, lol. Any info would help. If anyone has any advice my email is

    gkrys907@msn.com

  18. Hi Mark,

    Its been a while – I hope you are well?

    Just wondering if I can repost your iCloud post on http://www.themusicvoid.com – obviously will attribute to you and your blog along with a link back etc…

    Essentially it is the most well considered post I’ve come across on the iCloud launch so far.

    Cheers,
    Jakomi

  19. Mark Mulligan says:

    Hi Jakomi – yes that’s absolutely fine. I’ve lost yoru email address. Could you pls send it through to me.
    Thanks
    Mark

  20. MArk -

    Could you shoot me an e-mail and phone number. I’d like to get your take on something for a story I’m doing for Marketplace.

    Thanks,
    Steve Henn

  21. Mark Mulligan says:

    Hi Steve

    My email address is mulligan_mark AT hotmail DOT COM

    Mark

  22. Juliette Garside says:

    Hi Mark
    Am writing a piece for the Guardian on music subscription sites. Are you able to give me a call today? 020 3353 2000 and ask for me, or email me your contact details.
    best
    Juliette Garside

  23. Thanks for this blog, getting as much guidence as possible in the new age of the music industry is more than useful. I am wondering if you accept guest posts?
    If you would like one just drop me a line back at estheroconnor@hotmail.co.uk

  24. meant to leave my link too

  25. James Ryan says:

    Hi Mark

    Now that I’ve caught you in an excellent state of mind in the sun on your patio, would you be interested in writing something about my unusual acoustic blues album – recorded on a 30 foot boat in Almería?!! Also, using YouTube and starting to use social networking to kick off my promotions in anger.

    If you’re interested, please check out my 13-part ‘making of the album’ YouTube series and featuring (in Episode eight) the legendary Django Reinhardt. Full details plus my new album on http://www.jamesryan.com

    Fully understand if this is not your territory, but thanks for reading anyway.

    Regards
    James

  26. Hi Mark,

    Are you familiar with Dina LaPolt? She’s an entertainment attorney and educator in Los Angeles. She speaks at conferences like SXSW and MIDEM, teaches a music business class at UCLA, and has edited a new book about artist branding.

    I think that she would be an interesting interview for your blog. Her legal insight into surviving in the new music industry is very interesting. There is more information at the link below.

    http://GorgeousPR.emailnewsletter-software.net/ztQFIl

    Please let me know if this would be of interest you.

    Thank you.
    Robert

  27. Jim says:

    Great website! You should definitely check out “In the Key of Success: The Five Week Jump-Start Strategy”. This E-course was recently published by Cheryl B. Engelhardt, a musician and composer who has performed across the US and Europe, written music for commercials and film/TV, and has spoken at many colleges and music conferences about building a career as an independent musician. Visit her website — http://www.cbemusic.com/ecourse/ — to download a personal copy. It will help you figure out your goals as a musician and, more importantly, it will show you how to achieve the results you want. Her advice is extremely effective and the E-course is an amazing value!

  28. Hi Mark,

    I am covering the Music Industry for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from Germany. How can I get in touch with you on the phone?

    Kind regards
    Marcus Theurer

  29. Mark -

    This is another plea for an email. Want to invite you to an event next week following up on themes in your “More thoughts on the ‘Music as Free’ Debate” post.

    mike@holderness.eu

  30. R McLaren says:

    From the BBC website:

    Independent analyst Mark Mulligan: “The Pirate Bay may have outlived its piracy lifespan but is a small task to mirror the site or to copy the indices. Even if The Pirate Bay is closed down people will just have to type ‘torrent’ into Google to find page after page of links,” said Mr Mulligan.

    I just typed ‘Mark Mulligan’s analysis is f**king weak’ into Google and got page after page of links!
    I wonder if Google produces pages of results for other, er, words?

  31. Mark Mulligan says:

    now here’s the strange thing….type that in and you don’t even get one result….just sayin’

  32. [...] an interesting blog post, James Firth discusses a comment from music industry analyst Mark Mulligan, quoted in a BBC story about the digital locker site Hotfile: “If the service providers are [...]

  33. [...] an interesting blog post, James Firth discusses a comment from music industry analyst Mark Mulligan, quoted in a BBC story about the digital locker site Hotfile: “If the service providers are [...]

  34. [...] an interesting blog post, James Firth discusses a comment from music industry analyst Mark Mulligan, quoted in a BBC story about the digital locker site Hotfile: “If the service providers are [...]

  35. [...] 20, 2012In an interesting blog post, James Firth discusses a comment from music industry analyst Mark Mulligan, quoted in a BBC story about the digital locker site Hotfile:“If the service providers are [...]

  36. [...] an interesting blog post, James Firth discusses a comment from music industry analyst Mark Mulligan, quoted in a BBC story about the digital locker site Hotfile: "If the service providers are serious [...]

  37. [...] “Put simply, Apple is in the business of selling content to help sell devices whereas Amazon is in the business of selling devices to help sell content,” Mark Mulligan (Music Industry Blog). [...]

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