Sony's Rob Stringer on the State of the Music Industry

Rob Stringer, Chairman, Sony Music Group discusses the state of the music industry, his company and its artists with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw at Bloomberg Screentime in LA.
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[kbuzz]

Art comes first, it's incredible that he actually makes that statement with a straight face

[VernonRoss-on]

He lost me as soon as he said he cared about the music before the business. Lie to me once and I'll not believe a thing you say.

[PHATTrocadopelus]

Streaming has destroyed the industry for artists.

[ZyzyxVile]

Let me save you a listen. As a Sony music CEO, he doesn't care. He's got his golden parachute made of your blood and sweat. AI will eat your lunch worse than Spotify and Apple music ever did, and he gets to retire a millionaire.

[QMUSIC]

This is the first business music interview I’ve listened to…it’s making my skin crawl.

[kbuzz]

Huge record companies are what really need to go underground, to make way for entities based on independent artists, to put the art back in the music industry..

[scottblack]

Let me save you 30 minutes. Stringer will sign ANYTHING as long as it will make him money. He couldn't give a toss about music

[Gabriele_Gigli]

Stop free Spotify; people must understand music needs to be paid

[nunuevaaa]

Music is life. And music is the only nice thing in this crappy world.

[phpn]

Stringer 's mindset is one of the reasons musicians can't make a living today. The Apple Music Store was halfway decent until Apple started their monthly flat fee to a) lock-in their users and b) follow in the wake of Spotify. The freemium model DOESN'T WORK ; it commoditises music as if it's tap water. We need to revert to a pay-per-use model where we add the benefit of a free audition (with DRM). Many ardent music lovers today can easily have 50, 000 songs in their "catalogue" none of which they actually own, and most of which they'll only hear once. This is nonsense. let people sample what they want and they have them PURCHASE what they really want to keep. This is only FAIR. This is also true of other media. Streaming has destroyed the cinema industry.

[mrgreen]

It's a shame nothing here is useful information. Such an opportunity to throw hard questions about what artists are facing. Instead he is asking how Sony is doing with Tik Tok. Robs says his job is trying to get more money from streaming platforms who are raising their prices. Artists need money from the streaming platforms. It's amazing they can get by. Spotify, Apple, Youtube pay artists nothing essentially and now they are raising prices?. It's time to load up my hard drives and stop streaming. Cut them off. THAT is the useful information here.

[noname-qbir]

If artists made most thier money out of music and touring they'd focus on that. But music is now just a showcase to get eyeballs to sell merch.

[RakSumusic]

Anybody know what genre of music he’s talking about at the end? Or know any songs or artists as examples?

[udiorockmeamadeus]

SONY MADE THE RECORDING INDUSTRY PRACTICALLY, CHECK OUT THEIR HISTORY.. THE FIRST DEVICE THE EVER MADE AND SOLD WAS A RUDIMENTARY TAPE RECORDER..

[TxRhimself]

Michael Jackson hated Sony.

It’s kinda sad that they started owning his music right after he died. 😢

[tristanvillalontriss]

My ultimate craziest dream is to be in the Music Business🎼🎤🌌🙏🥁🎸🤵‍♂️🤴. I would love to be the first or one of the People from Southeast Asia to achieve that🇵🇭

[LaloylosDescalzosTV]

he's totally right on! cumbia stock way up in argentina, paraguay. South America on fire

[NickMonopoli]

I agree they keep pushing catalogue, and that leaves nothing "new" to come up

[novemberboy]

Just to clarify; Michael owned half of Sony as well as the rights to his own catalogue. It probably was up for sale which is why Sony bought it, but Michael was in full control of his music at the time of his death

[gritbeat]

Blockchain will be another great tool for bringing back the collector of art mentality to music among other benefits.