Echoes of Prince’s free CD
p2pnet news view | music:- The decision by Prince to allow England’s Mail on Sunday to give away free copies of his Planet Earth CD is echoing far and wide – even as far as the LA Times.
“The bug at the bottom of the Calendar front in today’s Los Angeles Times says columnist Patrick Goldstein is on assignment,” says Kevin Roderick on LAO Observed, an “official Journal of Los Angeles media, news and sense of place”.
But, “Not true,” he goes on:
“The Big Picture column for Tuesday was killed, apparently by associate editor John Montorio. Goldstein’s offense was to propose that the Times follow the lead of the U.K.’s Mail on Sunday (which distributed 2.9 million free Prince CDs) and partner with older artists to give away music in the paper. He argued it could help make the Times website a destination for fans and reduce the need for front page ads (which the editor of the Times himself calls a huge mistake.) Seems reasonable enough for a column, and Goldstein was on the Spring Street Committee that was tasked with coming up with innovative ideas …..”
Here, Roderick includes a clip which says, “It’s time we embraced change instead of always worrying if some brash new idea – like giving away music – would tarnish our sober minded image.”
He adds, “Still, the piece was spiked on high after sailing through the desk. The banned column fell into our hands and runs in full after the jump: How would you like to pick up this newspaper one day and get a free CD or an MP3 file of new music from one of your favorite musicians?”
A free MP3? Oh !!! The Horror !!!
[Note: a couple of days ago p2pnet launched a new section featuring indie artists and their free MP3s 
]
From Goldstein’s story, as per LAO Observed:
… the real winner was Prince. In an era where record sales are plummeting, Prince got his new music into the hands of millions of fans while pocketing a reported $500,000 payment from the paper. Most record store owners in England have protested by refusing to carry the artist’s new CD while his record company, Sony, has suspended its release in England. But Prince, who seems to have as much brilliance as an entrepreneur as an artist, is laughing all the way to the bank.
And >>>>
Newspapers, as you may have heard, are in deep doo-doo. While the Times still is a profitable business, our revenue was down 10% in the second quarter while our cash flow was down, as our publisher put it the other day, a “whopping 27%, making it one of the worst quarters ever experienced.” Times are so hard at the Times that the publisher has proposed putting ads on the front page to generate new revenue.
So far we’ve made little headway developing imaginative strategies to bring back lost readers – or compete for younger readers who get their information from the Internet. The record business has been just as slow to provide fans online with new, convenient ways to hear music – the only visionary idea, Steve Jobs’ iTunes store, came from outside the business. Unless you are a mainstream pop artist, it’s hard to see how the old-fashioned record company model benefits your career anymore. If you’re a respected older performer – known in industry parlance as a heritage artist – your biggest challenge is finding a way to get your music heard.
And >>>
If you haven’t noticed, music has a powerful mojo for advertisers. TV commercials have used pop songs to sell product for years. Lexus currently has a series of TV ads featuring Costello and John Legend seated in a Lexus, simply talking about their favorite music (Elvis sings the praises of Beethoven). But what they’re really selling is coolness by association. The same association could apply to us via a giveaway series. It would encourage readers to see the paper in a new light, as not just a news-gathering organization but a cultural engine. If we surrounded the music with news, reviews and features from our staff, it could also expose new visitors to our formidable music critics and reporters.
Could this really work? For a reality check, I called Jim Guerinot, an industry free-thinker who manages Nine Inch Nails, Gwen Stefani and Social Distortion. “Are you kidding – that’s a great idea,” he says. “There are tons of these Hall-of-Fame quality heritage artists who don’t sell records anymore. It would be a real coup for them to reach their target demo through the newspaper and have the cachet of being an artist of the week or month.”
And >>>
Newspapers don’t just need new readers, we need new ways to serve them. So why shouldn’t we use one of our core strengths – our entertainment coverage – as a way to transform our web site’s pop music page into a place where you wouldn’t just find us writing about music, but find the music itself? It not only makes the paper feel more relevant, but it would create a new income stream that might be less intrusive than putting ads on the front page.
And >>>
Giving music away doesn’t mean it has lost its value, just that its value is no longer moored to the price of a CD. Like it or not, the CD is dying, as is the culture of newsprint. People want their music – and their news – in new ways. It’s time we embraced change instead of always worrying if some brash new idea – like giving away music – would tarnish our sober minded image. When businesses are faced with radical change, they are usually forced to ask – is it a threat or an opportunity? Guess which choice is the right answer.
Definitely stay tuned.
Also See:
free copies – Prince’s Planet Earth CD: FREE!, June 29, 2007
LAO Observed – Goldstein’s killed column, July 24, 2007
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July 25th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Goldstein in right and the cat is out of the bag. It might not be the LA Times but I predict that very soon we will see a major daily (NY Post?) give away CDs with the paper.
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http://ad-supported-music.blogspot.com/