Paradigmatic Changes In The Music Industry Essay

Introduction
The music industry has been experiencing many changes for decades. According to Tschmuck (2003:130), the industry has gone through three main “paradigmatic cultural changes”. The first change the industry experienced was in the 1920s with the introduction of the commercial radio which impacted mainly the promotional methods typically used. Then, in the 1950s the advent of rock ’n ’roll enabled more than 200 independent record companies to enter the market making the industry highly competitive. The third “paradigmatic change” which is considered to have brought the most radical changes came along with the development of digital technology and the introduction of the Internet in the 1990s. The development of digital technology in the music industry has alternated how the industry operated and its centre of focus shifted from the physical to the virtual (Wikström 2009:4). According to Warr and Goode (2011:126), the introduction of the Internet and the digitalisation of music changed activities that the music industry traditionally undertook including the production, distribution, promotion and consumption of music.

In the music industry it includes a chain of activities including the creation, promotion and distribution of music (Pönni and Tuomola, 2003:21). The Internet has impacted the structure of the traditional value chain (Porter, 2001:10), a phenomenon that has been observed in the music industry as well.
The following essay will explore the changes of the value chain in the music industry by briefly going through the traditional music value chain and examining the new one, concentrating on the change of the actors involved and their roles in the value chain.
The Traditional Music Value