It's time to go into the music business!

We've all seen the doom and gloom stories that chronicle the demise of the music industry in the internet age. It is true that CD sales are in sharp decline, profit margins are evaporating and deals for new artists are few and far between. Certainly, the availability of free, if not legal, music online has dramatically impacted these trends. While revenue from digital downloads at sites like iTunes, Amazon and emusic are increasing, they are not offsetting the losses on the physical product side. Taking all of these facts into account, I can say with complete confidence, "Now is the time to go into the music business!"

If my conclusion sounds counter intuitive to the facts at hand, I will simply say, "Go to YouTube." First, go to the Most Viewed > Today page. Count the number of music videos out of the 20 displayed... you'll be lucky to find one or two. (I sound crazier by the minute!) Next, go to the Most Viewed > This Week page and do the same count... what's the total... four, maybe five? (Still sounds crazy!) Now check out the Most Viewed > This Month. Probably somewhere around half of the videos are music related. (What?) I'm sure you've guessed the next step, go to the Most Viewed > All Time page. You should see somewhere between 12-15 of the 20 offerings are music videos.(How can this be?!)

While a Dramatic Prairie Dog may become the flavor of the day on YouTube, fame can be fleeting. Music videos, on the other hand, become staples. People watch them repeatedly. Viewers build playlists filled with their favorite songs and let them run in the background at work, or as they fall asleep at night. Undoubtedly, some of these fans go to iTunes and download favorites for their iPods.

Imagine a world where you received a penny for every view of a music video... and your music video had 10 million views... go ahead, click on your calculators... I'll wait. That's right...$100,000! Not bad for one video. I know what you're thinking, "Only major artists would get that popular." Ever heard of Mia Rose? Check out her version of Brian Adams' "Heaven" ... 11,652,137 views and counting. At one cent per view that's $116,521.37! As of the writing of this blog Mia Rose has a total of 70,797,341 views over the breadth of her 33 videos... yes, at a penny a play that would equal $707,973.41! Of course... you'd have to pay the royalties... and buy a cheap camcorder.