Laurence Le Ny, VP Music, Culture & Infotainment at Orange

If you love music, you should definitely talk to Laurence Le Ny, VP Music, Culture & Infotainment at Orange, the leading French multinational telco. She was also a member of the Conseil National du Numérique, a French independent advisory commission for the government, a board member of the CNV, the national center for live shows , and a board member of Paris ‘s Orchestra

Let’s get to know her in the first part, before focusing on the music industry and sharing Laurence’s recommandations.

Promoting the stars

In the early 80s, she worked in major labels, promoting artists such as Jean-Jacques Goldman, Francis Cabrel, Mylène Farmer, Alain Chamfort or Sting. She even recruited Pascal Negre for his first job, who became since a key personality in the music industry.

A startup in a giant

She joined in the late 80s the top management of the label EPIC, in the group Sony Music. Her mission: setup its national music catalog.
 She built a small team of people and (1) hunted young talents (famous French rap band NTM, Pascal Obispo), (2) swung the spotlight back to French major artists (Polnareff and Christophe), (3) worked on the french launches of international artists Michael Jackson, Sade, Georges Michael…)

Back in a giant

She becomes Managing Director of Warner Music in 1995, with a mythical music catalog: Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Véronique Sanson, Charles Trenet, etc. 
 She still helps artists and labels in their development, notably the record label Tôt ou Tard, the most awarded in the last Victoires de la musique, the Cesars of the music industry, which she presidated over in 1999..

From the music industry to the telco

In the early 2000s, Laurence Le Ny is starting a new journey in the telecom industry, that are eager to dive in the content space. The biggest French telco group, France Telecom Orange launches a business unit dedicated to Content, to develop the TV, movies, gaming and music offerings, in every screen: the rise of ATAWAD. Laurence gathers a team of very different background (label, telco, right holders…) with the mission to develop a range of music offerings, just as iTunes was born.

They launched or organized:

• one of the first legal download service, synchronized across all devices in 8 countries across Europe
• the first musical subscription-model offering linked to network access in France
• a special operation with Madonna for the launch of her album “hang up” in France, featured in the front page of national newspapers
• one of the first Svod service of clips and concerts in France,And eventually made a partnership with Deezer, providing the Premium version of the product for Orange subscribers.

And eventually made a key partnership with Deezer, the french streaming service, providing the Premium version for Orange customers in France, and in some European countries.

The startup lover

She loves startups and is mentoring many startups in the creative industries, such as Afrostream, LucieLabs or MyBeeEvents, that have been accelerated by Orange FabFrance. She is also a mentor in the accelerator The Bridge (Avignon French Tech Culture).

One of the key success factor for the startups in that space is the access to the very-hard-to-reach decision makers (successful artists, catalog holders, etc.), and she is very keen on making the right introductions.

Music Industry : brief analysis & focus EMEA

Macro-trends: recovery due to digital channels & live events

Analysts are forecasting a recovery [+2%/year on average till 2018] of the worldwide music industry [~B25d€] despite a continuous decrease of physical format [-6%/year].

This decline is compensated by digital channels [+8%/year] but also by live events [+3%/year].

Overall, music streaming is the most common usage with a global revenue of €1.4B in 2016 and estimated to reach in 2018 between €3.5B [PwC] and €9.9B [Credit Suisse].

Streaming: the main driver of the development of recorded music in Europe

Music industry has been one of the first creative industries to undergo a forced digitalization, with the emergence of players such as Napster (peer-to-peer technology) in the early 2000s.
 This shift to digital has destroyed a lot of value in Europe: 82% of the 74M users of streaming services are free users. In 2016, digital channels have outgrown physical formats.

The streaming offerings are multiplying, putting in competition pure-players (Spotify, Tidal & Deezer) and the GAFA (eg: Apple Music, Google Music Play).

In spite of the always-rising number of subscribers [Spotify has 30M premium users, Apple Music 13M, Deezer 6M, Tidal 3M] , pure-players have a very hard time to find the path of rentability, due to the very high cost of content (royalties & other rights payments).

The video clips have also switched to streaming. They are watched for the most part in TV (MTV, Trace, etc.) and now on digital channels (YouTube), taking away the revenues from sales of DVD & Blu-Ray. 
 There has also been a rise of offerings in the form of Video On Demand (VOD) almost free and premium Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) dedicated to video clips, such as Iconcert, Playzer, Medici TV, and soon Vevo.

In Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA) , the distribution model of paid music is still to be found

Seven main characteristics must be highlighted to understand the local specificities:

• fragmentation for the music producer, with an ecosystem of right holders not yet structured,
• lack of strong services in the digital distribution, with custom offerings that fit the local needs,
• very mobile-centric, with 3G and soon 4D, and a rise in the penetration for smartphone (+15% YoY),
• a market based on prepaid, not very compatible with monthly subscriptions,
• profusion of free content, YouTube being the big winner,
• an Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) very low, between 1€ and 6€ depending on the countries. Streaming services has a very low penetration rate,
• Ringback music, the service which enables subscribers to set music or even personalized recorded sounds as ringback tones, is still a large value provider for operators and right holders.

Recommandations for music lovers

Innovation vs Legal in the world of music

A string of big money lawsuits have been taken out against digital service providers in the US — including Spotify, TIDAL and Google Play — for allegedly failing to pay due royalties to songwriters.

Some feel the argument is a simple one: if these companies have failed in their duty of identifying and properly recompensing copyrighted works, they deserve the legal repercussions.

Others worry what the long-term consequences will be of such litigation.

More in the article:

YouTube and parent company Google are believed to be pumping $60m into a new music venture run by an entertainment industry veteran.

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