Artistes, music producers struggle to survive with low album sales

LOCAL music producers are hard-pressed to make money selling original Bruneian music because of the limited size of the local market. That is why they print only a limited number of copies of a particular album for local distribution to hedge against losses.

Homegrown studio productions say that to print song albums, it is more profitable to do it in Brunei compared to overseas such as in Malaysia or Indonesia. "This is because, to print an album overseas, we need big amount of order to a cheaper price as we are buying in bulk; while in Brunei, we only print based on the market demand," said Hans Anwar, founder of Phuture Phase Production.

"But we do not need that big amount as demand for albums by local artists are not as high," said Hans. Only a few hundred pieces are printed at any one time, Hans said, depending on the number of local orders. Albums are also printed for specific occasions such as a promotional drive, whereby copies are snapped as the artiste is there to autograph them.

Hans said only a few pieces of the album is placed in local music shops, and when "they run out of stock, they will call us again to top it up". So far, Hans said that there are more than 15 local albums sold in the Brunei market by different productions.

Hans added, his company, Phuture Phase Production currently works with a few local artists, namely Putri Norizah, Milin and Millenium Art artistes comprising Fakhrul Razi, Fairuz Nizan, Faiz, Sri Nazrina and himself. "Publishing these albums is not (to make) money, but it is only for novelty," he said. Realising that the Bruneian market is too small to profit from, album cds are widely distributed at road shows and special performances to increase publicity for the artiste.

Earnings, he said, are mainly from stage performances, events and Caller Back Ring Tone (CBRT) which can be downloaded by the public from various service providers.

Hans said by selling half of a thousand copies printed, he can recover his costs but the remaining would take a long time to be sold. "Normally, the most peak time to sell our albums is during the launching of the album," he said. He added that this was the time when fans would take the opportunity to ask for an autograph to be signed on the album that they had bought or on the free poster given out at the event.

"During the launching of the latest album of Putri Norizah, 300 copies were sold and the price that we offered was less than $20 per piece," he said. Although the price was a bit too high, locals found it valuable because it was a homegrown product and they treasure it for sentimental reasons.

Apart from the slow market, Hans said that the easy downloading of songs via handphones is also one of the factors that affect the selling of the CDs. In order to catch up with this trend, Hans said that Phuture Phase Production is planning to adopt the latest technology and to cope with streaming and downloading demands by using an international server in the near future.

A manager of Maria Aires, Hjh Zaimah Hj Abdul Rahman from Starmeez Event Management echoed the same sentiments regarding the tepid response by locals on the purchase of album CDs made by their countrymen. "We would not dare to print up to 5,000 CDs; 1,000 pieces are already good enough," she said.

She added that despite the small market and the practise of downloading local songs for free, she is glad that the government does give help to support local artistes by airing their songs on local radio stations, holding music award presentations and by inviting them for stage performances in the country and overseas.

However, she is still looking forward to government support in providing a comprehensive policy regarding copyright laws, especially to protect the interests of local artists. The Brunei Times