Small Webcasters Forced To Shut Down Thanks To Royalty Increase

A number of issues seemed to have doomed thousands of small webcasters who use the Live365 platform, which closed down today. The webcasters include everything from one man niche programmers dedicated to new music discovery, to smaller radio stations like Smooth Jazz Chicago and Pulse 87 NY.

One of the main issues that caused the Live365 to close is the recent Copyright Royalty Board ruling to increase the royalty rates webcasters must pay to artists and songwriters.

In 2009 SoundExchange (which collects the royalties and then distributes them) negotiated a rate based upon the amount of revenue generated by a webcaster which helped the smallest webcasters stay on the air. A webcaster with no revenue could pay a flat rate to Live365, which then passed it on to SoundExchange.

That agreement terminated at the end of 2015 however, which now means that smaller webcasters are subject to the same per stream rates as major entities like iHeart Radio and Pandora. With a massive royalty commitment and little revenue to count on, most small webcasters can't afford to stay on the air, and even medium sized webcasters find that all their revenue will be eaten up.

The Live365 platform had additional issues, as it never turned a profit, and now with the new CRB ruling, faced a loss of much-needed investor backing.

This is actually a very complex issue, as there are multiple rates for commercial versus non-commercial webcasters. The fact is that many small webcasters were responsible for exposing new music while paying a very low royalty rate.

Musicians and songwriters now make marginally more, but to what end? If there are fewer outlets for your music, there seems like no winner in this decision, but many with a lot to lose.

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Philly Musicians May Have To Register With The Police To Play A Gig

A city councilman in Philadelphia isn't exactly showing much brotherly love to musicians, as he's introduced a bill that would require venues like bars, restaurants and clubs to collect the contact information from bands, rappers, DJs and other performers, then hand it over to the police.

“Giving performers’ information to police when requested enables them to review past performances to see if there were any public safety issues during their events,” Councilman Mark Squilla, the sponsor of the bill, told the website Billy Penn via email.

The bill is an amendment to the "Special Assembly Occupancies" section of the Philadelphia code that would grant the police department the ability to approve or revoke a license for gatherings or screenings of more than 50 people.

The bill also raises the license application fee from $100 a year to $500 every two years.

This is just another assault on bars and clubs that has been happening everywhere. Without these venues, not only will it be tougher for musicians to make a living (like it could get any harder), but also make it much more difficult for the next generation of performers to attain the stage time required to learn their craft.

Clubs have it tough enough these days just coping with rising rents and keeping the neighbors happy, but increased police scrutiny for some mystical issue that no one can figure out shouldn't be one of them.

There's a Change.org campaign to stop the bill. I encourage you to sign to help not only support Philly music, but music everywhere.

UPDATE: Councilman Squilla has withdrawn his bill after the public outcry, so score one for Philly musicians and all those who have supported them.

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Different Age Groups, Different Beatles Favorites

The Beatles music truly transcends generations, and it's even more apparent now that the Fab 4 have embraced streaming. What's interesting is that each generation has its favorite Beatles songs. Here's a list from Spotify Insights that shows the top 10 for each age group.

17 & Under

1. Here Comes The Sun
2. Let It Be
3. Hey Jude
4. Come Together
5. Twist And Shout
6. Yellow Submarine
7. Yesterday
8. I Want To Hold Your Hand
9. Love Me Do
10. Penny Lane

18-24

1. I Want To Hold Your Hand
2. Here Comes The Sun
3. Come Together
4. Penny Lane
5. You Never Give Me Your Money
6. With A Little Help From My Friends
7. Twist And Shout
8. Hey Jude
9. Let It Be
10. Yellow Submarine

25-29

1. I Want To Hold Your Hand
2. Penny Lane
3. You Never Give Me Your Money
4. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
5. Love Me Do
6. From Me To You
7. A Hard Day’s Night
8. Something
9. Can’t Buy Me Love
10. Get Back

30-34

1. She Loves You
2. Paperback Writer
3. Ticket To Ride
4. The Long And Winding Road
5. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
6. Hello, Goodbye
7. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
8. Day Tripper
9. Can’t Buy Me Love
10. Blackbird

35-44

1. We Can Work It Out
2. A Day In The Life
3. Ticket To Ride
4. The Long And Winding Road
5. She Loves You
6. Paperback Writer
7. Back In The U.S.S.R.
8. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
9. Please Please Me
10. Something

45-54

1. Back In The U.S.S.R.
2. We Can Work It Out
3. Ticket To Ride
4. A Day In The Life
5. Yesterday
6. Let It Be
7. Got To Get You Into My Life
8. I Feel Fine
9. She Loves You
10. Help!

55+

1. Rock And Roll Music
2. Back In The U.S.S.R.
3. Mean Mr Mustard
4. Nowhere Man
5. Drive My Car
6. Glass Onion
7. We Can Work It Out
8. Long, Long, Long
9. Do You Want To Know A Secret
10. A Day In The Life

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Spotify To Begin Streaming Videos

Spotify is introducing streaming video to its users, first on the Android platform and shortly followed by iOS. What's interesting is that the videos look to have more to do with advertising than music.

The company's various video partners include ESPN, Conde Nast, Comedy Central, BBC, NBC, Harper Collins and Vice Media, and the videos will all be short and curated at first, which sure sounds like commercials. In addition, Spotify will also launch podcasts from Radiolab, American Public Media and WNYC.

Adding video commercials is a way for the company to increase its advertising revenue while maintaining its current user base. Video adverts are acknowledged to be the most lucrative form on online advertising.

The videos will be rolled out only in the US, the UK, Germany and Sweden as part of the beta test.

Spotify admits that it doesn't quite know what to do with video yet (besides advertising), so the beta test will help identify usage and demand patterns.

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Finally, A Streaming Service At A Reasonable Price

The major record labels have been largely responsible for the $9.95 per month prices being charged by the streaming services, even though most industry experts see that as a barrier to entry, meaning that it's just too high. Ideally you want more people paying a monthly charge, even if the price is lower, since it will ultimately mean more revenue at the end of the day.

There's at least one new music service that's managed to keep the prices low though. The new Cur Music has two low priced tiers that break the $9.95 mold.

The first Cur tier is called "Octo" for $2.99 per month, and the higher priced "Inked" tier is $6.99 per month. Both tiers are ad-free, with the only difference being that Inked lets you listen offline.

Cur has a library of 10 million tracks, and emphasizes playlists and radio rather than on-demand streaming, so it's competition is more Pandora than Spotify. It also has an internal messaging system that lets users attach photos or videos to songs before sharing them.

There's a free trial that you can check out here.

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AM Radio May Soon Be A Thing Of The Past

For most of the last century, AM radio is where new music broke. It was local due to the limited range (depending upon the wattage of the station) and reflected the musical tastes of the area (not to mention open to local music) as a result. In fact, many of the most enduring hits and superstars were made when a small station in Maryland, or Pittsburgh, or Chicago, or Florida began playing a record that then slowly caught on with the rest of the country.

Sadly, the days of AM radio may be coming to a close.

One of the reasons is that electric cars like the Tesla Model X or BMW i3 don't install them since the AM reception is impossible due to the internal electrical noise of the car. That said, the demand for AM has been way down as almost everywhere in the country AM stations are almost always at the bottom of the Arbitron ratings. It's now the place for news, talk radio and sports, but not music. In fact, even sports is abandoning the band for FM.

In Europe, AM stations are being rapidly shut down on a national scale. Norway and Germany have discontinued all AM broadcasting, and even perennial heavyweights like Radio Luxembourg and Armed Forces Radio have shut down their AM signals.

In some cases, even FM may go dark as many countries opt for Digital Audio Broadcasting instead.

What you'll see in cars more and more is an internet connection which will enable you to connect to a much greater variety of online stations from around the world. In fact, the idea of "stations" may fall to history as well, since with no broadcast frequency to worry about (nor government issued wattage limits), only the URLs are necessary. Restrictions on what to play may be looser too.

While on the face of it this seems like an exciting idea, losing the local musical flavor of radio is a sad twist of fate that will ultimately be bad for musicians, artists and bands everywhere. The cultivation of local talent and the ability to give them that first break will be sorely missed.

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Adele Fastest To 1 Billion YouTube Views

While everyone has marveled at Adele's physical sales power, her online video views are nothing to sneeze at either. Her "Hello" video has now been crowned the fastest to 1 billion views (that's with a "b") ever, reaching the landmark in just 88 days.

Psy's "Gangham Style" was the previous leader at 159 days, followed by Wiz Kahlifa's "See You Again" at 186 days, and Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" at 238 days.

"Hello" has been an online video powerhouse ever since it was released, hitting a record-breaking 27.7 million views within the first 24 hours, then hitting 100 million just 5 days later. The video has added around 10 million views a day almost every day of November and December.

Only 14 artists have songs that have reached the billion view mark, and most have taken anywhere from 6 months to 5 years to do so. Taylor Swift is the only artist to have 2 songs at the billion view level, with the other song being "Shake It Off."

This just goes to prove that a million views (or a million of anything) just isn't that much in our new Music 4.0 world. A song only becomes a hit when it reaches 50 million (and a minor hit at that), and a real hit at a 100 million. It's only the superstars that hit that coveted 1 billion mark.

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Pollstar's Top 20 Club Venues

If you ever wondered what the best clubs to play were, Pollstar has that info for you. Here are the top 20 clubs in the world according to attendance in 2015.

1. 302,211- House Of Blues, Boston Boston, MA

2. 287,085 - Webster Hall, New York, NY

3. 286,530 - Terminal 5, New York, NY

4. 258,323 - 9:30 Club, Washington, DC

5. 215,169 - Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, BELGIUM

6. 190,317 - The Wilbur, Boston, MA

7. 187,330 - The Pageant, St. Louis, MO

8. 183,335 - First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN

9. 162,080 - Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY

10. 141,363 - Metropolis, Montreal, CANADA

11. 139,473 - Starland Ballroom, Sayreville, NJ

12. 137,293 - Arvest Bank Theatre At The Midland, Kansas City, MO

13. 136,830 - Ogden Theatre, Denver, CO

14. 136,662 - The Paramount, Huntington, NY

15. 135,850 - Roseland Theater, Portland, OR

16. 133,553 - The Joint @ Hard Rock Hotel / Casino, Las Vegas, NV

17. 130,641 - Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa, OK

18. 130,262 - McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR

19. 126,477 - Stubb’s Bar-B-Q, Austin, TX

20. 121,140 - Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV

Take notice that there are only 2 clubs in the top 20 that are outside the US, and that New York has the most clubs in the area with 5.

It's also interesting that the top clubs are fairly well spread out around the country, with venues in Missouri, Minnesota and Oklahoma being represented.

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Greacenote Automatically Sets Your Playback EQ

The "Internet of Things" has everything in our lives connected, and while that might make it OK for your toaster to talk to your refrigerator, there are some things that many music listeners consider sacred.

That's why there's some initial backlash over Gracenote's new Dynamic EQ, which automatically shapes the EQ in your car for each song that the app detects.

This is actually a complicated piece of technology that measures everything in a song from frequency bands, beat density, tempo and 170 other factors, then assigns an EQ profile to it. These profiles are assigned to "buckets," or groups of 10 to 100 prominent recordings within a genre to determine a target EQ profile, which is then fine-tuned per song.

Gracenote's in-car software operates as a layer above the app that plays the music, so the EQ can be applied to any song coming from any source, such as Spotify, Apple Music, etc.

While this interesting piece of technology might be cool on the face of it, I still prefer to set my own EQ. The last thing I want is it changing with each song. Then again, I'm not the average listener, so Dynamic EQ may indeed be a welcome part of the future of listening.

What do you think?

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Old Albums Now Outsell Current Ones

According to the latest Nielsen report on the music business of 2015, catalog albums (defined as any album more than 18 months old) outsold newly released albums, which is the first time that's ever happened. That's even despite the huge sales numbers of Adele's 25.

In 2015, catalog albums sold 122.8 million units, while new albums sold 118.5 million, a drop of more than 9% from the previous year. Adele amount for around 7.5 million of those 118.5 million, which means that the figures would have been really lopsided had she waited until this year to release 25.

This is actually disturbing in that it means that new music is much less marketable than music of the past, a fact that will have A&R execs cringing in their boots.

It is good news for labels in general though, as they make far more profit from catalog sales than from current releases, since there's no production or marketing expenses involved.

If you really think about it, this really means is that we need a new trend in music, and the sooner the better.

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Engineer Phil Rohr On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

I'm pleased to have engineer/producer/bass player Phil Rohr on my latest podcast. Phil specializes in recording both audiobooks and long distance (like from LA to Australia) film and TV ADR, a couple of jobs that few in the audio business are ever exposed to.

In the intro I'll discuss the passing of the legend David Bowie, and let you in on some of the amazing facts about the man and his recordings that I learned over the course of co-writing the Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust book with producer/engineer Ken Scott.

Remember that you can find the podcast at BobbyOInnerCircle.com, or either on iTunes, Stitcher and now on Mixcloud and Google Play.

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Apple To Charge For iTunes Radio

I you like listening to iTunes Radio, it's going to cost you soon. Apple just announced that as of January 28th, the service will become part of Apple Music and will no longer be free.

The upside to this is that it will also become commercial-free, even though it didn't run many commercials in its free form at only 1 per 30 minutes or so.

This makes sense for Apple for a couple of reasons. First, it consolidates almost all of its programming under one a single Apple Music banner. Secondly, since the platform is beginning to gain some traction with paid subscribers, why give it away for free if people are willing to pay?

Of course this might have been the plan all along, with a merge of the free and paid services 6 months or so after Apple Music's launch (iTunes Radio has been around for a couple of years).

And artists, bands, songwriters, labels and publishers will rejoice as another free service bits the dust.

All that being said, Beats 1, it's ambitious world-wide radio station, will still remain free of charge.

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