tanlith,
Just because someone insults your business by claiming it sounds like a scam is no excuse to fly off the handle with insults. That sort of behavior is childish and has no place in business.
The hell it doesn’t! In this Best Of All Industries you can spend your reputation
once - and any attack against it must be dealt with accordingly. Attack me or any of mine, as this board is rampant for doing, and you can expect fresh fire right out of the Main Gates of Hell without any water!
????
How so? By making a business proposition? One that could make you double your money back?
????
Your ‘business proposition’ was made in total ignorance of the actual cost! Do you really have TWO MILLION to cover your challenge? That’s the kind of investment required to
buy all the Billboard, R&R, Variety, etcetera, ‘charts’ with
bought and paid for so-called Main Stream airplay.
OK... without tossing insult grenades, can you explain to me the pint of spending all that money for a chart position? Or is there more to it than just a position? Does the position get you air time? You appear to be quite knowlegebable on the subject, please, by all means educate us. And I do not mean that in a sarcastic manor. This is info that I was not aware of...
OK, without grenades. The reputed point of spending all that money for a chart position is to FOOL ENOUGH OF THE PUBLIC, and ALL the Idiot Element, into thinking the act is really into something -
to sell concert tickets where the real money is in recorded music! The position will get additional air time from those puss-willy stations too broke to buy themselves into Main Stream. They attempt to look good to their very limited
advertisers by playing the ‘industry’ hits. They all lose their ass eventually, even when they change format constantly. The amount of additional air time a bought song will get in such cases would be far better spent if the broadcasters
would air local talent!
Most radio, like the current crop of Idiot Element, is too stupid to know there is no such thing as ‘an expert from afar’ or ‘greater talent from afar’, and that’s why they refuse to play local talent. Even those who can absolutely clean the clock of most bought-airtime acts! I spent my first 15 years in this crazy business in radio, and I can tell you on damned good authority - by and large the dumbest people in entertainment … make that “on the planet” are must-hire radio ‘experts’. Set aside the socialists on government payroll, and these boneheads are the epitome of programmed ignorance and applied stupidity.
It’s long winded, but let me give you an example. WWVA, (50,000 Watt) Wheeling, WV, had “The World’s Original Jamboree” on Saturday night for ages. They were the second string Cow Opera behind WSM’s Grand Ole Uproar, but a power in country music. At some point they managed to luck out and gain a girl MARY LOU TURNER. I cut her first tapes when she was about 13/14, as her father Tommy and I often played music together. Then the management at WWVA suddenly knew-so-much. They invented a record label “Jamboree USA” (as the show was called then) - produced and paid for a Mary Lou Turner single - manufactured a couple thousand copies and duly mailed them out.
And then REFUSED to air the damned thing on their own station ”BECAUSE IT WASN’T IN THE CHARTS!”
How STUPID can you get? Whatever that is, radio is one of the leaders of the stampede. Think about that. A record is SUPPOSED to get into the charts as a RESULT of airplay! But these damned fools refused to give THEIR OWN record and Artist airplay UNTIL there was “chart action”. I never cut the Idiot Element any slack, but THAT kind of stupidity sure gives me second thoughts on occasion.
OK again, I'm not trying to be insulting or start a verbal conforontation, but please explain exactly why someone would need the services of a broker??
Excellent question! Because there are NO promolibraries on the net! They can’t afford all the security required to prevent HACKING and other Idiot Element harassments. Can you imagine what a COUNTERFEITER would pay some hackass for a first generation copy of anything they knew was going to have a bundle of CASH invested in it?
To my knowledge, all EMS operations are on WIRE services, TELEX or something similar to Western Union. So, they all use the Main Accesses or Brokers who DO NOT have any direct access to their libraries. It’s too easy to trace a Major doing any counterfeiting, and the Brokers don’t have access to begin with. And, their clientele can be monitored without a lot of labor intensive nonsense.
Is there no way an artist can "upload" on his/her own? Or is this one of those things where the industry will only communicate with certain people with established reputations? (like promoters/producers etc)
I suppose anybody could, but the expense would be prohibitive for a single artist. It’s too damned expensive for MOST labels! Were our Main Access not doing a lot of traffic, we’d have to upload via the other Majors. We do sometimes anyway, depending on the line traffic at the time, as they do with us. Nothing exceptional, just business
colleagues doing business with business
colleagues.
Sounds pretty average... I assume that because they didn't buy their airtime they were at the mercy of the fickle fans then?
Probably. That’s my guess. But we can NEVER discount the factor of jackass management! I’ve seen a lot of projects
and some General Licensers go down the tubes via jackass! The current mess at Warner, Sony, Disney, EMI and Vivendi are prime examples of jackass management. As was the sellout-buyout of Polygram a few years back. Seagrams woke up and got the hell out as soon as they could unload their MCA/Universal disaster.
Kinda sucks for some of the real good talent out there... I guess that's why the Indie movement seems to be growing then.
It
does suck! But the Indie Movement sucks every bit as much! 99.99% of the Indies are doing the same stupid things that haven’t worked since day one! The Idiot Element, artist, songwriter, producer, studio, label, publisher, manager, agent or investor that WILL NOT wake up to the REALITIES of this Best Of All Industries is destined to lose their ass, just like the Super Five mentioned above. Sound business principals would eliminate all such nonsense, but the Indies will be the last on board that train.
So basicly buying airtime is nothing more than buying advertising space?
Correct. And there’s nothing wrong with that in itself. But any attempt to make it look like some mysterious public ‘demand’ is outright
fraudulent and should be dealt with as such.
Color coding the chart is a good idea, but if Atlantic is the only chart doing that then what's the point? (again... not meant as an insult, but merely an inquiry). How does one get a real accurate demographic of who's being played on pure talent versus who's being played on paid time? And doesn't color coding the chart for bought time kind of do a disservice to those who paid for the time... anyone who understands the color codes would likely lean towards listening to/buying albums from those who are there on pure talent. (Of course that may just be me)
Well, SOMEBODY ought to make the revelation! Don’t you think? As for what good is Atlantic’s efforts, their internet, business nets and TELEX has a HUGE amount of traffic between them. Those in the know (as opposed to the Idiot Element who are always in the NOT-know) can assess the marketability of any given product against any other with the application of some Industry Industrial Intelligence and a bit of COMMON SENSE! If one of those products were yours, and you wanted to compare with any other act, you could do it. And if you’re going to spend a ton of money you'd damned well better do something of that nature
or be prepared to lose your hindmost! That’s why we market test everything, constantly. We never stop regardless of the success of the product. Failures we don’t’ continue to beat … we find out what the hell is wrong and correct it … then go back to market testing again.
Disservice to those who paid for the airtime? I don’t think so. Knowing a product is bought doesn’t prevent people from liking it. Palming it off as a “public demand hit’ damned sure pisses people. And it should!
And it’s not just you. It includes me too. (Now THAT ought to start a firestorm from the Idiot Element!
But such is the Idiot Element.
Could you please quit with the insults already?
WHAT? And deny Clive Davis his due for inventing the title? The biggest problem in this entire Industry is the Idiot Element! They
never fail to start spewing at anything that points out their life-long stupidity; they
never come up with anything original in their defamations; and they
never learn.
I sense a lot of sarcasm throughout that post... why so hostile?
Something about the Idiot Element just pisses me off … …
In closing,
THANK YOU for some sensible questions!
TDA
But hey, if you want to be taken for your whole recording budget with nothing to show except for maybe a complimentary KKK hat from Mr. Farrell, then that's your deal.
