The Start of "360" Streaming - Is this the New Face of Record Companies?

[Anderton]

Pandora has announced that it will purchase Ticketfly, a Ticketmaster-type site, for $450m in cash and stock. Why? Pandora says it will allow listeners to find better live music events. So what's next...sponsoring in-store events for artists?

 

Unless I've missed it, though, I'm still not seeing any of the streaming services developing exclusive talent. With Netflix and its ilk concentrating on same, it seems this would be the next logical step.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Probably the closest thing is Tidal's exclusive content from their co-owners and partners. The problem is, they've yet to put out anything that's so compelling that it draws in huge numbers of listeners. Think of something along the lines of a musical equivalent of Breaking Bad. THAT'S what you're after if you're creating exclusive content.

 

Exclusive talent? I dunno... they'd have to put together a pretty incredible deal for an artist to want to sign an exclusive with a streaming service - there's potentially too much other money left on the table from other sources you'd be giving away if you agreed to a deal like that.

[blue2blue]

Developing, no, but buying locks on exclusives from established artists, for sure. Led Zep had a fairly lengthy exclusive with Spotify when they entered (re-entered?) the stream syndication market maybe not quite two years ago (although they're now in general syndication).

 

And Prince has only released his new album on Tidal (I don't know if that will be a permanent exclusive or not -- Prince tends to to things his own way -- and he likes to put out a lot of records, as Warners found out).

 

 

Certainly, if a stream service could 'develop' an artist that somehow got a big hit -- without wide availability -- that might be interesting, but that seems a pretty uphill battle. And one that maybe only Spotify -- with their current relative market hegemony -- could currently pull off. And I suspect they would still need to do heavy 'promotion' on radio ('considerations,' as they call it now) and through other influential media outlets to establish such a hit.

 

Maybe when Apple Music has become more established they can use their hypnotic powers to build some must-listen artists within their magic, walled garden...

 

 

But, actually, now that I stop and think about it -- Pandora, like Youtube (?!?) is one of the most popular listening venues.

 

Me, I liked the idea of Pandora ('padding' their affinity programming with unheard and soundalike bands, potentially gaining new exposure for less-known artists) but I run out of skips really quick and their 'suggestions' are often far from what I was looking for. But with their associative radio approach, they are in a good position to point people in a given direction, say, toward an artist they are 'developing.'

 

 

That said, in that regard, I've read more than a few complaints about the 'curated content' on Apple Music -- people seem to feel like they're being shilled to designated next-big-hits promoted by well-connected labels.

 

And that's certainly how the curated content of AM predecessor, Beats Music, felt to me... they kept suggesting crap I wouldn't be interested in in a million years. No wonder Beats Music lost about 40% of the subscribers they bought with MOG before they scuttled it to make way for the gleaming white luxury liner of Apple Music.

[Phil O'Keefe]

How many new listeners did Howard Stern get when he switched over to Sirius satellite? I'm talking about new subscribers (not previously signed up subscribers they already had prior to Stern's start there), and not the folks who were already loyal listeners to his show who signed up so they could keep listening, but true, brand-new followers / listeners.

 

Sure, many of his loyal followers went there with him when he switched over from terrestrial radio, but I've never seen any data that suggests his following dramatically increased once you could only hear him one way, via an exclusive for-pay service.

[blue2blue]

How many new listeners did Howard Stern get when he switched over to Sirius satellite? I'm talking about new subscribers (not previously signed up subscribers they already had prior to Stern's start there), and not the folks who were already loyal listeners to his show who signed up so they could keep listening, but true, brand-new followers / listeners.

 

Sure, many of his loyal followers went there with him when he switched over from terrestrial radio, but I've never seen any data that suggests his following dramatically increased once you could only hear him one way, via an exclusive for-pay service.

 

Yeah, I'm on the same page as Phil. An established artist with die-hard followers might follow an artist to a given walled garden... but to be a break-out artist, I think you, indeed, have to be able to break out, cast your seed as far as possible.

 

Think about Spotify, they dwarf the other stream services (to the best of our ability to tell -- but the fact no one else is bragging about numbers is, I think, highly suggestive) but if someone is big on Spot but unknown elsewhere, that's still not that wide an exposure.

 

And Spotify is the only on demand service that has any sort of external reach -- through their ad-driven tier.

 

If Tidal wanted to develop an exclusive artist, they'd be starting with a very small pool of potential customers with -- barring alternative release/promo like videos -- little way of stirring interest outside their user base -- and no good way for those casually interested in checking out that artist to do so.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

If Tidal wanted to develop an exclusive artist, they'd be starting with a very small pool of potential customers with -- barring alternative release/promo like videos -- little way of stirring interest outside their user base -- and no good way for those casually interested in checking out that artist to do so.

 

Exactly! They lack sufficient market penetration and enough reach outside of their "borders" to be able to break a new artist IMHO.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

That said, in that regard, I've read more than a few complaints about the 'curated content' on Apple Music -- people seem to feel like they're being shilled to designated next-big-hits promoted by well-connected labels.

 

^This pretty much describes the music industry as a whole. SSDD.....same {censored}e, different device.

 

 

[blue2blue]

 

That's certainly how Beats Music struck me -- particularly coming from the very different and generally quite likable and low-key MOG that Beats Electronics bought and scuttled to make room for Beats Music (which was itself scuttled to make way for Apple Music).

 

 

But that said, I have to say that I must be one of the few old guys not kvetching and moaning about how there's nothing good to listen to.

 

While I do listen to a lot of old music (going back to the 20s), I've been delighted to find a lot of both new music from younger artists working in styles I prefer as well as unfamiliar music from existing artists I was unaware of or unexposed to. For that, Google's 'similar artists' function -- while somewhat limited in scope (avoiding, one supposes, the apparently popularly-dreaded 'problem' of too much choice) has actually served me pretty well -- as have the Songza playlists and 'radio' stations they added last year; I can't say I've spent a lot of time listening to the playlists/radio, but I've definitely been turned on to some interesting artists that way. So I sort of toggle between hitting skip and adding the cool people to my favorites library.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

That's certainly how Beats Music struck me -- particularly coming from the very different and generally quite likable and low-key MOG that Beats Electronics bought and scuttled to make room for Beats Music (which was itself scuttled to make way for Apple Music).

 

 

But that said, I have to say that I must be one of the few old guys not kvetching and moaning about how there's nothing good to listen to.

 

While I do listen to a lot of old music (going back to the 20s), I've been delighted to find a lot of both new music from younger artists working in styles I prefer as well as unfamiliar music from existing artists I was unaware of or unexposed to. For that, Google's 'similar artists' function -- while somewhat limited in scope (avoiding, one supposes, the apparently popularly-dreaded 'problem' of too much choice) has actually served me pretty well -- as have the Songza playlists and 'radio' stations they added last year; I can't say I've spent a lot of time listening to the playlists/radio, but I've definitely been turned on to some interesting artists that way. So I sort of toggle between hitting skip and adding the cool people to my favorites library.

 

Yes, there's still good stuff out there, for certain. It just seems finding it was a lot less work in the past. Turn on the radio...the music comes to you. Like something, and buy it when you're at the record shop. The seemingly endless variety of delivery methods hasn't really simplified anything, methinks...

[blue2blue]

See, for me, it was turn on the radio, be barraged with Three Dog Night and Deep Purple and Charlie Daniels. (Not to slight fans of those bands, mind you. Just not among my faves.) And then, on those occasions I heard something, maybe a third of the time I couldn't find it. That said, in some ways, that pushed me outside the comfort zone. I probably got involved with the punk/new music scene a lot earlier because late one night around '74 I heard a Joan Armatrading song and was intrigued, had to call the station to find out what it was when it became clear the DJ was in one of those 45 minute long late night sets local underground stations used to get into. But then I had to find a record store where I could get it and that led me to the old Zed, in Long Beach, which became a kind of home away from home over the next decade or so. I bought a huge amount of used records there as the new music thing kicked in... people would try things they didn't like but then there was the phenom of some people suddenly selling their old collections --- so I picked up all these prog albums, got turned on to Can, Faust, Neu, all kinds of stuff, not to mention old Black Sabbath albums. (Lots of other abandoned metal, as well, but I didn't tend to buy much of that. Some Sharkz. I guess that was hard rock, though, if we're getting fussy about drawing the much broader categories back then.)

[MikeRivers]

 

Exclusive talent? I dunno... they'd have to put together a pretty incredible deal for an artist to want to sign an exclusive with a streaming service

 

That would be like having your record played on only one radio station, a far cry from having your record on one label, but playable on any radio station that wanted to play it.

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

That would be like having your record played on only one radio station, a far cry from having your record on one label, but playable on any radio station that wanted to play it.

 

 

Yup - that's a good analogy Mike. Like I said, it would have to be a lot of money to make it worth the artist's while, and even then, I still don't think it would be a good career move.

[Craig Vecchione]

See, for me, it was turn on the radio, be barraged with Three Dog Night and Deep Purple and Charlie Daniels. (Not to slight fans of those bands, mind you. Just not among my faves.) And then, on those occasions I heard something, maybe a third of the time I couldn't find it. That said, in some ways, that pushed me outside the comfort zone. I probably got involved with the punk/new music scene a lot earlier because late one night around '74 I heard a Joan Armatrading song and was intrigued, had to call the station to find out what it was when it became clear the DJ was in one of those 45 minute long late night sets local underground stations used to get into. But then I had to find a record store where I could get it and that led me to the old Zed, in Long Beach, which became a kind of home away from home over the next decade or so. I bought a huge amount of used records there as the new music thing kicked in... people would try things they didn't like but then there was the phenom of some people suddenly selling their old collections --- so I picked up all these prog albums, got turned on to Can, Faust, Neu, all kinds of stuff, not to mention old Black Sabbath albums. (Lots of other abandoned metal, as well, but I didn't tend to buy much of that. Some Sharkz. I guess that was hard rock, though, if we're getting fussy about drawing the much broader categories back then.)

 

Maybe because I grew up in the New York City area (just across the river in....New Jersey), it wasn't at all difficult to identify or locate the music we heard on radio. There were also several stations that did what we call "deep tracks" today, played full albums, and in general went in many different directions with their playlists. The irony was that there was so much good radio there, we really didn't need to buy records. Just find a station playing something you like. It was a golden age, for us at least.

[blue2blue]

Yeah, you NYC area guys had the cool DJs, by virtually all reports. We had B. Mitchell Reed, a kind of show-bizzy guy -- he left the Top 40 world when the AM station he'd been on, KFWB, turned into a news/talk station. He spent some time on a real underground station and then got a gig for many of the DJs from that station on a new faux-underground station (from his old bosses, Metromedia), KMET, and, for a while, they were semi-hip. But by the middle of the 70s, they were already being labeled with the new pejorative, dinosaur rock. But the big problem wasn't that they played rock -- which still held mainstream popularity -- but that they played déclassé, stoner-dude rock with very little that was adventurous or not easy to find on mainstream album charts.

 

For a little while in the late 70s, the 'new' station KROQ developed a little edge (basically because it wasn't seen as a valuable property and had little oversight for a few years, so they got some very interesting DJ's like the outlaw-country loving Jimmy Rabbit, known for drinking his way through his afternoon shifts and then having to take the bus from Pasadena where the station was to Santa Monica because he'd kissed his driver's license bye-bye some time before -- as he closed his show some afternoons he'd say, "I don't have a ride home this evening so if you see me on a bus stop on Sunset, stop and give me a ride." I've never known any other DJ to beg rides from his listeners on the air. Loved that guy...

[MikeRivers]

 

Maybe because I grew up in the New York City area (just across the river in....New Jersey), it wasn't at all difficult to identify or locate the music we heard on radio. There were also several stations that did what we call "deep tracks" today, played full albums, and in general went in many different directions with their playlists. The irony was that there was so much good radio there, we really didn't need to buy records.

 

We had really good radio here in the Washington DC area up until about 10 years ago when things started to go to the dogs, or rather, to the corporate ownership that sent the same playlist to all their stations. We had WHFS, what was probably the first "progressive" station and broke a lot of aritsts throughout the 1970s. We had good classical music any time, good jazz most any time, though things like folk music usually was delegated to weekeds.

 

Now I can get a little of that on line from college and community stations, but I think that any more WWOZ is about the only station that I can turn on any time and hear something that will keep me continue listening. But I can't reliably find any specific genre of music any time of the day.

 

I get buy. I'm not an intense listener. I usually can't tell yo what was just played. But it's entertainment, and it keeps me from spending money other than what I donate to a couple of non-commercial stations annually. I doubt that any of that goes to the artists that they play but at least it helps to assure that the music will continue to be played. Except for the couple of times when right after a fundraising campaign, the station makes a radical change in format. Our best full time classical station switched to an all-talk-all NPR-all the time right after their fundraiser one year, fired all the DJs, and gave their record collection to a station that used to be classical, switched to talk, and then decided that SOMEBODY had to be the classical station. The next fundraiser, they got bupkis, so now they're back to classical all the time but wiht a pretty lame record library.