5 things that Thai Music Society should adapt.

Last week I had a change to read scopes (1,2,3)on the how soaring in revenue generation Thai music faces. It mentions that nowadays, it’s even hard to have a breakeven for an album. The reason occurs from shrinkage of consumer buying and widespread of online music sharing (pirate copying) etc.

After analyzing, here are my suggestions on what Thai music society should do to get their revenue numbers up.

1.       Introduce better artist – Let’s admit it, over 80% of Thai Artist aren’t really considered artist. Let’s not debate about the definition of artist here, but I’m sure there are several good examples that you can reference too e.g. Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Utada. What we need here are true and passion artists that puts all their efforts in producing a piece of music. Korean artist is a good example where artists go over years and years of training and coaching before they can even debut.

2.       Utilize social media wisely – be Facebook, twitter, iPad, iPod and iTunes, you name it. Music and technology doesn’t seem to blend here that much in Thailand, we do see some record company building the empire of digital songs, but let’s admit it – how much sales does it make compared to itunes? An complete end-to-end utilization of social media for Thai songs industry is rarely to find, would take about 3-4 years before we even get there.

3.       More live performance and concerts.  – We don’t see many live performance here in Thailand, maybe it’s due to limited sponsors or what so ever. Concerts and performance are first class revenue generators. Thai artist has an average of 1 concert per year.

4.       Edutainment – Mixing education and entertainment is also not found here. Activities that promote both learning and entertainment is considered a “NO NO” for Thai artist as they go only by the “contract”, so one will ever see Bird Thongchai appearing in public school activities.

5.       Packaging and marketing – If you happen to visit a CD store (online or offline) in Thailand, you rarely see a package interesting enough to grab and buy. Japan, Korea and Taiwan are among the leaders in packaging and marketing.

I wish Thai Music Society survive and grow strong. Let’s hear more of your opinion.