Archive for the ‘Digital Music News’ Category
The Director-General of the BBC has come under a lot of fire this week for his proposals to axe two radio stations and drop a lot of content from the website in order to redirect funding to improve the quality of programming across the rest of the BBC’s network. The stars of music and media have been laying their scorn on the DG’s plans, and the vast bulk of comments on the “putting quality first” blog post he put up on the BBC’s site were resoundingly negative, chastising him for contradicting himself by taking down some of the best, highest quality content, and defending what are clearly their own favourite services.
For my part I can’t help feeling that any announcement of cutbacks is going to provoke complaints from the people who are negatively affected. There are definitely great programmes on 6 Music and the Asian Network, but if the stations are to be closed, there’s no reason the good bits can’t be cherry picked and put on the other stations with a broader reach, swapping out for worse shows, gaining listeners and improving the quality of service for the great unwashed that haven’t discovered the newer stations, or simply don’t have DAB radios. That said, there are certainly other places the budget could have been cut from, Graham Norton’s salary, for one.
A leaner, sharper BBC that provides an alternative to, instead of adding to the morass of commercialised drivel on the increasing number of other stations is something that I fully support. Whatever your views, Auntie is listening; you can log into the BBC Trust’s website and contribute to their public consultation here.
The BBC is reviewing its channel and programming lineup across all media, and looks set to cut some TV, Radio and Web services to focus its budget on making “fewer things better”. The highest profile services in line for the axe are digital/online only stations 6 Music and the Asian Network, with teen-aimed services Blast and Switch also in the firing line. The Corporation is also looking at cutting chunks out of its main web services, dropping sections with poor online audiences wholesale to reduce costs. The narrowing of services is aimed at freeing up more of Auntie’s budget to be focussed into the content on the remaining services; making less, but better content.
Strong feeling is evident among the Asian Network and 6 Music’s listeners, who are relatively few in number, but passionate about saving their stations and have already started campaigns against the cuts. Their views are not shared by everyone; Peter Bazalgette, creator of Channel 4′s “Big Brother”, applauded the cuts, and called for the BBC to retreat from more programming areas to make room for independent production companies, who have been hard hit by the recent recession. Mark Thompson conceded that some of the audiences, particularly the Teen sector that Blast was aimed at, were being better served by Channel 4 and other independent and commercial providers.
The BBC has struggled with its public service remit over recent years, trying hard to find a balance between its need to create unique, informative and educational programming as per its charter, and calls to justify the license fee with which it funds itself by making more entertainment programmes with a wider appeal. In this blogger’s opinion, a refocussing on excellent rather than broad programming is a very positive step, and a return to the values that make the Beeb so precious a national treasure.
We’re big fans of Fink, one of Ninja Tune’s artists – if you are too, then you’ll be interested to see that he’s got a free, previously unreleased download of a B-side track that didn’t make it onto ‘Sort Of Revolution’ up on his site at the moment. You will need to swap him your email for it though…
Not to be outdone by streaming competitors Spotify, who are rumoured to have gained a new funding partner (and consultant) in the form of Napster/Facebook founder Sean Parker, MOG have announced second round funding of $10,000,000 dollars, which they plan to use to take the platform into Europe, as well as funding Stateside expansion. As things stand, the two competitors are entrenching in their home territories, but the date of their confrontation on one side of the Atlantic must be drawing closer, even though no dates have been mentioned by either team. MOG’s monthly subscription is less than half the price of Spotify’s, but Spotify has major label backing, plus a vocal and passionate fanbase. Pandora are keeping their heads down, and quietly getting on with dominating the internet-radio and car dashboard scene, but the clash between these two will likely define the major player in on-demand streaming. The future of this type of music consumption is far from gilt-edged, however, as Spotify are still struggling to up their paid (£9.99 a month) subscription rates to supplement their ad-funded service, while MOG are operating at about a 17% conversion rate from their free trial to a $5 a month subscription. Whether either of these approaches will be successful enough to fund them in the long term remains to be seen, but given the high level of uptake, there is certainly a market for on-demand. Who gets to service it is currently being decided.
Luxembourg’s biggest media star, Spotify has admitted a new investor to the fold, at least according to TechCrunch. Sean Parker was one of the founders of both Napster and Facebook, and would be Spotify’s first and only US investor. If the rumour is true, then it would not only help Spotify’s cash situation (always helpful), but also give them the inside track on running a music service in the States, and might give an indication that the launch of Spotify in the US is approaching.
In a flurry of activity over the week, Sellaband was attacked by pundits for failing to help Public Enemy fund a new album, put its site offline for ‘maintenance’, declared bankruptcy, was bought out, bailed out and replaced its CEO with the German entrepreneur heading up the purchase of the business.
Johan Vosmeijer (left) stepped down as Chief Exec yesterday, ceding the big chair to Michael Bogatzi (right), with a post on their blog saying that he’d been right all along, despite the difficulties his site has had:
There is no doubt in my mind that ‘crowdfunding’, as they call it, is a blessing for artists in the 21st century and that this concept has the potential to cure what’s been ailing the traditional music industry for so long. SellaBand is and will always be the first of its kind. I am proud to have been part of this very exciting journey from day one and because SellaBand will always be dear to me, I will stay active as a ‘Believer’ on the website and have offered to be on stand-by in case my assistance is needed. I am also very excited to announce that the man who has been standing side by side with me in those past 4 years, Dagmar Heijmans, will continue to be part of the new team and will work closely together with Michael Bogatzki, the new CEO of SellaBand GmbH.
All in all, today is a day of joy. Some other time perhaps, I will take a moment to look back and share my story with the outside world. Right now I only want to look ahead and hope you will all join me in giving the new team a warm welcome and find out what bright future still lies ahead for SellaBand.
Avoiding bankruptcy must be a pretty big relief… Bogatzki was similarly positive but more terse.
Dear Artists and Believers
We will continue to advance this fantastic platform while acting in the spirit of the SellaBand community and its founders. We are thankful for the exceptional work of Johan Vosmeijer and his team.
Starting from today we proceed with this unique concept and maximize the potential of SellaBand with the trust and faith of all Artists and Believers. In personal I am proud to be part of this idea and I am aware of my responsibility for done work and successes. I will take care about the community and spirit of sellaband.com with your help and confidence.
Best regards,
Michael Bogatzki
The absolute best/worst of stadium and dad rock for you this week. It’s probably best to listen to this over your headphones, unless your co-workers have a good sense of humour, or are fans of falsetto, hair dye, facepaint and massive, massive guitars. The worst thing about it is that it’s brilliant:
Boston: More Than A Feeling
UFO: We Belong To The Night
Rainbow: Since You Been Gone
Journey: Don’t Stop Believin’
Asia: In The Heat Of The Moment
Guns ‘N’ Roses: Sweet Child O’ Mine
Bon Jovi: Livin’ On A Prayer
Toto: Hold The Line
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama
Kansas: Carry On Wayward Son
UFO: Doctor Doctor
Kiss: Strutter
Alice Cooper: Poison
Scorpions, Berlin Philharmonic: Hurricane 2000
Ad-supported music and digital content service Guvera has set the date for going live in the States as 30th March. The service, named for the bloody-handed revolutionary icon Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara [wiki here, tl;dr we should all strive for personal fulfilment and be nice communists, but sometimes it's ok to shoot people in the head if they betray you] – aims to instigate a ‘revolution’ in the media industry by getting advertisers to pay for content delivered to consumers, who have chosen the advertiser whose branding they find least offensive/interruptive. This may not be quite the paradigm shift that they seem to think, but their beta service has been up and running for a couple of months in Australia now, and has been successful enough for them to roll out the full scale launch. They have deals in place with Universal Music Group, EMI Music and IODA offering consumers ‘free but paid for’ legal downloads from their full music libraries, but concerns abound as to whether they’ll be able to pay for them in the long term and on the grand scale that they hope for. Another streaming service in the States means that Spotify, bogged down making their platform profitable in Europe, will find the marketplace that bit more crowded if and when they finally get their stall laid out in the US, but they will have had the headstart in refining the user experience and gathering advertisers to their service. There is a future for online ad-supported music streaming, the appetite is strongly apparent, but it will be a hotly contested race to become the dominant provider, and Guvera have yet to prove themselves against the competition.
Smoke without fire, storms in teacups and cries of “Wolf” abound; despite all the discussion of and online about the potential sale of Abbey Road studios to try and help ease EMI’s cash crisis (yes, we squawked [should that be tweeted?] with the rest of the giddy hens), which included such notables as Sir Paul McCartney and the National Trust, there is no truth to the rumour that they are looking to sell the iconic recording venue – in fact they rejected an offer to buy it just last year…
In an interview with the LA Times, the guitar burning rock idol’s stepsister Janie Hendrix said that not only will there be a new album released this year, named “Valleys of Neptune” (based on recordings made in the early months of 1969), but that much more of his back catalogue has been licensed to feature in the next version of the game Rock Band. For some this is enough to suggest a full out branding exercise after the manner in which the Beatles were splashed all over the previous edition.
The game’s creators, Harmonix, were more reserved in their statement to Joystiq;
“While we have not made any official announcements regarding Jimi Hendrix and Rock Band, we are excited to say that we are in discussions to bring more of his music to our platform,”
The Director-General of the BBC has come under a lot of fire this week for his proposals to axe two radio stations and drop a lot of content from the website in order to redirect funding to improve the quality of programming across the rest of the BBC’s network. The stars of music and media have been laying their scorn on the DG’s plans, and the vast bulk of comments on the “putting quality first” blog post he put up on the BBC’s site were resoundingly negative, chastising him for contradicting himself by taking down some of the best, highest quality content, and defending what are clearly their own favourite services.
