User:Eurodog/sandbox38

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Market perspective

Industry innovations

Music publishing companies developed influential business models based on innovative management, promotion, advertising, and pricing. Its company executives also held leadership roles in industry organizations. Prior to the Wall Street Crash of 1929, pianos, automobiles, and even fur coats were commonly sold on installment. In 1925, for example, 80% of pianos sold by the retail trade were done so on installment plans. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and into the Great Depression, sales declined further for pianos and, by extension, the sheet music industry.

Loss industry control of published music by Tin Pan Alley music publishers

First film, then record companies took control the market for popular music from music publishers. Yet, the production model perfected by Tin Pan Alley — which, among other things, relied on professional songwriting teams — remained the same until the emergence of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly — and later, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and many other high impact artists who created their own material. This represented a paradigm shift, when recorded performance was economically more important than printed sheet music.

The rise and fall of the market demand for published music

The golden era for Tin Pan Alley song publication, 1890 to 1915, coincides with the heyday of barbershop quartet singing, parlor music, vaudeville entertainment, and the birth of the recording industry. The popularity of Minstrel shows died in 1900, due in part to the success of vaudeville. In 1892, the Tin Pan Alley hit, "After The Ball," sold 2 million copies, distinguishing it as the first to sell a million in one year. Sheet music sales for that song eventually reached 10 million.

The golden era for piano making and sales in the United States was from 1875 to 1932, a period when pianos had few competitors for home entertainment. The the peak was in 1909, when, industry-wide, nearly 364,545 pianos were sold in the United States, according to the National Piano Manufacturers Association. By comparison, in 2011, 41,000 were sold, along with 120,000 digital pianos and 1.1 million keyboards, according to Music Trades magazine.

Prohibition, radio, automobiles, talkies, phonograph records, the Great Depression contributed to a decline in the sale of sheet music.

1. Publisher Edward Bennett Marks (1865–1945) once said that the entertainment sector had been taken into consideration when Prohibition was debated; the consensus was that people would have more money to buy sheet music and spend time entertaining at home; however, he noted that "depressed, hypocritical people do not sing." "The only worthwhile product of prohibition … was a crop of clever songs.
2. Commercial radio began to emerge in 1920. Between 1920 and 1930, 60% of American families purchased a radio receiver. In the 1930s, the number of American families owning a radio doubled.
3. Talkies began in 1927; many songwriting teams and publishers moved to Hollywood; film production companies began acquiring publishing companies in the early 1930s, marking a new era of vertical integration by the film industry, incorporating A&R talent development for music, record production and distribution, control of rights to published music and its distribution, and broadcasting
4. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, million-selling records disappeared, and sheet music sales collapsed
5. But also during the Great Depression, radio broadcasting grew rapidly, an impetus for changing promotional strategy by music publishers to plugging radio stars instead of vaudeville performers; due to the fact that network broadcasts were made primarily from New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, song plugging became a national exercise, prompting publishers to close regional offices that were not in network broadcast cities; publishers then focused on big bands and singers
6. During World War II, U.S. popular music gained worldwide appeal; but the industry was controlled by radio, film, and record companies; record companies were selling millions of singles in the 1940s
7. In 1952, Will Von Tilzer, founder of Broadway Music Corporation, died