Jango Airplay: Pay-for-play isn't effective
Yes, beginning bands need to do some marketing, and sometimes this requires an outlay of money.
In the old days, it was going to Kinko's to print fliers and postcards for your mailing list. Now it's registering a domain name, building your own Web site, or establishing an online store to sell downloads, CDs, and merchandise (though there are more and more ways to do this with no money up front, like Audiolife and Routenote).
There's a slippery slope between these necessary expenses and one of the oldest scams in the music industry: pay-for-play. The idea's been around ever since there have been kids in garages who want a quick and easy path to rock stardom, and there are many variations on the theme: meaningless "showcases" or "battles of the bands" that are open to anybody who pays an entry fee, requirements for the performer to buy a big block of tickets to resell, services that place your songs on "compilation" CDs that are supposedly sent to record labels or radio stations, complicated online multilevel marketing schemes...if you can think of it, it's been done.
Earlier this week, Jango introduced a new program called Artist Airplay that offers a very straightforward proposition: the more you pay, the more you'll get played on Jango's Web radio stations. If enough listeners vote that they like you, you'll get placed into regular rotation.
Forget for a moment whether payola is fair to music listeners. Payola--like other forms of pay-for-play--is bad for artists. Even if your music's great, the conflict of interest makes you suspect. If you were any good, couldn't you get noticed some other way? (Of course, the original payola was conducted in secret, which eliminated listeners' ability to make this distinction. That's why it's illegal.)
The inherent conflict in pay-for-play is why the audience at those gigs consists of the band's friends, people bribed with cheap drinks, and the other bands who are also waiting to play--not music fans who actually buy music and go to lots of shows. That's why those "compilation" CDs go immediately from the envelope to the trash can--not into heavy rotation or an artist and repertoire agent's office.
In the case of Jango, listeners now know that some portion of the music they're hearing was selected not because an editor liked it, not because some algorithm calculated its similarity with other songs, not because it was popular with other listeners who have similar tastes, but simply because the artist paid for it.
This tarnishes the entire service with a distinct air of "suck"--which is too bad, since I actually liked Jango when I tried it a little more than a year ago. Who'd pay for that kind of exposure? I know that times are hard, and Web radio needs new sources of revenue, but asking musicians to pony up for plays is no way to build a serious, long-lasting business.
Here's the deal, musicians: if you want to make a living playing music, somebody should be paying you for your music. Not the other way around. If nobody's buying, consider it a hobby, not a career.
Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995, and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattrosoff. 
Well said, and couldn't agree with you more, Matt.
A musician who spends more money (or time, for that matter, in the age of the internet you don't need to pay out the nose for someone else to do specialized tasks) on the things you mention (promotion, marketing, etc..) will earn more in the end and get greater exposure.
If you're paying a ton to get massive amounts of plays on Jango, you are still dead in the water when an interested listener cannot find more information on, or the website for your band. I'm not saying that a tiny bit of this isn't OK to kickstart a band, but it is absolutely essential that you already have the marketing and promotional end in place.
Cheers,
David from Muziic
I guess Last.FM will be happy, although they've always had a much much much better service.
I hope Jango fails brutally.
Dan Kaufman, CEO of Jango here? you raise some good points I would like to address. ?Jango Airplay? is about letting emerging artists reach potential fans and helping listeners discover music they?re likely to like ? so the question of relevance and quality is a huge part of the service. It obviously has to be a good experience for everyone.
So, to clarify - it's not the case that anyone can upload anything and it will play as many times as they've paid for no matter what. There are several mechanisms in place to ensure quality and that the popular songs play more often, and that the really unpopular songs stop playing entirely. Here's how it works:
- Quality review
First of all, we review all songs to ensure that they meet (our own admittedly totally subjective) quality standards, and that the ?similar artists? chosen make sense - ie no song will be played next to both Keith Urban and Soulja Boy.
- Listener control
If a user doesn't like an "Airplay" song, all he needs to do is skip. Or if he gives it a negative rating, he?ll never hear it again. This applies both for "Airplay" songs and songs in general rotation.
- Community control
If an "Airplay" song receives more negative ratings than positive ratings, it will be ?retired? (and the money refunded to the emerging artist). Essentially, everybody that passes our internal quality review gets a shot at putting their song out there, but if it bombs in the community, it will stop playing. So far though, this hasn't happened. Unlike many in the peanut gallery seem to think, just because you?re not established doesn?t mean you?re not good - and artists serious enough about their career to spend money on promotion are generally much better than you?d think. So far our users have been giving positive ratings, writing comments and ?becoming fans? far more than rating down songs.
- Frequency capping
Lastly, "Airplay" songs play very infrequently compared to established artists. Users will hear an ?airplay song? no more than once per day initially. Eventually they may hear more than one per day but no more than once per 20 songs (unless they ask for more).
I hope this clarifies. We?re convinced that Jango Airplay is good for emerging artists AND users. With our quality review, listener and community control, and infrequency of airplay songs (compared to established artists), we believe that adding Airplay songs to the mix actually improves the user experience on Jango. If our users tell us otherwise, we?ll make adjustments (e.g. ? let users opt out of hearing Airplay songs). At the end of the day, the whole purpose is to help independents get discovered and help users discover independents - and it's paramount that it's a good experience for everyone. If we do that right, we think this is a MUCH better experience for everyone involved than the alternative - which is a 30 second audio ad for Lending Tree every other song.
Virtually all the examples you draw on relating to payola-like dealings are either secretive, untrackable , involve no quality control, and provide little artist benefit (sometimes...though Payola achieves quite a lot for established artists). Jango's program is upfront, provides detailed play/ranking stats, and creates an opportunity for popular new artists to gain plays without payment. That sounds fantastic.
Perhaps I'm overly gullible, but I actually have some faith in Dan's statement above: "At the end of the day, the whole purpose is to help independents get discovered and help users discover independents."
I'm looking forward to seeing the program evolve and grow...and may even try it myself.
Mike
http://www.GarageSpin.com
Remember, you have to promote your music and jango is a simple way to get heard. They are upfront just like Mike said, "I like people who are upfront." Yeah, I could spend $4,000-$5,000 on radio promotion but I'm like many others who have a family so I have to be responsible with money especially in 2009, there is no room for error. I have been blessed by writting a great song and people actually like it and my goal is to get as many listeners as possible to share my music. "I AM A USER OF JANGO" I am getting noticed when I wasn't getting noticed before. I was just one out of Millions of artist and songwritiers trying to wrestle with the big boys. I almost quit out of fustration because I wanted to find a avenue right for me. I am seeing positive results now, that is all I want is to be heard.
Finally, I still have money in our family budget to take my kids and wife out. I'm not one of these guys that are wondering what happened to the budget...simply priceless. I myself and friends have become listeners to Jango and have enjoyed the new artist that have been played and if I like you I buy and support you music because I have the money and I love keeping my ipod fresh with new independent talent that are raw...simply priceless.
Thanks sincerely
Farmer Brown
- by richbiscuit July 27, 2009 3:52 AM PDT
- Anyone who takes their music seriously enough to want to sell it must treat the music industry as what it fundamentally is ... a business. All this talk about 'people should be paying you to listen to your music', etc is completely unbalanced. The reality is if you are a new band (new business) and no one knows about you, then you need some sort of marketing and promotional activity to generate interest in your music (your products). Even artists signed to major labels have to pay to play! It's just done a slightly different way where the PR teams of majors fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting a new band, and that expense is recouped from future music sales thereby putting the band in a tremendous position of debt right from the outset. And what happens if that band doesn't sell? They get dropped and potentially held by contract from releasing anything ever again without all proceeds going to the major label to pay off the debt they owe! A nasty position to be in and one that no doubt countless 'one hit wonders' find themselves in today.
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(9 Comments)If a band is unsigned, or releasing stuff on their own label then they need a marketing budget and an effective means to reach new listeners. Most of us don't have the finances that the major labels have at their disposal, so we cannot compete with huge billboards, primetime mainstream advertisements or premier radio airplay. With services like Jango however we can have our music played alongside huge established artists, and who knows, maybe someone out there will like it enough to want to know a bit more about the band and maybe become a fan.
Regardless of the size of your operation, or the style of music you perform, you need a budget. You need to pay someone something to get heard, whether that's getting 1000 CD's pressed, hiring a club and putting on a gig at an expense of several thousand dollars, or paying a few hundred dollars for pay-per-play on a global, popular music channel. All this talk about somehow getting your music to the ears of new listeners at zero expense, or even at a profit, is total BS and anyone who is in a real band, who has been through the time and expense of putting on a gig, hiring a sound engineer, printing and distributing flyers, spending half the day sound checking and half the night packing stuff away knows that unless you have a significant fan base, you are going to lose money.
Services like Jango are a breath of fresh air and I only wish this kind of thing was available to me 10 years ago when I was actually in a position to be out gigging every night as well. Now I'm older with family commitments I know my dream of being a 'famous' musician are probably never going to be realised, however if I can generate a fan base and get a few iTunes sales under my belt through Jango then I'm a happy man!