Can Concert Promoters Become The New Record Labels?
from the time-to-find-out dept
A little over a year ago, the recording industry was surprised to learn that Madonna wasn't signing a new record label contract, but instead was signing a deal with Live Nation, a big concert promoter, to handle pretty much everything having to do with her business, including releasing new CDs. The WSJ Magazine is running a long feature story about Live Nation, its founder and its ongoing strategy, wondering if it's the new business model for the recording industry. Basically, the guy behind Live Nation knows that there's good money in concert promoting, but that the margins are low. So, he's betting on a few of these "360 deals" where he gets a much larger margin on all other aspects of the business.It's an interesting strategy that appears to be a step in the right direction, but it's unclear if it really is the future of the industry. Live Nation's strategy seems pretty risky. It involves huge upfront payments for a small number of star performers (whose older, more well-known, music is still under the copyright of earlier labels). It also doesn't seem to do much to embrace new technologies and distribution methods. Instead, it's just this guy making a grab for some big names, and trying to consolidate all their sources of revenue, taking a cut of each one. There's something to be said for that, but it would probably work better in combination with newer technologies and music distribution means -- and without those huge upfront costs that may sink the whole operation.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: 360 deals, business models, concert promotions, concerts, madonna
Companies: live nation
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The new way...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Digital era
While music businesses have been dogged by the illegal downloading, middle- man, distributors, expensive marketing and etc, Live Nation takes it to another level for big names like these to make more money than selling CDs which top artist could sell maximum 5 million copies worldwide if they got lucky.
Plus, digital makes the music accessible through iTunes, Amazon, masterbeat.com, Napster and etc because it is cheap, fast and reliable.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Madonna is smart..
Major record labels and retail chains stores have become too greedy by charging $18-19 for a CD that usually doesn't have more than 3 good songs on it. The record labels pay millions of dollars a year to middlemen (independent radio promoters)
At the end who pays for all of the cost? The artist. Most record companies recoup their costs for promotion/advertising from the artist's CD royalties.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Don't assume anything
The concept of 360 deals is one that will require a lot of time to fully test, and it has its share of intelligent and informed critics. But as with so many other "innovations" in this industry, it's not really all that new; there have been grassroots players doing such deals in different ways for the past decade or so, even if they didn't slap a label on them or structure them precisely the way they are now being structured. It's worked for some, and been a failure for others, and the smart ones are learning from both successes and failures. But instead of just jumping on the 360 bandwagon when the major labels started to tout it a few years ago, Rapino watched closely, acquired some of the necessary pieces and built out others internally, pulled in some of the smarter people who were innovating in one way or another, and picked up a company or two that were actually already providing full-service (or nearly full-service) deals to those artists within their worlds who were interested in doing them (and offering a la carte services to those who weren't).
I've been in pretty antagonistic positions with Live Nation when it was still part of ClearChannel, and with some of the other giants who dominate or dominated the landscape. And while a few have been using the terms "artist-friendly" and "artist development" for a long time, most weren't even close. Once CC spun off Live Nation, though, and Rapino had some time to reorganize the company and make some personnel changes, it began to transform itself in some pretty positive ways. It's got a long roe to hoe, but it is pretty much top to bottom already a very different company than it used to be, and even at the club level, the dinosaurs are being replaced by younger, more energetic and creative people who truly are devoted to artist development and to creating better experiences for the fans. Though it doesn't make the headlines or big stories, it is not at all just about the U2's and Madonna's of the world.
We'll all just have to see whether this, or any of the other experiments with business models going on, are going to succeed or not. In this case, though, with the old model throwing off a 5% margin (and that required squeezing everyone and leaving nobody happy in the least), there can be nothing but upside or utter failure for Live Nation, because it's taking a bet-the-company risk by putting itself in a position where its success is going to be linked very closely with the success of the artists and the willingness of the fans to fork over their increasingly precious dough. I think you gotta admire Rapino for that, most execs in his position wouldn't dare even try to pull this off.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
New modes and forms of labels
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What are these artists thinking?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
my music
i just want the chance to jst prove my sklls..if you know anyone that would acctually want to lission to my music
than i will be more than greatfull
please email me back
THANK YOU
& BLESSINGS
TASHA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: my music
I saw your posting on Techdirt.com and I wanted to respond to your comment about becoming an Artist in the future. I'm not sure what type of music you are interested in singing, whether it be Gospel, R&B, Country etc... but I just wanted to encourage you to keep your dream alive and don't give up because anything is possible when you start with a strong foundation. I am the Vice President of Oasis Music, Inc. located in Columbus, OH. We are a christian independent record label and we would love to hear some of music. So with your parents approval you can send us some material to listen to. Our email addess is oasismusic@yahoo.com. Be Blessed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
need a promoter
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
mobile distribution is key
[ link to this | view in chronology ]