Old Dogs Teaching New Tricks

In an age of hyper fragmentation of everything music, how can a super group or mega artist stay super? Guess we’ll find out. Bon Jovi has just become NBC’s first “artist in residence” for the next two months. The modus operandi here is to promote their new album “The Circle”. Add that to U2’s week long residency on David Letterman last March to promote their new album "No Line on the Horizon" and their “recently streamed for free around the world” concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena Ca. on You Tube, all points to more big changes in the way artists are delivering their music to their audience. Bon Jovi will be utilizing NBC’s programming schedule for live appearances- that will include everything from Saturday Night Live to the NBC Nightly news. It will be interesting to see who the next artist is residence is going to be after Bon Jovi as something tells me this isn’t just a one off thing. It makes too much sense.

Turning Back the Clock to Artist Patronage

A few years ago Robert Hunter-lyricist for the Grateful Dead- suggested that maybe it was time to turn back the clock a few hundred years and look at artist patronage again. His reasoning was that with the music industry's revenue model on life support –a new model of financial remuneration for the artist was needed and perhaps it was time to dust off the old practice that dates back to the Renassance. To date there are a few sites on the Internet that are employing the 21st century version of the patronage approach to raise funds for recording projects. Public Enemy is teaming up with www.sellaband.com for a project in which they hope to raise $250,000.00 for their next project. Its a great idea that has the potential of creating an incredibly strong bond between the artist and their "investing" audience. Shareholders meetings could be real interesting.

When Good Enuff is Great

Great article in the most recent edition of Wired magazine. It talks about how lo-fi high tech is taking over and poised to rule the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in how people consume music. I mean how many of you know anyone who stores songs on their iPod’s in .wav form or file sizes bigger than 3 or 4 megs?? For someone wanting the “best” audio, 320k is the limit and judging by how most people build there digital libraries these days- even 128k will do. The ease of downloading songs thanks to their small file size has trumped over quality. I asked my 17 year old son the other day, who is also a musician (and a picky one at when it comes to sound), what his choice of bit rate for his digital library is ,and he said, " 320k because they sound better on my car stereo". In the recent Wired article it talks about how Jonathan Berger a Stanford University professor, recently completed a six year study of his students in which every year he asked his newest students to listen to some different songs played in a variety of different digital formats. The formats included everything from standard mp3 files to uncompressed wav files. Berger says that over the years, students actually preferred the standard mp3 files to anything else. He says they have grown accustomed to the distortion found in the compressed files. To them- that is what music is supposed to sound like. Hmmm….does this mean the days of clocking long hours in the recording studio and agonizing over getting that “perfect mix” are over? I mean why worry about adding that extra 16k of “air sparkle” to your mix when the only person that is going to hear it is you…through the studio monitors.

The bottom line in all of this is that low price, flexibility and convenience have trumped power and fidelity, and it’s not just in the way we access music. Kindle, You-Tube and those cheap notebooks are even further proof.

The Name of the Game...

For years the research has been telling us that listeners want to hear the name of the artist and title of the song they just heard on the radio. For years we have been ignoring this simple request. From a station’s point of view, not dispensing the artist and song title is a way to clean up the clutter and reduce the chatter. From a listeners perspective it’s a point of frustration when they want to know the name of a new song they really like, or maybe its one they haven’t heard in years- and forgot the name of it. For music stations it’s ironic that we avoid talking about the one thing we are most famous for. Rather than helping our listeners delve deeper into our product, we shut the door on them. Some stations have addressed this concern with RDS software that scrolls the song and title and artist on the car radio, and some stations post the last ten songs played on their website. RDS is great if you are listening in the car, but unfortunately it falls short of the advantage radio has in the first place and that is immediacy. The odd station does a great job of it such as B-101 in Philadelphia. They run an unobtrusive song tag after each song that gives the title of the song and artist. No doubt it takes a lot of work and detail to set this up- but it’s proven to be a great addition to their toolkit and another reason why listeners love the station, and have made it a ratings success. This little public service that makes so much sense ( and can bring in big rewards) has been left to slide for most of us. It appears however that someone has taken notice. Music related new media outlets are making sure the music experience for their listeners is a complete one. Hey shouldn’t we be doing this too? Check out a few of these sites. Maybe they will inspire you to reevaluate a new way to incorporate this simple request into your programming mix.

Michael Jackson Coverage

Media reaction of the death of Michael Jackson is still off the charts. Three days after his memorial service, CNN is still going full throttle with speculation on where Michael will be buried, who is going to get custody of his kids, which of the five doctors who treated him most recently is being investigated, and is MJ’s plastic surgeon the biological father of Michael Jackson’s kids? There are new developments surfacing every few minutes from the thousands of blogs that are generating their own spin.

One thing to watch for in all of this is the approach that traditional media is taking. Rather than relying on unconfirmed reports or out and out fabrications from the blogosphere, the traditional outlets are creating alliances with “credible” sources and becoming the filter for what is true and what is not. That might partly explain why CNN was the last TV news outlet to confirm Michael had died pretty well after everyone else where going on record confirming that he was in fact dead. Regardless, playing it safe (and smart) hasn’t hurt them in the ratings as the Nielson's show that CNN drew more listeners than MSNBC and Fox News combined for the memorial service.

What does all this mean for radio? Be prepared for more micro details on Michael Jackson's post-burial around the dial. Unfortunately over the years we in radio have taken the path of least resistance and have become more of a reflector of pop culture than a contributor to it. We have been encouraged to “talk about what people are talking about”, but more often than not we end up spoon feeding our listeners the same thing they heard the night before on television. This means that after your audience gets tired of the Michael Jackson coverage on TV,they can get tired of it all over again listening to your local morning show play audio clips from Larry King the night before. A new approach wouldn't hurt. Just sayin'.

The Wired Generation

Greg Kot has a new book out called Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music. “Art thrives best when it’s created without regard to making any kind of compromise,” he tells Time, saying labels have long forced artists to adapt to mainstream tastes. In it he discusses how the Internet has fractionalized music tastes and points to the end of the “big bands” that have dominated the music industry for decades. He says that we may never see another Michael Jackson, Elvis or the Beatles again and that U2 might be the last of a dying breed as far as “big bands” go. Depending on which side of the fence you are on, this all points to a good news bad news scenario. It’s good news if your one of the many thousands of artists slogging it on your own without the backing and support of a label, as the playing field is getting more level every day and the ability to effectively market yourself to a niche audience becomes easier. Of course its bad news if you’re the manager of a band or artist trying to build and negotiate a long term career with the masses. As the Internet fragments music tastes the ability to galvanize a movement or moment with a soundtrack disappears. This will be another challenge for terrestrial radio to face as it tries to massage its musical offerings to an ever changing and ever fickle audience.

The Role of the Taste Maker

As a radio programmer I have always viewed the “mission to deliver”as a three step process.
1. Find your audience
2. Continually give them what they want
3. Try and find the largest common denominator within you audience without alienating your core.

Depending on how you do with #3 usually means the difference between a good book and a bad one and a happy sales department or a grumpy one. Picking the right songs for your audience isn’t as simple as it used to be thanks to the Internet. That small group of multinationals that for years controlled the majority of the music being released to radio has been splintered alongside the average person’s music tastes. Connecting the musical dots on your radio station requires more than a visit to a few mentor stations on Mediabase or BDS. In light of the overwhelming amount of musical choices available to your listening audience, the role of the “taste maker” has never been more important than it is now. A successful radio station, whether its current or gold based, needs to be able to go in between those home run songs and find the “oh wow” ones as well. Whether it’s introducing a new song or band that has created a story for itself online before radio like "Death Cab for Cutie" did or perhaps its dusting off "Wall of Voodoo’s"- Mexican Radio for a spin or two. As a gracious tenacious "taste maker" you will be doing your listeners a favor.

The Kids are Alright

I witnessed an interesting thing at my 13 year old son's guitar recital the other night. Each performer (ages ranging from 10 to 17) was asked to pick any song that they would like to play with their instructor. Now with any group of budding rock stars you would think that their songs of choice might reflect what is new and showing up on today's active rock or pop charts. Apparently not! Outside of two Linkin Park tunes the rest where all classics from the Eagles, Gun and Roses, Journey etc. In fact halfway through the recital as my son’s guitar instructor introduced his next pupil and their song of choice, he made an interesting comment. He said, "Wow half of these songs where big when I was their age. Sounds like my students are spending more time with guitar hero than the radio. (Note to myself the radio programmer-ouch!). The recital ended by the way with some of the students joining the instructor for a rousing rendition of Journey’s "Don’t Stop Believing". After the show I asked my son, whose choice by the way was Lyin' Eyes- to show me his top 5 most played songs on his iPod. They where in this order:
Iron Maiden-Run to the Hills
Cheap Trick-Surrender
Bad Religion-No Control
Sex Pistols-God Save the Queen
The Eagles-Hotel California

Later on I asked to see my 17 year old son’s top 10 most played titles on his ipod and again I was in for a surprise by what I found. Here they are:
Def Lepperd-Photograph
Led Zeppelin-Misty Mountain Hop
Lynyrd Skynyrd- Freebird
Boston-More Than a Feeling
Lamb of God-Laid to Rest
38 Special-Caught Up in You
Queens of the Stone Age-Make it Witchu
As I Dying-Meaning in Tragedy
Tool-Vicarious
Disturbed-Stricken

My oldest son graduates this year, and when I asked him what songs he would remember as the soundtrack to his last year in high school he told me, “you just saw them on my iPod”. "More than a Feeling" and "Freebird"- part of a 17 year olds "high school soundtrack" in 2009? You bet. And it’s just not just my son’s either. I checked with his friends and what I found was a lot of classic rock, some country and smattering of hip hop. Rush, Skynyrd, Boston, Bad Religion, the Sex Pistols are a BIG deal and rank with importance right next to-Tool, Disturbed and Green Day.

Peer to Peer, mp3 Players, Internet Radio, and now Guitar Hero have become the real tastemakers with today’s 20 and under crowd and what an interesting set of taste buds its created. Unfortunately radio is only having a small cameo in all of this. If radio wants to get serious about trying repatriate youth back to the dial, cutting a wide swath across musical genres will be a good start.

The Slow Death of Prime Time Television

The other night my wife and I did something we haven’t done in a few months. We watched an episode of CSI that wasn’t first recorded on our DVR. Watching it live means that a) you have to sit through fifteen minutes of commercials b) there seems to be some really lousy commercials out there. The one thing that caught our eye the most was the number of infomercials we saw on a program that is running in prime time. Of course this is something that you would not have seen a year ago before the bottom fell out of the economy. With the huge plummet in ad sales, television is being forced to plug that empty inventory with those cheap direct response spots and infomercials. A year ago you would have had to stay up at least past 11pm to see a Sham Wow or a Snuggie commercial. Not any more. Television however has bigger problems it will need to deal with in the near future as it searches for a new model of scheduling and measurement. Soon all homes will have a DVR or some similar time shifting device and this will be end of prime time TV as we now know it. TiVo is getting ready to provide us with a glimpse into how the audience will be measured in this new era of time shifted TV viewing. TiVo is planning to sell its users viewing habits to advertisers. They will provide second by second breakdowns of the shows TiVo user’s record and the commercials they watch… or skip.
Stay tuned...

UMG and YouTube: The Chicken or the Egg?

Universal Music Group's partnering up with YouTube and their parent company Google to showcase their video content is a good move. For one thing it shows that UMG are remembering history rather than avoiding it (anyone remember Napster?). A centralized system for consumers to access the label's content makes good sense.The big question ahead is are more people going to come to YouTube because of the available “higher quality” videos made available through UMG, or are the visits to the new stand alone music site called Vevo going to be the result of YouTube users accidentally stumbling across it? For now I would place my money on the latter of the two just because of the sheer amount of content available to wade through. One thing however is certain and that is a new albeit "still a little frosty" spirit of co-operation seems to be emerging between two companies/industries that have been at odds with each other from day one. Suing your consumer base because they are breaching the old rules of distribution doesn’t work. Finding a new model that address the way people access content in the 21st century does.

The Devaluation of the "Tease"

The “setup” or the “tease” has always been one of the pillars of programming be it in radio or a television news cast. In both mediums it has always been about keeping the audience as long as possible-mainly to get them past the commercial break, or into the next quarter hour. When radio and TV where the only immediate information providers around - that strategy worked fine. But with all the available media choices and channels today- the “tease” is continuing to lose some of its value and effectiveness. As PPM has shown us- in some cases it can actually do the opposite and act as a cue for the listener to bolt, because it’s a sign that “Uhh ohh..Here comes another 5 minutes of commercials…I’m outta here!”
We now live in a “want it now” world where we just don’t have to wait around anymore for information that we want right away. The ability to get local news, weather, sports scores, and financial information pushed to your phone means you don’t have to sit through a half hour TV news cast to pick up bits and pieces of your local weather forecast before they actually deliver the complete forecast towards the end of the newscast. It also means that you don’t have to wait for the local forecast on your favorite radio station to be delivered at the top or bottom of the hour either. The “tease” hasn’t totally lost its luster as it still works in a less urgent setting-such as teasing a new artist coming up in the next music sweep, or a great winner reaction. But as far as breaking news and information goes-why wait to get it pushed to you when you can Google it?

More Competition for Your Radio

When it comes down to all the available choices in terms of media for the average consumer, radio has always had three trump cards. One it is a local medium, two it’s free and three it’s portable. The “local” argument is debatable as more and more stations are being forced to slash their operating budgets, lay off staff and pipe in voice-tracking from outside markets, that in a lot of cases meets the bare minimum requirements for “local” content. “Portable” and “free” have always seemed like the biggest advantages, but in the near future “free” will more than likely be the only trump card left. Cadillac for example has just rolled out an in-car wireless Internet option in its CTS sport sedan. It will cost five hundred dollars for the radio and twenty nine dollars a month for the wi-fi service. You can bet that it will only be a matter of time that the cost will come down dramatically as more competition emerges in the in-car internet industry. This should make broadcasters more than just a little nervous as now the possibility of streaming any station in the world from you car radio is only a few sleeps away.

New iPod Shuffle-Death of the Live DJ?

In case you missed it, Apple just released the new iPod shuffle. The new shuffle appears to be leaps and bounds better than the original –which was basically a fancy memory stick with a 99 dollar price tag. The new shuffle has a lot more going for it- including the ability to tell you the name and title of each song played, in fourteen different languages. Over the past few days I have read a few blogs and emails from friends and associates who are saying that this marks the end of the live DJ as we know it. Their point of view is based on the thinking that iTunes and the iPod are direct competitors of radio, and since the iPod now can do what radio doesn’t seem to want to do, and that is give out song title and artist information, the writing is on the wall. Interesting argument, but as I see it not the case. First off 99.9 per cent of people who load songs onto their iPod load them up with their favorite songs and already know the name of the song and who the artist is. They don’t need their iPod to tell them that what song was just played – when they put it there themselves in the first place. Now of course let's say someone stole mine - then it would become a whole different story, as they might not be familiar with my seventy six different tracks from Jason and the Scorchers. So…while this new app on the shuffle is cute- it does not mark the beginning of the end of the live DJ as we know it. That already happened a long time ago.

The Rise of Social Media

Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, vBulletin, Avatars United, Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Skyrock, and Netlog are just a few examples of social media software apps available to anyone. These days, if you are not participating in some form of social media- you are actually in the minority. Nielsen just released a study that suggests a mind boggling two thirds of the world’s Internet users visited a social networking site of some kind last year, and the numbers are growing at lightning speed with the fastest growth coming from 35-49 year-olds. Facebook is the number one social networking site- and according to Nielsen social media itself accounts for 10 percent of all Internet activity and it has now taken over email as the most popular Internet activity. These numbers say a lot about the challenges facing traditional media. It is certain that we are moving towards a model where it will be more about coming up with creating and interesting content- and less about the buy itself. The more interesting the message and content is, the more people will want to watch it, listen to it and share it. Rather than fear the “New World Social Media Order”, traditional push media like Television and Radio need to find away to embrace it and use it to communicate on a deeper level with their audiences and advertisers.

Seth Godin was a brave and timely choice for keynote speaker at this years Country Radio Seminar in Nashville. His observations on the current state of the music and radio industry had many industry folks squirming in their seats. In Godin's book "Tribes"- he points out how and why the recording industry failed itself- and why it is in the situation it is today. Radio can't be too smug either as we have done a great job of chasing the same audience the past 3 decades with the same bag of tricks. Needless to say it is going to take more than a keynote speech from Seth for the radio industry to get its house in order- but I do hope that his observations about our industry get us past the navel staring and get us moving towards steps that will begin to address the problems. These actions will require a dramatic change to the current model we operate under along with a willingness to pursue and commit to the innovative thinking needed to change the current course we are on.

The Blu-Spec CD?

On this date in 1983 Sony and Phillips first introduced their jointly developed compact dis system. I remember having an argument with a friend of mine in the early 80’s over the CD vs. the Album –of which I had invested quite a bit of my hard earned cash at the time. My friend said the album was dead, the CD would be the permanent replacement, and I had better get used to reading my liners notes with a magnifying glass. My friend Bert was right….sort of. The CD replaced the album- but twenty six years later –it in turn is being replaced by the digital download. Digital track sales were up 27 per cent from last year, breaking the one billion mark for the first time. The Nielson Company’s year end report shows physical CD sales fell 20 per cent to 362.6 million from 450.5 million, while digital album sales rose 32 per cent to a record 65.8 million units. Unfortunately for the labels the increasing amount of digital downloads is still not making up for the drop in CD sales which is a big problem seeing that their business model has always been based on total album sales. That being said however, with the move away from optical media in general, a lot of people where taken by surprise by Sony’s recent announcement of a new CD format-called the Blu-Spec CD. Think Blu-ray for audio. Is this an attempt to bring back the CD to its former glory? The answer to that one has to be no, however there will be a number of back catalogue titles in the new format available through Amazon. I would consider this more like an opportunity for fans of the CD to have the chance to enjoy an “enhanced aural” experience on their favorite form of media-the CD, just like their vinyl loving cousins are able to do with select new and reissued titles on their hi-fi, high dollar turntables. And if that’s not enough apparently the new Blue Spec-CD is way more robust and impervious to scratches like their predecessors where. When you are not listening to them, you can actually use them as coasters at parties….

The Changing Defintion of "New Music" and How it is Being Discovered

With every song ever recorded over the past 100 years available for discovery and download on the net–even the definition of “new” music is changing. These days "new music" to someone’s ears doesn't have to mean "new release". It can mean any song a person hasn’t heard before, even if it was recorded 25 or 30 years ago. Thanks to the success of blockbuster video games like Guitar Hero- today’s teens have been introduced to the music of guitar gods old enough to be their grandparents, and become huge fans of the genre at the same time. Today at my sister in laws "40 something" birthday party -I spotted my sixteen year old niece wearing a Led Zeppelin T-Shirt (she by the way can shred that little plastic Guitar Hero Gibson SG like nobodies business. Jimmy Page would be proud). The Rolling Stones, The Who AC/DC and hordes of other dinosaur rock acts now have huge audiences that are truly cross generational. Alongside video games like Guitar Hero, online social networks are now where the true taste making is taking place and the networks driving these connected tastes in music will only continue to grow. This week on tweetj (think “twitter” for music lovers) the Top 5 trending artists are:
1.Nora Jones
2.Muse
3.The Who
4.Kanye West
5.Kings of Leon

Hmmmm....new radio format anyone?

Silver Bullet for Radio?

With the growing availability of multiple platforms to grab media from and the unlimited amount of content to access- mobilizing a mass audience with traditional media campaigns using a TV or outdoor campaign will become harder and harder to achieve. With shrinking ad revenues and fewer dollars available for marketing, finding those platforms that will provide the most accurate and immediate measurements of your audience will become key. Radio and television have gone from being one of the quickest ways for advertisers to build a brand, and introduce a new message to the consumer, to now just one of the many ways to get the message out. What is the silver bullet for radio going to be?

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GOOGLE Exits Radio

After three years, GOOGLE has decided to exit the broadcast radio business. Their Press release concluded with:

"We have always accepted the idea that if you take risks not all of them will pay off. Deciding to close products is never easy, but we will continue to focus on advertising products that provide measurability for advertisers and are relevant and useful for users, listeners and viewers".

Ouch! I think I felt a parting shot there...and it doesn't really surprise me. Radio seemed to be suspicious of GOOGLE's intentions right from the start and never really supported the plan.

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Kid Rock Extends His Brand

The music industry is barely recognizable to what it was a few short years ago. Artists are having to find new ways to promote themselves, grow the brand and extend the life of that brand amongst an ever changing fan base. Kid Rock has been extremely successful in navigating these tricky waters. He understands what evolving the brand is all about. His ability to make the leap from a successful rap metal career in the late 90's to the pop and country charts of today is evidence of that . Here the latest line extension of the Kid Rock brand. It comes in an aluminum can.

Detroit Company to create Kid Rock beer and almost 400 jobs

Can Shotgun Marriages Work?

David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard wrote a White Paper/Book a few years ago called the "Future of Music". Even though the book is a few years old it is still loaded with great observations and still valid points. One of the things that they suggested was that ISP's should add a small monthly fee to their current charges to in order to include digital music services. This fee would in turn get passed on the the rights holders. All in all it would amount to taxing the bandwidth used to deliver the music. This new "tax" would act as an insurance against online piracy. The record industry needs to form new meaningful new partnerships with those companies that are at the "point of access" for music- like the ISP's. What the record industry is proposing right now to the ISP's of the world-sounds more like the beginning's of a shotgun marriage, maybe it will bring the "ISP monthly tax" issue to their respective marriage counsellors for discussion.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=agXjCIONibps&refer=us

Satellite Radio Blues

Satellite radio is not going to go away anytime soon-but it is quite possible that it will go through some sort of re-birth. Here are some options for XM/Sirius that should "siriusly" be considered.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/chris-dannen/techwatch/if-sirius-xm-died-no-one-would-miss-it