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P2P Distribution and Reporting
Viral Music Discovery & Sales
Independent Music Awards
PLAYiNDIES & MUSEXPO
Intent MediaWorks, Mediaguide Combine P2P Distribution, Airplay Reporting and Download Tracking
Offers Content Owners First Unified View of On- and Off-Line Music Exposure While Fueling Legal File Sharing, Music Sales
Mediaguide and Intent MediaWorks, the world’s largest distributor of licensed music via peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks, today announced a partnership to combine tracking and reporting of music from on-air and online radio broadcasts with legal P2P music downloads. The joint services will allow content owners to drive fan exposure and revenues as well as track the popularity and consumption of their music across both online and offline media.
Mediaguide’s proprietary digital fingerprinting software will identify songs that are uploaded to the Intent system, which tracks file-sharing networks comprised of more than 250 million consumers across the Internet, to determine whether the songs have been licensed. Non-licensed tracks will be blocked until rights holders have entered a license arrangement with Intent.
“This partnership provides a legal means for consumers to share music over the Internet and for innovative music discovery by presenting radio airplay tracking from college, non-commercial and commercial radio with file trading,” said Paul Wright, Vice President of Business Development for Mediaguide.
“This ensures that rights owners receive appropriate compensation for their work and can directly leverage their offline exposure for online sales. It is particularly powerful for the growing number of independent artists who, for the first time, will be able to see for themselves exactly how many times their songs are played and downloaded.”
Intent allows music rights holders to determine how they want to present their content to consumers online, from charging a fee to offering free promotional or ad-supported tracks for sharing. This allows consumers to access “free” tracks in a P2P environment, while providing rights holders with exposure and revenue. The combination of Intent digital rights management (DRM) and Mediaguide fingerprinting technology will offer content owners legal, protected access to the P2P file-sharing community on their own terms. “The age of direct-to-consumer sales of music over the Internet just accelerated,” said Les Ottolenghi, CEO of Intent MediaWorks. “For the first time in the short history of Internet music, on-air radio broadcasts will be tracked against P2P content downloads. Consumers will benefit with better access to more music while rights holders like publishers, songwriters and artists will have a more complete understanding of the popularity of their music.”
To combine the tracking of on-air and online radio airplay as well as P2P trading activity, Mediaguide will add Intent P2P trading data to its reporting systems via its existing partnership with Internet radio data provider, Radiowave Airplay Monitor. This will create the industry’s most comprehensive and affordable market intelligence on these three mediums for content owners. .
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Mediaguide And Glide Effortless Poised To Drive Online Music Discovery And Sales
Consumers looking to easily discover and purchase music online will soon have a powerful new resource at their disposal. Mediaguide and TransMedia announced today their intention to integrate Mediaguide’s proprietary audio fingerprinting technology and unparalleled airplay monitoring tools into TransMedia’s groundbreaking Glide MusicShare store. Set to launch in February 2006, the MusicShare store will be the newest feature added to TransMedia’a new Glide Effortless, a Web based, multi-media desktop environment and social network.
In addition to its fingerprinting technology, Mediaguide will provide Glide Effortless with radio playlists and charts, allowing Glide users to both find their favorite songs and discover new ones that were played on college, non-commercial and commercial radio. For content owners, this means that their offline airplay could directly drive online sales. For Glide users this means that they could easily and legally purchase music heard on their favorite local (or non-local) radio stations and add them to their Glide accounts.
Glide Effortless transcodes music and other media files to allow them to seamlessly stream within the Glide environment, which means that Glide users never actually transfer any music files. The streams, which can be full-length clips, 30 second clips or blocked completely depending on the wishes of the content owner, can be grouped into lists of personal favorites for friends and family to see.
Mediaguide fingerprints will identify songs in Glide user accounts to determine which have been licensed for sale. If a Glide user’s family or friends want their own copy of a song, a simple click on the song title will take them to the Glide MusicShare store for legal purchase and download. The end result is both legal sales for content owners and viral music discovery for consumers.
“We saw this as a unique and groundbreaking application for our fingerprinting technology, as well as a boon for legitimate online music sharing and ecommerce,” said Steve Lubin, Mediaguide General Manager.
“The trading and downloading of non-licensed music has given sharing a bad name,” said TransMedia chairman and CEO, Donald Leka. “Glide Effortless, working together with Mediaguide, will leverage the viral power of both offline and online communities to facilitate word-of-mouth and enable ‘good sharing’ which in turn will drive legitimate online music purchases. This is a true win-win proposition.”
Glide Effortless (www.glidedigital.com), officially launched earlier this month, offers consumers and businesses a Web-based desktop environment that combines smart online file management, creation, communication, sharing, publishing and ecommerce capabilities – all in one integrated online service.
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Mediaguide Serves As Prize Sponsor For Independent Music Awards
The Independent Music Awards is a unique program that delivers real promotion and marketing opportunities to independent artists, labels and their releases. The program promotes achievements in 37 music categories and 6 creative design & marketing categories. Mediaguide is giving one year of access to its reporting system to track a full album to winners of each of the IMA categories.
Produced by The Musician's Atlas, the IMAs focus on tangible career advancement initiatives such as radio promotion, performance and distribution opportunities. Co-sponsored by Borders Books & Music, MediaGuide & The Planetary Group, Winners & Finalists are promoted in print, broadcast & online programs throughout the year and to more than 7 Million music fans & thousands of industry contacts including: Commercial, Public & College Radio Programmers, Music Journalists, Club & Festival Talent Buyers, Film & TV Music Supervisors and Record Label Executives.
To listen to this year's winners, visit the IMA Jukebox at: http://www.MusiciansAtlas.com/pages/jukebox2006.asp
Mediaguide Serves As First Line For PLAYiNDIES Musical Showcase
PLAYiNDIES is the opening sponsor and host of the Rooftop Poolside Luncheon for all delegates and press at MUSEXPO 2006. The PLAYiNDIES Music Showcase is held several times a year at various clubs and venues in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, L.A. and at major music conferences and events.
Through MUSEXPO, Hollywood and the international music industry scene will be listening to some of the best in self-released songs. The Mediaguide airplay data and internet radio data from Mediaguide partner Radiowave Airplay Monitor, will serve as the first filter for entries along with fan input. For those artists who want to take advantage of the opportunity to showcase their band (acoustic only performance) and network at MUSEXPO in Hollywood from April 30th through May 3, have until March 1st 2006 to submit through the PLAYiNDIES website, www.playindies.com.
What does the Winner Get?
- Winner will showcase (acoustic only performance) on the Rooftop Poolside Luncheon at MUSEXPO 2006
- Delegate passes to conference, showcases and network at MUSEXPO 2006
- Accommodations , Airfare and daily meal allowance paid
- Top 24 songs get placement on PLAYiNDIES CD Compilation at MUSEXPO event and delegate bags
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EVERY SPIN COUNTS – WITH DIGITAL CONNECTIONS, NOW, MORE THAN EVER
Last week Jae Sinnett’s album, The Sinnett Hearings, received a total of 597 plays across all stations in the Mediaguide monitoring network. That is tremendous exposure for this new jazz album, especially one in its first full week on the airwaves, and is a testament to its quality and resonance with programmers.
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Summary |
Top Contributors |
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Total Plays |
597 |
Palpitations, What Elvin Left |
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Total Stations |
115 |
WSIE, WBFO, KXJZ |
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Total Markets |
92 |
Los Angeles, St. Louis, Boston |
In addition to is adoption by jazz music directors, it also benefited from its appearance on the NPR program Weekend Edition, which gave The Sinnett Hearings immediate exposure to a nationwide audience. While there are arguments to be made on both sides about how NPR plays should factor into charts, what cannot be denied is the power of exposure the appearance provides for the artist.
In the current model of radio airplay and sales, especially for a more specialized genre like Jazz, a consumer would have to listen to either their local station at the right time, hear the NPR program Sunday’s Weekend Edition and make sure they learned the artists and release title, assuming it was announced, or hope to track it down on a playlist or show log at the website in order to buy it. In all cases, discovery would be dependent upon timing of exposure.
With Mediaguide airplay data soon to be appearing in digital outlets that foster music discovery and sales across all genres and formats that it monitors (See News & Announcements), Jae Sinnett’s album would be featured prominently in several locations based on its radio airplay. Just to name a few, a top Early Riser, a new Jazz entry, [#] station playlists, West region Jazz and others should he decide to make his content available to the digital outlets in which Mediaguide radio data is featured. With radio station playlists and both niche genre and mainstream charts for popular stars and emerging artists tied directly to legal consumer downloads, Mediaguide hopes to provide content owners with increased opportunities for sales and new fans. Most importantly, even if the airplay drops, as is natural at radio, the viral machine has begun, connecting enthusiasts online with the direct opportunity to discover and acquire the music. Even after the programmers have moved on to deserving new music, the ability to digitally find and acquire music that they did not have time to hear on the radio can be available to consumers. That is information in action to benefit the recipient of every radio spin.
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INFORMATION IN ACTION: DIGITAL MUSIC DISCOVERY & SALES
…from Paul E. Wright, Vice President, Music Business Development, Mediaguide
Welcome to the first newsletter of 2006! Welcome new Mediaguide partners and clients!
As we complete the first month of 2006, it is no secret that digital music sales are growing at a tremendous pace, tripling during 2005. It is no secret that terrestrial radio has faced increasing competition from new media outlets both for music and advertising. With those facts in mind, Mediaguide has established partnerships to secure the connection of radio airplay data to online communities and to support new revenue models and digital music discovery.
As you can read above in the News & Announcements section, Mediaguide has established partnerships with Glide Effortless and Intent MediaWorks. These new alliances are designed to support new e-commerce models and intellectual property protection through digital fingerprinting; and aid music discovery through charts and playlists for both legal P2P distribution (www.intentmediaworks.com) and social network sales & marketing (www.glidedigital.com).
This means that Mediaguide can provide not only monitoring data for content owners through its reporting systems, but access to revenue-generating platforms. In working with digital media outlets, the distribution of Mediaguide airplay data and application of the same software we use to identify music over-the-air will help online customers find new digital music to acquire legally, and connect offline and online media communities.
In presenting airplay data in digital platforms, we will go well beyond showing only the top songs to present niche airplay data sliced by several criteria such as format, genre, geographic area, time and signed/unsigned status. Whether the release has had 1,000 plays or a few, we can provide our partners with the ability to give the millions of online consumers the widest and deepest possible view of music that was played on college, non-commercial, specialty and commercial radio.
For content owners who choose to make their music available to these hungry users, they can set their terms and eliminate the gap between a consumer learning about their song and acquiring it. That is information in action.
With the strength of current digital tools and capabilities, there should be no gap between the music information and the ability to legally acquire that content. There is no reason that consumers should not be able to see the deepest levels of college and commercial radio airplay beyond the Top 40 and immediately acquire those tracks through legal services. The immediacy is there for content owners to embrace and to connect their own online and offline sales, marketing and promotion efforts.
The well-entrenched and accepted concept of “The Long Tail” is built on such an idea. With a non-physical inventory, content owners can provide access to several tracks for smaller sales rather than relying on a few tracks for higher sales to both generate profit and happy customers. Mediaguide has applied that idea to radio airplay data to give it a prominent location amongst the millions of users of both legal P2P distribution platforms and a viral, fan-driven sales environment to help content owners and consumers connect the dots.
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