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Mediaguide At Music 2.0
Mediaguide served as a sponsor for Music 2.0 on February 23-24 in Los Angeles, CA. Music 2.0 brings together industry leaders to analyze trends and developments affecting the business of digital music, including music’s growing portability, digital distribution, piracy, desktop music production, industry consolidation, online marketing, and the rapidly expanding number of services targeting music consumers. Noted speakers at the conference included:
- Dave Goldberg, Vice President and General Manager of Music for Yahoo who spoke about the power of the personal playlist for music discovery, the fact the current digital music market represents only a small percentage of the total music market and the need for the elimination of DRM.
- Ted Casey, Head of Mobile Music for Verizon Wireless, who spoke about their new VCast service and the need for more efficient music discovery in future versions of mobile services as the companies push forward on full song downloads.
- Rio Caraeff, General Manager for Universal Music Mobile, who explained how music companies should not just treat mobile outlets as a product in a vacuum but must truly change the way they operate from A&R to production to marketing in order to take full advantage of the platform and provide consumers with the most compelling experience.
In addition to these notable music and technology executives, Mediaguide Vice President of Music Business Development, Paul Wright, was invited to both participate on a panel about the changing face of radio and moderate a panel about the role of independent artists and labels in the emerging cross-platform landscape. Please see ‘A Moment Please’ below to read more about some of his comments. Participants in each of the panels included executives from Sirius Radio, AOL, SNOCAP, Garageband.com, Mercora, Time Trax Technologies, Radio & Records, Hopeless Records and Nugs.net.
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Independent Music Awards and ArtistMonitor
The Music Resource Group, creators of the Independent Music Awards, recently announced the 2006 winners. As sponsors of the Independent Music Awards, you can see the Mediaguide logo in the CD with the winning tracks and each of the winners receives a year of access to Mediaguide’s innovative ArtsitMonitor service.
In addition to the prize from Mediaguide, winners are promoted in print, broadcast and online media campaigns, their CDs will be available for sale at BordersStores.com, 10,000 copies of the IMA Winners CD will be distributed to music fans and industry at music conferences, festivals and other events throughout the year and the IMA CD compilation will be promoted to college radio stations throughout North America by leading radio promotion company, The Planetary Group.
Judges for the 2006 Independent Music Awards included artists such as Norah Jones, Melissa Etheridge, George Clinton, Andrew W.K. and Paquito D’Rivera as well as industry insiders such as Abby White from Performing Songwriter magazine, Melinda Newman from Billboard Magazine and Dan Storper from Putamayo.
To listen to the 2006 finalists and winners visit http://musiciansatlas.com/pages/jukeboxes.asp.
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CROSSOVER RADIO – MORE AUDIENCE CAN LEAD DIRECTLY TO MORE REVENUE
Through partners Intent MediaWorks and Glide Effortless, Mediaguide is connecting its airplay data, sliced by format, genre, geographic area, time period and label type, to tracks available for purchase or sponsored download to give the over 250 million worldwide digital consumers the widest, most targeted and deepest view of music that was played on college, non-commercial, specialty and commercial radio.
For content owners, this means any play on any station could lead directly to digital sales. For radio stations, this represents an opportunity both for NTR and for advertising revenue expansion.
For an example of the power of connecting such offline exposure to online sales opportunities, let’s take a look at Matisyahu, the Hasidic reggae rapper who hit the college radio community by storm with his Live At Stubb’s album, toured and crossed over into the commercial radio market with his new album Youth, released on March 7. In addition to the college to commercial crossover, as well as strong success in internet radio, a wide range of radio formats have been supporting the artist and both of his albums.
The aggregate format categories by percentage of total plays from the past 4 weeks for Youth and the 4 weeks around the release of Live At Stubbs in August 2005, as can be seen in MusicMonitor, are below. It is important to notice the change in the station format breakdown, as such a move shows the expansion both of audience for this artist as he crossed over and, therefore, the potential digital sales consumers as well as dedicated listeners for station NTR activities and advertisers.
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Live At Stubbs |
Youth |
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August 2005 |
Past 4 Weeks |
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956 plays |
7,482 plays |
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Alternative |
41% |
67% |
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CHR & Pop |
0% |
14% |
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College & Triple A |
58% |
8% |
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NPR Related |
6% |
4% |
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Rock |
1% |
3% |
That means that the range of listener areas and demographics is wide, all of which should be able to immediately act on that exposure with the ability to purchase songs, tickets and merchandise. For the stations, through the use of sponsored downloads or private social network communications they could extend their advertising programs to generate new avenues of exposure for their clients and more engaging entertainment beyond the airwaves for their listeners.
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A Few Thoughts Few Thoughts On Radio Redux
…from Paul E. Wright, Vice President, Music Business Development, Mediaguide
At conferences, participating in panels often force you to think quickly and to speak from your heart in addition to your head. This is a good thing in my opinion because sometimes those ideas, those philosophies, on which you want to base your business become lost behind the necessary and important components of operations, production and workflow logistics.
Well, during the Radio Redux panel at Music 2.0 in Los Angeles I had the opportunity to discuss a few ideas with executives in both the media and technology communities. The panel, moderated by Brida Connolly, Senior Editor of Radio & Records, also included executives from AOL, Sirius, Mercora and Time Trax Technologies; and explored the new technologies, products and services around ‘radio’ and the resulting business model changes.
Below are some of the heart and head ideas I was able to put forth, which are connected to the changes that Mediaguide has made to expand its business to both support digital media models and, most importantly, connect them to the more traditional offline models in terrestrial radio.
- Terrestrial radio must allow its local listeners to become re-invested in the station. While multiple technologies luring listeners of all demographics to alternative sources of information and entertainment, the local community aspect of radio remains constant. Unfortunately, the lack of direct connection to the station pushes those essential listeners away. When 80% of the advertising revenue, on average, is local spot, the need to ensure consistent, local engagement seems essential.
- Towards that end, existing digital tools and services exist to expand the station brand to digital realm beyond just a simple website, support targeted, constant communication and interaction with listeners and extend advertising inventory to those listeners in order to provide additional return and access for clients and customers.
- Rather than rely solely on HD radio, which does hold promise for niche programming and higher quality transmissions but will still require a significant consumer shift and acceptance of new hardware to purchase, internet radio provides a cost-effective way to extend the programming reach. An internet stream or multiple streams are cost-effective methods to create niche programming to engage dedicated listeners and provide for additional advertising inventory. Internet radio, as a medium, has been growing in acceptance and is an alternative that is already part of the consumer DNA.
- The stations should employ social community partners and technologies such as Intent MediaWorks and Glide Effortless to give listeners the opportunity for electronic dialogue. In providing a more direct feedback loop, the station can benefit both from listener engagement and the residual effect of programming that, in the minds of the listener, better reflects exactly what they would like their local outlet to broadcast.
- On the music side, paying attention to the popularity of tracks across college radio, P2P platforms, social networks and internet radio can provide for an expanded programming base. Combined with cost-effective digital outlets with the call letters or motto, the station can create layers of programming to accommodate more entertainment, more information and, therefore, create more outlets for its advertisers.
The other panelists provided support from their own vantage points in time shifting programming, P2P streaming, satellite and internet radio. Each technology and service has its own benefits, but terrestrial radio, in the minds of all of us, enjoyed a connection to local communities that was of tremendous value and all new business models should be designed to use it for increased informational, entertainment and financial benefit.
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