Will Page

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Will Page
NationalityBritish
OccupationChief Economist at Spotify

Will Page is the former Chief Economist at Spotify, a Swedish-based digital music service. To date, Spotify has launched in 57 countries around the world and recently announced that it has reached 40 million active users and over 10 million paying subscribers.[1]

Career[]

Page graduated with an MSc in Economics at the University of Edinburgh in 2002. His Masters thesis ‘Germany's Mezzogiorno Revisited’ looked at the problems facing East Germany ten years after German Reunification. The paper was published by Deutsche Bank in 2003, and cited in 2005 by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times.[2]

He previously worked for the UK Government Economic Service at the Scottish Executive working for the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser and Department of Finance. He contributed to the Scottish Executive Economic Discussion Paper Series with a publication on ‘Infrastructure Investment & Economic Growth’.[3]

During this period, he established a moonlighting career in music, writing for the award winning publication Straight No Chaser (magazine) and working with the Brazilian composer Eumir Deodato.

Page previously worked at PRS for Music, a non-profit collection society representing writers, composers and music publishers in the UK.[4][5] In this role he published writing about the economic strength of the UK music industry,[6] Long Tail theory in the music industry,[7] and on the success of Radiohead's In Rainbows album.[8]

Page's publication of 'In Rainbows, On Torrents' with Eric Garland is his most cited collaboration. It discussed whether the Radiohead legal free offering could compete with illegal free downloads.[9] He also challenged the popular Long Tail theory, showing that the demand for digital music instead followed a log-normal distribution.[10]

His most notable contribution to the music industry is an annual report titled ‘Adding up the UK Music Industry’. The report shows how much the UK music industry is worth and how it all hangs together.[11][12] This publication has received extensive press coverage in The Guardian, The Times and Financial Times.[13][14][15]

Page contributed to the campaign to save the new music radio station BBC 6 Music in May 2010. He presented two facts to the debate: (i) 6 Music is playing more unique songs and (ii) paying royalties to more unique songwriters than any other radio station.[16]

Spotify[]

Page joined Spotify in 2012. In this role, his work has looked at data on 'the anatomy of a hit' for artists like Lorde[17] and Mr Probz,[18] as well as an annual publication on the global value of copyright.[19] He has looked at whether the music industry's definition of a 'catalogue' needs to be reconsidered,[20] and drawn attention to the value of the UK music industry as a national export.[21]

Page was profiled by the Telegraph in 2017 along with other leading strategists at digital companies.[22] His work has also been noted in the Economist,[23] and Financial Times.[24]

In July, 2019 it was reported that Page is leaving the company in the autumn.[25]

References[]

  1. ^ Yinka Adegoke (May 21, 2014), Spotify Now Has 10 Million Paid Subscribers, 3 Million In U.S. (Exclusive), Billboard.
  2. ^ Will Page (June 13, 2003), "Germany's Mezzogiorno Revisited: Institutions, Fiscal Transfers and Regional Convergence" (PDF), Deutsche Bank.
  3. ^ Will Page (December 18, 2005), "Infrastructure Investment & Economic Growth" (PDF), Scottish Executive.
  4. ^ Key appointments, PRS for Music, retrieved 2010-07-20.
  5. ^ "Interview With Will Page, Music Industry Economist". Techdirt. April 29, 2010. There's plenty that I disagree with him about, but plenty that we agree on too. There's so much in this interview that I'd like to dig deeper on, and I hope to do that in a series of posts in the future -- and some more back and forth with Page -- but I figured at this point it was worth getting our discussion as it stands out there for people to read..
  6. ^ Page, Will (August 2011). "Adding Up The Music Industry 2010". PRS for Music Economic Insight. 23.
  7. ^ TelecomTV (2008-11-14), Debunking the Long Tail Theory for Music, retrieved 2019-07-21
  8. ^ Buskirk, Eliot Van (2008-07-31). "New In Rainbows Numbers Offer Lessons for Music Industry". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  9. ^ Robert Andrews (August 1, 2008), "Radiohead Downloaders Preferred Illegal P2P To Legal Free", Washington Post.
  10. ^ (December 22, 2008). "Long Tail theory contradicted as study reveals 10m digital music tracks unsold: Digital sales figures dent niche market theory". The Times. However, a new study by Will Page, chief economist of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the not-for-profit royalty collection society, suggests that the niche market is not an untapped goldmine and that online sales success still relies on big hits. They found that, for the online singles market, 80 per cent of all revenue came from around 52,000 tracks. For albums, the figures were even more stark. Of the 1.23 million available, only 173,000 were ever bought, meaning 85 per cent did not sell a single copy all year..
  11. ^ Will Page (August 4, 2010), "Adding up the UK Music Industry for 2009" (PDF), PRS for Music.
  12. ^ Will Page (July 20, 2009), "Adding up the UK Music Industry for 2008" (PDF), PRS for Music.
  13. ^ [1], The Times, July 21, 2009.
  14. ^ [2], The Guardian, August 4, 2010.
  15. ^ [3], Financial Times, August 20, 2010.
  16. ^ Will Page (May 20, 2010), "A Songwriter's Perspective on 6Music" (PDF), PRS for Music.
  17. ^ "Spotify shares new data on how songs are becoming hits in the digital age". VentureBeat. 2013-08-21. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  18. ^ Page, Will; Perez, Jomar; Tynan, Chris (2014-09-30). "Anatomy of a Hit: How Mr Probz Came To America". Insights. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  19. ^ "The global value of music copyright topped $28bn in 2017". Music Business Worldwide. 2019-04-09. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  20. ^ "Does the music industry's definition of 'catalogue' need an upgrade?". Music Business Worldwide. 2017-12-05. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  21. ^ Moore, Matthew (2019-01-11). "Spotify data shows the world loves British pop". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  22. ^ Chan, Szu Ping (2017-01-02). "Meet the brains at Uber, Spotify and Microsoft changing the world". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  23. ^ "Patreon, Kickstarter and the new patrons of the arts". The Economist. 2018-12-18. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  24. ^ "Spotify's plan to beat Apple: sign the rest of the world". Financial Times. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  25. ^ "Spotify's Chief Economist, Will Page, is leaving the company". Music Business Worldwide. 2019-07-19. Retrieved 2019-07-26.

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