New Social and Business Models in Latin American Musics

Abstract

This essay focuses on the production, distribution, circulation, and consumption of music in Latin America. These different dimensions of the music sector of the culture / creative industries cannot be fully separated, since it is consumption that drives both commercial and alternative strategies to reach audiences, and, increasingly, participation in social networks (which also increases revenues).1 Music cannot be separated from other media, particularly radio, television, video, videogames, mobile telephony, and a number of Internet applications, making it increasingly a multimedia experience. New forms of circulation and distribution are tailored to consumption patterns, something which the traditional music industry ignored, to its disadvantage, and for which it is now trying to play catch-up belatedly vis-a-vis new business models that have appeared over the past decade. The large global media conglomerates, with their focus on bestsellers and blockbusters, and the concomitant mega marketing and publicity budgets to ensure profitability, lost sight of what consumers want and how they go about getting it. This is an observation that many enthusiasts of Web 2.0 concepts and technologies see as indicative of a sea change in the market and in society.