The COVID Bounce and the coming Attention Recession

2020 was by any measure a unique year in modern times. While the societal impact of the pandemic was, and continues to be, horrific, for the entertainment industries it was a year of plenty. At the start of the pandemic, MIDiA Research estimated that there would be an extra 15% of consumption time for the average working consumer. Well, now that the end of year data is in, we can confirm that this ‘COVID bounce’ did in fact happen, with overall consumption time up by 12%. When you consider that the working population is only a subset of the overall population, that 12% means that we were pretty much on the money with our prediction. But while this uplift was seen right across entertainment, some formats did better than others and, crucially, some of that extra time will diminish whenever it is that the population starts returning to work and going out again. Which means that for the first time ever in the Attention Economy, there will be an Attention Recession, with very obvious potential ramifications for all entertainment companies.

The full results of MIDiA’s highly detailed COVID media consumption study is now available to MIDiA clients in the report ‘Media consumption: Lockdown’s attention boom’ and the accompanying dataset. Here are a few of the high-level findings.

• Everything was up: 2020 was a case of a high tide rises all boats, with all forms of entertainment increasing average consumption time. Video consolidated its position as the leading format in terms of hours spent, but the largest percentage gains were in games (30%) and non-music audio (24%). Consumers even increased their time doing nothing / chilling, illustrating that despite the unsettling chaos of the pandemic, consumers found more time to relax and also to contemplate. Interestingly, doing nothing increased by a greater rate than listening to music.
  
• Audiobooks were audio’s big winner: While podcast listening was up by an impressive 35%, audiobooks were lockdown’s biggest winner, increasing average time by nearly 50%. The radio and music businesses’ obsession with podcasts is understandable given how much focus the likes of Spotify, Amazon and Apple have placed on them, but the audiobooks category has emerged as the dark horse of the piece. When all audio time is considered together (radio, music, streaming, podcasts, audiobooks), audiobooks now account for a similar share of total time as podcasts do. Though music streaming was up too during lockdown, it grew more slowly than podcasts and audiobooks so was flat in terms of total share. Radio lost share. The shift is reflected in Spotify’s numbers: its average content hours per monthly active user (MAU) fell by 1% in 2020. Given that this figure includes podcasts, the inferences are: a) Spotify lost share of audio time, and b) music hours fell. It wasn’t just Spotify that did not keep pace with the audio boom. Even apps like the BBC’s Sounds saw a fall in the ratio of weekly to daily users. 
  
• Casual gamers boosted games: Games’ growth was driven both by core gamers using the former commute time to get in some extra time on their consoles and gaming PCS. But the biggest growth was driven by mobile casual games. In previous years, mainstream consumers had driven a games surge, adopting titles like Candy Crush, but then shifted much of this time to the likes of Netflix and Spotify as the Attention Economy saturated. With more time on their hands in lockdown, mainstream consumers flocked to casual games once again. This will be a likely casualty of the coming Attention Recession.
  
• Music is just one lane in audio: COVID-19 catalysed many pre-existing trends; the audio shift was one of those. Just as Netflix took TV out of the TV, podcasts took radio out of radio and contributed to a wider trend of consumers taking an increasingly format-agnostic view of audio. Breaking long-held habits in lockdown, audiences were able to try out new things and, given that we are nearly a year into the lockdown era, establish new behaviours that will remain to some degree post-pandemic (if that is ever a phrase that will really ring true). Traditional habits like the commute and exercise will now see audiobooks and podcasts competing for music time like never before. For music companies, this means that they need to understand they are now in the audio business and they are predominately just competing in one lane. This does not mean that they inherently need to become ’audio businesses’, but it does mean that they need to build strategies that account for this shift. Meanwhile, Amazon once again emerges as the dark horse with music, podcasts and – via Audible – audiobooks. Amazon looks set to be a big beneficiary of the lockdown legacy.

If you are not yet a MIDiA client and would like to learn how to get access to the ‘Media consumption: Lockdown’s attention boom’ report and data then please email stephen@midiaresearch.com.

Independent artist creativity and innovation in the age of COVID

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the music industry upside down in many ways but among the direct artists community there have also been signs of resilience and creativity in the face of adversity. For these ‘unsigned’ artists, 2020 is both the best of times and the worst of times. 

Self-releasing artists are not bound by industry promotional cycles, and in many cases, today’s artists must not just create their music but ‘sell it’ as well. If you have the drive to create music there is very little stopping you from writing, recording, producing and indeed releasing that music. All the tools and platforms are available. 

It’s been a boom year for music making – from record Fender guitar sales to yet another peak in streaming demand. Yet there’s never been a tougher time competitively—with 40,000 tracks released daily, cutting through the clutter is a very real challenge. The age of ‘create it and they will come’ never really existed, but today’s music market started to obliterate the notion completely and COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst for the changes that were already taking place.

For MIDiA’s latest independent artist survey report in partnership with artists services and distribution company Amuse, we interviewed 346 artists around the world during the heart of lockdown to get a unique view of how the crisis is affecting artists. What we found was anxiety mixed with aspiration and creativity. The full report is available for free here but we’ve pulled out here five key themes for artist success:

1 – A sector with real scale: Artists direct (i.e. those without record labels) generated $873 million in 2019, up 32% from 2018. These independent artists represent the fastest-growing segment of the global recorded music business, a segment of global scale with real impact and influence. They are also more streaming native than label artists.

2 – Lockdown was a unique creative window: Nearly 70% of independent artists took the opportunity in lockdown to spend more time writing or making music, and a further 57% created more content for social media. Artists took full advantage of being away from the spotlight and the treadmill of promotion, to dive back into their creative spaces and make new music. In terms of releasing music, artists were split – with 46% releasing more music, but 40% putting projects on hold.

3 – Collaboration: 36% of independent artists reported working more on collaborations during lockdown than before. Music is becoming more of a collaborative undertaking than ever before and a whole ecosystem of digital tools and services is emerging to meet growing artist demand, providing more structured and networked process than many labels ever can. An unintended consequence of lockdown is that it has compelled more artists to explore ways of doing remote collaboration and many of these new learned behaviours will persist beyond the pandemic. A new way of making music is being born.

4 – Independent artists need side hustles like never before: Artists need to work multiple revenue streams to build career momentum. For independent artists, streaming is their primary source of income at 28%. Live revenue is second at 18% (which means they are less exposed to lockdown’s impact than established label artists). But the key for today’s artists is to make revenues from multiple sources including publishing, teaching, session work, sponsorship and merchandise. Artists’ need to work multiple revenue streams to build career momentum. The number of artists offering online tuition has grown hugely during the pandemic, as has artists selling their old kit. Additionally, artist skill platforms will only grow as the number of aspiring creators grows, and, as with live streaming and making sound packs, is yet another revenue stream for artists. Artists are small entrepreneur businesses. They need four or five income streams to get off the ground.

5 – Marketing IQ is becoming key: Half of all direct artists do their own marketing, with one third managing their own marketing budget, but less than one in five are working with a distributor or label on marketing activities and 40% spend nothing at all on marketing. Artists are self-reliant but still inexperienced with marketing and most are not making the most of the tools available. While almost two-thirds of artists are using Spotify For Artists, few of them are using any other marketing related tools. The independent artist must know that marketing is about research, experimentation and persistence and is even more important for independent artists that do not have labels to do this work for them.

Making and marketing music is both getting easier and harder at the same time. Easier because artists can be in control: releasing music when you want to, growing and using social media, seeking out like-minded artist collaborators and sponsors, not having to rely on paymasters or gatekeepers. Easier also because artists can go global right from the beginning. 

On the other hand, the road to a career is longer and possibly never ending. The gap between artist and fan, creator and consumer is narrowing. Equipment makers are having a boom year, and one of the many things people have done with more time on their hands is fulfil their passions. So, for aspiring independent artists, a whole new wave of competition has arrived in the form of talented amateurs, armed with the tools and the time to make their own entertainment. 

The independent artist sector had another boom year in 2019 and the early signs are that it has not only weathered the COVID-19 storm but has made the best of a bad situation, seeing lockdown as an opportunity to create, experiment and innovate. Which should not surprise us, as after all these are some of the defining characteristics of one of the most important and exciting elements on the modern music business. Pathfinding through the pandemic requires innovation and patience and it looks like the direct artists sector has plenty of both.