Mouzon,+C.+Focus+Group+Report

Mouzon, C

TO: Proximity Music Team FROM: Carl Mouzon SUBJECT: Focus Group Report DATE: March 21, 2010

This is my report on the two focus group sessions I ran with college-aged students (18-25), one composed of females the other of males. Both sessions ended with similar conclusions; Generation-Y is not concerned with piracy laws and they will pay what they want for their music, and when they want to.

Music is becoming easier to obtain for free as technology advances, making it difficult for the music industry to make profit using the same business model that they once had. Generation-Y seems avid in not paying for all of the music that they obtain and what money they will spend on their music will not be much.
 * Focus Group Rationale**

The first group session took place on March 16, 2010 and composed of three college-aged females:
 * Setting and Participants**


 * Jessica, 22, graduate and Nursing Assistant
 * Jazmine, 22, student, undeclared major
 * Taneishia, 22, trade school student, mother

The second group took place on March 19, 2010 and composed of college-aged males:


 * Shaun, 22, TU student, undeclared major
 * Gary, 24, college graduate, architecture major

During the two sessions that I covered, the following questions were covered:
 * Session Topics**

__Obtaining Music__ When asked how they learned of newly released music, a common answer amongst all of the participants was ‘You tube’. None of the participants said that they routinely paid for music. Taneishia was the only one who admitted to paying for CDs; however, she pays someone else to download the music illegally for her and to compose CDs “for her for a couple of dollars.” A few of the common programs that were used to download music were BitTorrent, Vuze, and Limewire.

__Supporting__ __Artists and making Profit__ When asked how they felt about artists making profit for their work, Shaun stated that, “major artists were already paid enough” and that his actions did not affect how much they made. Most of the participants felt that their money could go to those artists that did not receive as much exposure, such as ‘underground artists’ or ‘local artists’. Most of them have admitted to paying these artists as wel l in some way. They also admitted to buying CDs of mainstream artists when they felt the artist's work warranted the purchase. However, they admitted that this has been rare. Taneishia is the only one whom admitted to not supporting under-represented artist or buying CDs.

__How they Prefer to Pay__ When asked this question, most of the participants were still adamant about not paying for any music whatsoever. They had grown accustomed to downloading music illegally for so long, that to pay for it would seem to be “throwing money away”. When pressed to make a decision they would rather choose to stream all of their music for a monthly fee than to pay for each “track”.

Both groups’ sessions had similar feelings regarding the following:
 * Findings**


 * Technology has made it easier to download media for free and with little consequence.
 * There is hardly any fear regarding the legality of illegal downloading.
 * Generation-Y still wishes to provide support to artists and the industry, but they would rather do so by going to concerts and purchasing merchandise rather than buying music.
 * Generation-Y will attempt to purchase the music of artist they consider to be “underground”, “struggling”, or "local" for that matter.
 * Generation-Y is willing to pay a fee at times but this fee will also be the first thing they will consider to get rid of in times of financial distress since they are aware that they can also have their music for free.

These two sessions revealed similar findings about males and females concerning their feelings about paying for music. The only difference between bother groups seemed to be that males had more knowledge of obtaining music and other media illegally and females seemed to rely on others to obtain their music. However, this split could also be from the likelihood of males being more ‘tech-savvy’ than females. At the end what became clear was that this Generation had no plans in the near future to pay for their music and will contribute what they want to the music industry.