[BC] Radio's Influence on Music Sales

[Rich Wood]

------ At 10:58 PM 9/16/2008, WBRadiolists at aol.com wrote: -------

>There is an uprising of "Indies", though... Independent artists who are using
>the Internet to distribute their music. Sites are all over, where they can
>sell their songs for 99c a song, and they keep something like 90% 
>(the site gets
>the other 10%.)

I'm not sure I'd call it an uprising and I don't think they're making 
money. I'm told the Radiohead experiment, where you could choose what 
you'll pay, resulted in people downloading for free. However, I'm 
also told they sold many CDs and vinyl. The biggest upside to it was 
more people at their concerts. That benefits only big name groups.

>Yes, I'd say that the Record Co's are in trouble. The more the Internet
>grows, the more new generations use it, the more *talented* 
>musicians decide that
>keeping 90% is better than 0.9%, the more trouble the "big guys" are in.

Several of those "talented" artists have tried it only to find very 
little money coming in. I'm afraid the preferred way of getting music 
is to steal it. Young people, for instance, don't seem to feel theft 
of intellectual property is a problem until the RIAA sues their butts 
off in their effort to make friends.

>You will be pleasantly surprised! I was playing a fair amount of 
>Indie music on the air
>before my layoff. Listeners loved it, too!

Maybe so, but will they buy it? Have they any idea how to download 
it? Do they even own iPods or MP3 players? I suspect many of your 
listeners are like John McCain. While they didn't invent the 
Blackberry as he did, they're usually technophobic and need an 
instructional DVD to operate a toaster - or an 8 year old who could build one.

I once took a look at the old, illegal, Napster. I was amazed that 
people would actually upload 28MBPS MP3s. If a radio station is 
willing to play highly compressed material they'd better stick with 
the premium iTunes cuts sampled at higher rates and DRM free. We'll 
have cascading codecs cascading over other cascading codecs. Add IBUZ 
and it's hardly worth listening to.

I also downloaded the legitimate Napster only to find it installed 
all sorts of crud on my machine. Spyware, pop-up ads and trial 
versions of software I'd never use. I had to uninstall each one 
separately, some required registry changes that aren't for the faint of heart.

There's also an interesting "uprising" of younger people who are 
buying vinyl. They seem to like the large area for interesting 
artwork and program notes. It's not a revolution like IBUZ but it's 
significant as a niche audience.

As has been noted here individuals who cut their own CDs with public 
domain music seem to be required to  pay for the privilege. Even if 
you're willing to forgo the royalties, the system wants a piece of your hide.

Rich