The Impact of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID – 19) Pandemic on the Music Business

Abstract

Due to the epidemic of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), it affects the global economy and changes the way of living. Businesses are trying to overcome this crisis by applying the digital technology into their process. This article examines the effects of COVID-19 to music business, which can be divided into two groups as entertainment music business group and educational music business group. Both business groups are affected from the epidemic, therefore, the music business must develop new ways of delivering music contents. The new approach will be the use of digital technology as a business tool. According to the study results, the entertainment music business group can still create activities that responds to the needs of the audiences. This can be done by creating new channels to watch and listen to the entertainment media such as organizing live concerts via online platforms, which become a new source of income. In the educational music business group, the teaching method is modified by using online applications as instruction tool, which is respond to the needs of teaching and learning during lockdown situations and in line with a new way of life as well. However, the current digital technology still has limitations that cannot fully meet the needs of the music business, such as the experience of viewing online concerts cannot be compared with normal concert viewing, the problems of latency between teacher and student communication. To overcome these limitations, the new digital technology and new business models need to be developed in the future.