7digital Launches iTunes Price War

From Jonny Evans, Macworld:

UK online music service 7digital has launched a price war with iTunes, offering DRM-free music downloads at much lower prices than offered through the Apple service.

“Static pricing and inferior quality formats being offered by certain online retailers is limiting consumer uptake of digital downloading,” said 7digital CEO Ben Drury. “We’ve decided enough is enough; we're now offering MP3 album downloads from £5, giving an equivalent track price as low as 10p each.”

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Led Zeppelin Brokers ESPN, NFL Promotional Pacts

From Digital Music News:

Led Zeppelin is now in the midst of a major promotional deal involving both ESPN and the National Football League (NFL), according to information confirmed by Digital Music News. The short-term partnership started splashing this week, and continues until mid-month. Sports fans have already seen Zeppelin songs and video footage threaded throughout various programming from both groups, including live, highlight, and preview segments.

According to Mike Engstrom, vice president of Marketing at Rhino Entertainment, part of the Warner Music Group, the "unprecedented deal" taps into the energy of a simply unrivaled group. "Zeppelin is the greatest rock band in the world, and they've always done things their own way," Engstrom said in an interview Wednesday. Now, that energy is being shared with a heavily male demographic that spans numerous age brackets.

The Zeppelin campaign is designed to raise awareness for the recently-released Mothership, a double-disc greatest hits package.

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New Music Model Experiment: Amie Street

Cayocosta

This is part 3 of a 3 part series on new music models. Part 1, Part 2.

I placed a couple of tracks on 3 different sites to get a handle on how these services work and how well they might help artists promote themselves and/or sell their music.

The Music:

The tracks used for the test were produced, engineered, recorded and written by professionals. Now, I'm not saying that the tracks are anything special; however, they are most certainly competitive with the bulk of offerings I have found available from these services.

Self-Promotion:

There is literally zero artist self-promotion. The tracks are to live or die based solely on the service itself. There are no artist websites, and the acts and songs are - for all practical purposes - unknown.

Amie Street:

Free service. Free streaming for purchased tracks, 60 second streams otherwise. Price per song determined by number of sales - from free to a maximum of 98 cents.

By far the best system of the three I tried, Amie Street does appear to afford at least an initial level of visibility for artists.

Signing up is free and setting up a page is very easy.

After uploading a couple of tunes about 10 days ago, and another track about 3 days later, in total they have received about 150 listens and 50 sales.

The charts are very comprehensive and facilitate the visibility of tracks for several days.

The most interesting aspect of Amie Street is the "rec" system. Recs are recommendations by listeners which entitle them to credit should the song they rec increase in value. Rather than get into the particulars, it appears that there may be a "crew" or otherwise core group of listeners that are responsible for the recommendations of quite a lot of content. What does this mean? Possibly that some of the rec activity is not from disinterested parties. In any event, in my experience this network of listeners help keep new music visible in the charts for a few days.

Interestingly, recs appear to cease at about 50 for any particular song - this seems to indicate that the diminshing potential return in credit for a rec eventually causes listeners to refrain from recommending more expensive (popular) songs. This phenomenon unfortunately betrays the integrity of the rec system in so far as its value as a guide to the best music - for artists with over 100,000 listens still only receive around 50 recs per song. In other words, recs appear to be more like "bets" on particular songs to increase in value, rather than genuine reviews on the material.

However, from a visibilty standpoint, the rec system works well; and in combination with the demand-pricing model for the sale of songs, Amie Street provides a reasonably good system.

Summary:

As with the other services reviewed, the ability to self-promote would increase the chances of success here, although the capacity to do so would render Amie Street, as well as the other services reviewed, superflous.

As far as income from the sale of songs, the recoupable storage fee of $5 per song means that before an artist sees the 70% of sale proceeds, each song must first sell over 100 times, with income commencing only after that point. So, while 70 cents per sale is great, to get to this point is not easy. Whether the Amie Street community is large enough to generate significant sales alone (without self-promotion driving additional traffic) is unknown.

Overall, in my estimation, Amie Street is a worthwhile service, and much better than BitTorrent or GarageBand.

Ingrid Michaelson: Success Without a Label

Independent musician Ingrid Michaelson has made the charts without the help of a record label.

One of the most downloaded artists, she has soared to the top of the charts with hits first heard on television shows and a commercial. Michaelson tells Reuters how she got her first break in the music business.

Piracy Effect? Artists Want Piece of Resold Concert Ticket Action

Lost proceeds once derived from recorded music sales prompt artists to seek additional income from ancillary sources.

From Owen Gibson and Sam Jones, Guardian:

Radiohead, Robbie Williams and Arctic Monkeys joined calls yesterday for a levy to be added to tickets resold on the web to allow musicians to claw back some of the profits made by touts and fans.

The acts' managers, together with about 400 other artists, including KT Tunstall and the Verve, said the move was vital to bring some regulation and rigour to a market they described as "the wild west".

They proposed the creation of a Resale Rights Society, which would collect a fee from each ticket sold on eBay and other websites such as Seatwave, Viagogo and GetMeIn.com that have sprung up to satisfy the demand to trade concert tickets.

They said the levy would help to ensure that money raised from the boom in live music flowed back into the industry rather than the pockets of venture capitalists.

With the increased demand for tickets, resale values have soared, fuelling a sizeable secondary market. According to the information service Tixdaq, the market is already worth around £200m a year in the UK. In October, £2m was spent on tickets for the Spice Girls alone.

Marc Marot, chairman-elect of the RRS and the former chief executive of Island Records, said the levy proposal was a "grown-up solution" to a "completely unregulated area".

"The secondary ticketing market offers benefits to music fans and the live music industry alike. It does not make sense to try and criminalise it," he said. "On the other hand there are real issues of consumer protection here. It is unacceptable that not a penny of the £200m in transactions generated by the resale of concert tickets in the UK is returned to investors in the live music industry."

Marot said the move was not intended to boost the bank balances of big names such as Mick Jagger and Sting but to help new artists who increasingly make less money from recorded music sales and rely on income from gigs to make a living.

As record sales have plummeted, the live scene has boomed in recent years with new artists and reformed supergroups playing to wider demographics in better quality venues. A Mintel report in July said the market was worth £743m a year.

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Songwriters Association of Canada Pushes For 'Piracy' Fee

From Robert Thompson, Billboard:

The Songwriters Association of Canada is pushing forward with a proposal to charge Canadian Internet and wireless users $5 per month to compensate for losses due to file sharing.

"We propose an amendment to the Copyright Act which would establish a new right: The Right to Equitable Remuneration for Music File Sharing," the organization wrote in a press release. The Songwriters Association is a lobbying and educational organization based in Toronto.

The organization says it is proposing a $5 fee that would "remove the stigma of illegality from file sharing."

"In addition, it would represent excellent value to the consumer, since this fee would grant access to the majority of the world's repertoire of music," the organization said.

The proposal comes at a time when many critics of the music industry have suggested touring and merchandising revenue can replace lost income from deteriorating CD sales.

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Warren Zevon’s Traveling Circus - June 1978

By Dinky Dawson, published today in Crawdaddy:

June 25, 1978, was a day off in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to enjoy a night of Bruce Springsteen. Bruce had just released his fourth album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, which was flying out of North American record stores, confirming his status as a new star. We felt weird asking for 10 tickets to take care of the whole entourage, but Bruce himself pulled together a row of seats in the sixth row for us. I have to admit that it felt weird when I sat down in the crowd to be in a show for entertainment and not for work. Warren felt a little strange as well, especially when people began recognizing him and shouting, “Werewolves, Werewolves!”

We loved Springsteen’s first few songs but the sound was way too loud. Warren desperately grabbed my arm and asked if anyone had earplugs. We produced a bag of Swedish wool packets, which helped us all quite a bit, but by the fifth song the bass was too much for Warren and he wanted to leave. Outside, he asked me what I thought, adding “I hope we’re not that loud.” “Not on your life,” I assured him. “I like it loud, but not death loud."

Back at the hotel room, it was off to Warren’s room for cocktails. Bruce and his entourage returned from the show with tons of groupies in tow, whom everyone in Warren’s band had been chatting up. I headed back to my room and the phone rang as soon I stumbled in. The voice on the other end said, “This is the boss. Is Warren there?” I started laughing and asked, “The boss, who?”

“Bruce!” the voice replied, slightly peeved, but softened as I went into Cheech and Chong’s familiar routine. “Bruce isn’t here!”

“Who is this?”

“Dinky Dawson. A close personal friend of Mr. Zevon.”

“Yeah?” he laughed, “Well I’m going to have to come down and show you who’s boss!” Warren came into the room and I handed the phone to him. He started laughing and looked at me, then hung up. “You’re in trouble,” he said simply.

Read the rest of the story here.

CBS Radio CEO Calls For Radio Revitalization

From FMQB:

CBS Radio President/CEO Dan Mason spoke to the 35th annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference on Tuesday, asking the radio industry to revitalize itself in 2008. "Radio is king – there is no media that can better deliver more targeted, personalized messages to audiences and advertisers," said Mason. "Today’s presentation was a call to arms to all our colleagues in the industry to better tell our story, and demonstrate the incredible opportunities for growth. Radio is going through one of the most transformative periods in the history of broadcasting, and it’s up to us to show the advertising and financial communities how we can seize these changes to our advantage."

Mason predicted that CBS Radio would turn a profit in 2008, calling himself "guardedly optimistic" about business growth next year. He said he was "confident" CBS Radio would be in the black in '08.

Mason added that radio needs to do a better job of selling itself and its ubiquity. "In New York, more people listen to radio than read all three newspapers combined, or visit Google, Yahoo or AOL on a monthly basis," said Mason. "We have information like this in every one of our markets, but there is the lingering perception that radio is still old media and not on a growth track."

Mason concluded that radio should also continue to embrace new media options, as well as invest in better programming content for its stations.

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Nielsen Offers Protection to Copyright Holders

From Mike Shields, MediaWeek:

The Nielsen Company says it has a new product that can help major media companies police the distribution of their video content on Web sites like YouTube, and ultimately make money on the consumer-driven phenomenon.

The media research firm (parent company of Mediaweek) has partnered with the Beaverton, Or.-based technology vendor Digimarc Corporation to launch a new service - Nielsen Digital Media Manager – designed to aid TV networks, independent content producers and various online video distributors in tracking where users are posting and streaming copyrighted video content. Rolling out in mid 2008, the new service combines two tracking techniques: digital “watermarking” and “fingerprinting” - that in tandem should provide producers with a complete picture of where their content resides on the Internet.

Eventually, Nielsen plans to expand the usage of the service to other forms of media, including music and DVDs, said Harkness.

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Media Ownership Bill Passes Senate Commerce Committee

From Radio Online:

A bill aimed at slowing the FCC's media ownership review, introduced by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS) (pictured), has passed the Senate Commerce Committee. The bill would require the Commission to allow 90 days for public comment on any proposed changes to media ownership rules and would block the agency from voting later this month to revise the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban.

If passed, the Dorgan-Lott bill would require the Commission to complete a separate proceeding on media consolidation's effect on localism along with publication of rule changes in the Federal Register some 90 days before a Commission vote, providing 60 days for public comment and 30 days for reply comments.

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Chrysalis Shares Gain On Offer Talks

From Billboard:

Shares in Chrysalis Group rose 8% on Wednesday after the company said it was in preliminary discussions with select parties that could lead to an offer being made for the British music company.

Chrysalis, which has been the subject of bid speculation since it sold its radio assets earlier this year, said the board was currently assessing its options. These included remaining as an independent company, potential acquisitions or a sale.

Chrysalis sold its radio business to Global Radio for 170 million pounds ($350.6 million) in July and the group has said it expects to return 96.5 million pounds, or 57.5 pence per share, to shareholders.

Analysts at Numis said they valued the music business at 155 million pounds on a trading basis, but believe a competitive auction could see a valuation of 180 million pounds, generating a target price of 145 pence old form shares or 215 pence new form.

Market speculation has linked Chrysalis with music giants Universal and Warner Music Group, which could also be interested in its artist management business which has become more attractive in recent years as CD sales fall.

Chrysalis said in November its music division had shown strong growth in the year ending August, increasing earnings before interest, tax and amortization by 28.2 percent to 3.1 million pounds.

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MPAA: More ISPs to Join Fight Against Piracy

From Joseph Weisenthal, paidContent:

The MPAA isn’t a publicly-traded, for-profit entity, so CEO Dan Glickman’s presentation at the UBS Global Media Conference was sparsely attended. But there is decent contingent of folks here interested in the film business, from the financial side, so there’s interest in what Glickman’s organization is doing to protect and promote the industry. Since the top priority for MPAA these days is fighting piracy, this dominated much of the discussion.

Content theft: Anti-piracy is the top priority. Organization works with law enforcement here and abroad. “You will never stop piracy, the markup is just too great… but you make it as tough as you can.”

Anti-piracy Multi-pronged approach: technology, education, enforcement. Technology is the key to success. Working with ISPs and user-gen communities. Example: working with AT&T, (NYSE: T) which is building technical protections in its system. Glickman predicted that all of the major ISPs would follow AT&T’s lead over the coming years, particularly as they get into content themselves.

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Combined Q3 Radio Spending Drops 5%, NTR Up 7%

From Radio Online:

Spending across all radio sectors dropped 5% in the third quarter to $5.4 billion, while local radio declined 5% to $3.6 billion and national revenues were down 8% to $1.1 billion, reports RAB. However, network radio grew 9% revenue gain to $293 million, closely followed by non-spot with a 7% rise to $395 million.

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Pepsi/Amazon Mp3 Giveaway Not So Super?

Cayocosta

It seems that for quite a few Digg users, the proposed Pepsi/Amazon one-billion Mp3 Superbowl giveaway isn't such a big deal. Critical comments posted to an article regarding the promotion ranged from the need to buy 5 bottles of the soft drink to receive just one song, the likelihood of advertising-laden redemption pages, that a similar promotion in 2004 was a bust, that the offer is more trouble than its worth; in addition to the mention that the program appears to betray the value of a digital downloads in relation to recent court rulings against piracy, and an overarching opinion that mp3s are already free.

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Music Industry Seeks New Markets, Profits

From Amy O'Brian, Vancouver Sun:

It's unlikely the music industry will ever see the likes again of its fat-cat heyday.

But a group of 250 international music industry types will gather in Vancouver for two days this week to put their heads together in an effort to put the profit back in the music game.

Being billed as more of a "brain trust" than a conference, the two-day affair -- called Transmission -- is open only to screened and accepted applicants considered to be stakeholders in the business. Delegates are flying in from Australia, Japan, Europe, and the United States.

The central questions of the second annual conference are whether there is a way to "restore worldwide music industry revenues to their historic high of $40 billion per year," whether that goal is realistic and, if so, how the industry should proceed.

Brad Josling, co-producer of Transmission, said in an interview that the aim of the conference is to come up with viable solutions.

"That's our ultimate goal," he said. "We're addressing some very big topics at the conference this year. ... We're driving towards results."

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