BY KURT HANSON
With organizations representing the four major labels (e.g., the RIAA, SoundExchange, and musicFIRST), musicians like Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave) and Judy Collins, and even the U.S.'s Registrar of Copyrights arguing that there is no promotional value for labels and artists in radio airplay, I think the time has come to say, "You really think so?  Okay, let's find out!"

In yesterday's RAIN (here), I proposed a nationwide, six-month market research study called "The Shambala Experiment" in which radio would temporarily put the airplay of certain recording artists on hold (although not punitively; the lost airplay would be made up later) and double or triple the airplay of certain other recording artists.
 
With careful structuring of the experiment, we could study the effects on CD and download sales of adding or removing airplay.  By doing so, we would learn whether radio airplay is, in fact, beneficial to musicians and their labels -- or not.

Current artists are the key
Yesterday, I used Three Dog Night as my primary example of a recording artist, in part because I thought  "The Shambala Experiment" was a cool name (for you young people, that's a reference to their 1974 hit; a la "The Dharma Initiative" which, for you older people, is from the TV show "Lost").

But many RAIN readers pointed out to me that with few U.S. radio stations in any given city playing Three Dog Night, and catalog sales for an artist from that era so relatively low (but wait! They've got a greatest hits album that is the #255 album on Amazon this hour!), the experiment would be far more effective with current hit (or wannabe-hit) artists.

And they're right!

I did go into this in a certain amount of detail yesterday, but apparently in not enough detail or not vividly enough.  So let's explore this more today.

Promotion helps artists most in their peak years
Let's talk philosophy first.  Listening to Sam Moore and Judy Collins complain to Congressmen on Tuesday (here) that radio should give up some of its 2008+ revenues to provide a comfortable retirement income for them just sticks at my craw, for several reasons. Chief among them is the idea that these performers, themselves victims of corporate greed in the past, are now willing pawns to the same.

It drives me crazy that this attempt to get a performance royalty out of radio stations is being driven by large record labels trying to get new $50,000,000 per year income streams, but it's being presented to Congress and the press using the face of poor recording artists hoping to get $26,000 per year checks. (See math here.) That just seems wrong. Paying artists and paying copyright owners is NOT the same thing!

I think it's important to note that the impact of radio's promotional value extends for the rest of the artist's life.

In 1967, radio stations had a limited number of slots on their Silver Dollar Surveys (and playlists) for bands: The Sir Douglas Quintet, the New Colony Six, Sam & Dave, Judy Collins, and the Association got airplay, but Bobby & the Britons, the River Rockin' Five, Stevie & Stan, Jenny Crabtree, and the Stingers did not get airplay.

What's the result?  Assuming their labels and concert promoters treated them fairly, The Sir Douglas Quintet, the New Colony Six, Sam & Dave, Judy Collins, and the Association made hundreds of thousands of dollars (perhaps millions?) during their peak years — hopefully saving enough of that for a relatively comfortable retirement — and, if they so choose, can count on a reasonable touring career for the rest of their lives.

Meanwhile, Bobby & the Britons, the River Rockin' Five, Stevie & Stan, Jenny Crabtree, and the Stingers?  Probably not so much.

I'm afraid Sam Moore and Judy Collins mistakenly believe that radio played their hits back in 1967 because they were already successful performing artists.  But ask Stevie & Stan or Jenny Crabtree — Sam and Judy have the cause-and-effect relationship reversed.

Right now, in 2007, radio is setting up hundreds of artists with careers for life:  The members of Maroon 5, Luke Bryan, Fall Out Boy, and Linkin Park are all making lots of money right now (and hopefully saving some of it  for their retirement) and will all have a certain fan base that will support them to some extent for the rest of their lives.

How would this work?
So let's start with — oh, I don't know— let's say the country music format.

Let's take ten major summer releases — some established artists and some new artists.  Let's announce the names of those ten selected artists in the trade press.  Then let's flip coins for each one to assign them to the "No airplay" or "Double airplay" category and announce the results.

For the aritsts who fall into the "No airplay" category, we'll tell them two things: (1) "Hey, talk to your label — they're the ones funding an RIAA argument that says radio airplay has no promotional value."  (2) "We promise we'll make this up to you — three months from now, we'll play the hell out of your music for a few months."

Then, for three months, as I proposed yesterday, country stations across America — ideally including terrestrial radio, satellite radio, and Internet radio — would play the hell out of the five "Double airplay" artists (and would reserve airplay on the other five until the subsequent three-month period).

During that first three-month period, we would look at record sales (and, ideally, concert attendance) for the five aritsts that radio is playing (combined) versus sales for the five artists radio is not playing (combined).

Since we split the ten artists randomly, combined sales for each of the two groups should be identical.

If the "No airplay" artists sell better, we'll have evidence that radio airplay eliminates the need to for consumers to buy the sound recordings (as Bing Crosby and Paul Whiteman speculated in the 1930s (here)). On the other hand, if the "Double airplay" aritsts' sales are higher, we'll have evidence of the promotional power of Internet radio.

And we run simultaneous experiments on Top 40 radio, rock radio, Adult Contemporary radio, Smooth Jazz radio, and so forth.

Labels know -- let's show artists and Congress
As some RAIN readers have pointed out, it seems silly to be forced to even propose an experiment such as this. Look at any radio trade magazine -- all the ads are purchased by labels pushing new releases. The promotional departments at labels are built around working product to different radio formats. Look at the history of payola in the industry.

The labels are well aware of the promotional power of radio. Maybe an experiment like this will show certain artists and members of the government the light.

From Wired's Listening Post blog: "Streaming radio pioneer Pandora quietly unveiled a Facebook application today that allows users to embed the service onto their profile pages...

After installing the app on your Facebook page, you link it up with your existing Pandora account by entering your email address and Pandora password (or start a new Pandora account).  At that point, visitors to your profile page will see a box linking to your Pandora stations...  Clicking the Play button next to any station spawns a new browser window that loads the Pandora channel.  Also, if you're listening to one of your Pandora stations, visitors to your profile will be able to see which one, and join you...

There's been a lot of talk lately about the most popular apps on Facebook.  Given Pandora's popularity, I wouldn't be surprised if this makes that list in record time."

Read the entire article at Wired's Listening Post blog.

From VentureBeat: "Facebook completely

violated music copyrights

"Audio allowed users to upload audio files in the mp3 format, share them with each other and listen to them within Facebook. By the end of last week, it had nearly 750,000 users.

"The move is significant [because] it shows Facebook is taking a harder line on third-party developers using its site in ways that could be considered illegal...

"Audio continued to grow within the first couple of weeks after launch, reaching nearly half a million users. We noticed that its growth gradually slowed while competing music-sharing applications such as iLike continued to grow. We noticed that Audio’s message board filled with debate about its legality, and about potential liability faced by those using it."

Read the entire article at VentureBeat.

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