It took me a long time to get this blog rolling. I thought about it for years but it was only eighteen months ago when I finally resolved to start. It seemed like a good idea get the lay of the land for classical music in cyberspace so I typed “classical music” into a Google service that continually searches the internet for new content.
The results were an eye opener.
“Classical music” gets lots of hits every day; far more than I can read, but I do read a lot of them and I have learned many things. Among the more important lessons:
1) Nearly an eighth of the articles have to do with classical music from India.
2) A whole lot of people write about western classical music, though. The nature of their postings is all over the map. There are learned papers, idle questions, and all sorts of praise and disparaging remarks about classical music in general and certain performers in particular.
3) The majority of the people who present themselves as knowledgeable and supportive say that classical music listening has declined in recent years. There’s a certain amount of bona fide research which points in this direction as well.
4) Many of the same people who present themselves as knowledgeable and supportive blame the decline in classical music listening on the attitudes of the general population. They are too poorly educated, their attention spans are too short, they have no respect for their elders, nobody appreciates what’s really good any more, blah blah blah, etc., etc., etc. Imagine any other businesses taking this attitude toward its potential customers. Imagine a company that makes automobiles blaming everyone and everything but themselves when sales decline….oh wait….that’s what some auto companies did. How did that work out for them?
Most of the world’s population has become used to living without classical music. These people shrug and accept whatever blame accrues. Their lives go on. Arts advocates can point fingers for an eternity if they wish but it won’t bring larger crowds to concerts. In fact, the opposite is true.
But not everybody in the classical music business is drawing smaller and smaller audiences.
Just one example I happen to know intimately: KLEF’s share of radio listening has increased more than 46% during the past year. Survey after survey, our audience shows steady increases. Our share is presently the second highest of any classical music station in the country, second only to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Does this mean Anchorage is a hotbed of classical music appreciation? I doubt it. If a large number of people choose to listen to classical music in Anchorage it’s a good bet there are lots more people in lots more places who are willing to listen too.
The trick is to attract those people and make them want to keep coming back.
July 1, 2010 at 8:29 pm |
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June 30, 2010 at 6:06 pm |
Dear Rick,
I just re-state as the previous commentators that you are so right!! Classical musicians are out of touch with the real world and desperately need help with “real world” marketing. Ther are those of us who are willing to experiment and try new ways of presenting classical music but we need the market people to help with suggestions. We musicinas are often too close to our professions to see alternatives.
June 29, 2010 at 7:22 am |
Rick – Love your blogs! I love (most) classical music, and I love marketing. One of the most important marketing concepts in the world is segmentation – “segment till it hurts” is what I teach my students at APU. One way this might be useful in marketing classical music in general (as opposed to marketing a particular performance) is to segment by what kind of music your target audience already likes. How would you market classical music to a jazz aficionado? Is there some “crossover” genre that could pull them towards Mozart? How about marketing opera to a baby-boomer hard rock lover – position opera as a natural follow-on to The Who’s “Tommy”? Wow, this could even be fun!
June 29, 2010 at 3:42 am |
This question is absolutely interesting to me. I would think once people understood that there was a better place to buy a steak (money not being an issue) they would go there for steak instead of the place with the worse steak. If Mozart or Beethoven are clearly the best composers that ever lived, why would we ever want to listen to anything else? Especially something like Iron Butterfly. But I have to admit, even though I have copies of much of Beethoven and Mozart, I still occasionally listen to music by composers like Rodrigo, Part, and John Williams. Often that is because it is easier to listen to KLEF than to put on a CD, but Beethoven can be too much sometimes. Imagine! But attendance at a concert also costs money and some are now arguing that we are in a Depression. That would certainly account for a decrease in ticket sales. I notice the new Regal 16 Stadium has resorted to putting up cheap plastic signs on the road reminding people that the IMAX theater is now open. They must be having problems already. Maybe if the government offered a national music plan. Would that help?
June 28, 2010 at 10:28 pm |
Rick: I have been reading your posts. Late to the party but caught up now. Your observations are acute and I think you are right on the nose. I am only waiting for you to propose the next steps because you seem to be on the verge. Obviously it is working for KLEF. We need to figure out how to apply your learning to the organizations presenting classical music, not just here but in other locales. Please keep the posts coming.
Thanks