A lot is being made of the current "economic downturn", but those of us toiling in the music sector have been witness to a slow-motion apocalypse for nearly a decade now. The phrases "job security" and "career in music" are rarely uttered in the same sentence, but lately things seem to be getting a lot worse, a lot faster. It's kinda like when a ship sinks - once the stern is vertical, you know you'll be wet soon.
Just today Viacom announced the down-sizing of 850 people, including a number of cuts in the NYC office of the Rhapsody music service. As someone who's actually been down-sized by Viacom (back in '01), I can attest to the fact that getting laid off really sucks, and my heart goes out to those folks.
The thing that really interests me is the number of "music professionals" that are / will soon be out on the street trying to find jobs in music. Frankly, I don't think our industry - which is relatively small and insular - can sustain them, and I suspect that many people who've spent their entire professional lives parked at the intersection of Music and Business will soon be exploring new career avenues.
That's a tough pill to swallow. What if you were a pastry chef and suddenly someone told you, "That's it - out of the kitchen!" Yet, that's what's happening. The technological disruption occurring in the music space - and the resultant file-sharing - is unprecedented and it's making a lot of people either 1) unnecessary or 2) redundant or 3) unemployable.
We here at Brandracket take some comfort in the fact that we don't pay our rent selling music. We're essentially a service business - helping brands find and license music for a variety of purposes. Lucky for us, brands will always respect copyrights (thanks to the armies of lawyers they employee...), and they will always need someone to help them navigate the musical waters.
But that said, don't think for instant that we're not battening down the hatches over here. The looming economic storm is gonna rain on everyone's parade, including ours. So we're doing everything we can to keep existing clients and aggressively (but nicely!) go after new ones. Ultimately, that's really all we can do.
And if it doesn't work, we'll just ask for a bailout. :)
Enough hand-wringing. Last time I checked, none of us are in a Turkish prison, so let's keep things in perspective. (Apologies to anyone who actually is in a Turkish prison. Keep digging.) If I don't get around to writing something here before the end of the year, we wish you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season. See you in '09! ~ Tim
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