New Radio Payola scheme
p2pnet news view Music:- Does this sound like a great idea, or what?
Pay this radio station a bunch of money and it’ll play your tunes.
Remind you of anyone or anything?
And there’s even a special introductory price!
$30 for 1,000 plays, $50 for 2,000 and $100 for 5,000 plays!
Wow!
Apparently, “Jango.com is a Top 10 US music site where millions of people play and share their won custom radio stations tailored to their taste. To create their stations, Jango users type in a few artists that they like — and we play them a custom discovery mix of those artists and ’similar artists’ they’re likely to like.”
Millions, eh? Wow!
It’s a, “great way to get discovered,” says the site because, “not only will your song actually play thousands of times â it will play to people who like similar music to yours and explicitly want to discover new music. And if your song is popular, your Jango Airplay package is just the beginning of a strong and effective presence for you on Jango.”
Gosh jillikers!
And guess what !? – “If you`re interested in a bigger buy … a sales rep will be in touch soon to see how we can meet your needs on a larger scale.”
Gee!
Not only but also — “It’s the easy way to play the music you want online, legally and free. An internet radio service, Jango follows all restrictions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and pays royalties due to artists every time a song is played.”
How does it work?
After handing over your hard-earned cash, “You simply upload your MP3 and choose between 5 and 10 popular artists you think you sound like — and your song will play right after those artists in the personal stations of people who like those artists.”
Is Jango based in Nigeria, home of 419 arteests, perhaps?
Or are we being too harsh?
Anyhow, it’s in New York, NY, from the look of it.
March, 2009
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March 5th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Not sure why you see this as such a Bad Thing. It’s totally optional and a great service.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I’m not sure the reader’s write above might be old enough to remember the radio days of yore. Let me sort of expand on the olden radio days during the heyday of music.
You have a great new tune? Not affiliated with the major labels? Well, you could go to the DJ, ask him really nicely, and he was likely to put your tune on for radio land to hear. You as a listener got to hear new tunes that just might be exactly what your ear canals have always been yearning for. Beyond setting up getting it into a container for the radio station that it could use, that was about the only cost.
Then came along the likes of ClearChannel, who went on a buying spree of radio stations across the nation. When that wasn’t enough, ClearChannel got involved in politics and an even greater amount of radio stations were allowed for them to be bought. ClearChannel depended on payolla to keep the bucks rolling in along with commercials. For being paid by the major studios, they would see that the tune was played x amount of times. Radio DJ’s had their option of putting on whatever local talent might be taken away from them. They would only play what play lists, the head of scheduling laid out. Otherwise ClearChannel couldn’t rake in as much dough.
Later even DJs were removed from local radio stations and they became rebroadcast stations sucking in from a common program and just repeating the signal. Call one of those radio stations sometime with a local emergency you need to get on the air. Won’t happen because there is no one there to take the phone call.
Now you never hear new music on the stations, unless it is on the list from the majors as being groomed for the next top 40 hit. Every hour is the same tunes played over and over. You don’t get new music, unless it is on a syndicated show like a Sunday special program.
The other half of the income, the commercial, became so heavily laced into the programming, that it was like the music was the excuse to air commercials. ClearChannel was forced to reduce commercial air time because they were hemorrhaging listeners leaving for other ways to hear music. While they made a big deal of it and how it was to benefit the listener, the real truth of it was they had no choice in the matter as they were driving off their listeners through so much advertisement.
So we come down to another “service” trying to make money on something that should be for free. What most of these outfits do, is wait till they got a large audience or user group and then try and turn that into a money making scheme. I call you to FaceBook as a prime example of that mentality. Where this winds up if they are successful is they figure out new income streams that double dip, such as the commercial plus payolla scheme. It’s rather lucrative for everyone but the listener who is stuck with blah, day after day. The service starts out with a nice income and down the road gets greedy. That in turn ruins the experience for the audience and drives them on to other places, their once favorite place turned into some site they no longer recognize.
Because it is totally optional it tells me that they have a little scheme going. You pay us, we’ll advertise you, otherwise you don’t get any special recognition. In essence that is what these groups are buying. Despite what all commercial broadcasters, radio stations, newspapers, magazines and on and on tell you about ads being so desired to reduce costs, they are in truth a major annoyance. They are purposely cut out of tv series if you find them to download. People actively seek and find ways to terminate advertisements so they can enjoy what ever it is they want without that annoyance. They recognize just how bad it is. It’s the last thing the broadcasters want to see because it effects their income stream.
I’ve had it with the commercial. Ever since I quit watching tv, I have become sensitized to these intrusive breaks in programming. Call me a drop out but if it looks like advertisement, sounds like advertisement, and feels like advertisement, then it ain’t a duck.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Come on now – really? The poll over at Wired seems to think differently:
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/03/jango-incorpora.html
March 5th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
âNot sure why you see this as such a Bad Thing. Itâs totally optional and a great service.â
Iâll leave that up for laughs.
âCome on now – really? The poll over at Wired seems to think differentlyâ
What poll? Nine posts on Wired many (most?) of which a jaundiced person (me) might think look remarkably Jango-ish?
Come on now – really.
Eliot Van Buskirk: âBut isnât payola just plain wrong, in a philosophical sense? And wonât listeners freak out and quit using Jango in favor of interactive radio services that donât accept âpay for playâ?â
In defense of the program, CEO Dan Kaufman responded, âthe payola program helps Jango sift through new bands, and ⦠users have reacted positively to the bands theyâve encountered through the Airplay featureâ.
Stay tuned. And no more Jango shill or Mikey troll posts will be allowed on this story.
Cheers!
March 5th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
In Commercial broadcasting payola is Illegal plain and simple.The reason being is it’s supposed to give all artists a fair chance but in reality it’s the govenment pissed about losing tax revenue. I really had to laugh when the New York AG Elliot Spitzer made such a big deal about slapping Sony on the wrist for payola what a joke. A lot of great radio people went down because of payola Alan Freed the DJ that coined the phrase Rock and Roll died a penniless man at age 42 due to payola. Was it his on fault? sure it was but the point is I don’t think people will go for the payola thing on the net.I haven’t visited that site and probably won’t.The readers write above makes a good point about Payola and Clear Channel and that’s what puzzels me about the RIAA and Music First going after the commercial stations for a performance fee seems to me they both need each other but I guess the honeymoon between radio and records is over.
March 5th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Payola for airplay, newspaper stories, shelf space and industry awards are the scourge of music.
Because of payola the more talented musicians and songwriters are too many times no longer active, as they have given up.
I know this from my own experiences and the many great songwriters, musicians and singer that I have personally met. Most have been silenced by payola.
March 5th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
it’s like the concession stand at the movie theatre. if you are dumb enough to give them your money, then you don’t deserve to hold onto it yourself.
March 5th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
It’s the end of Jango and a rip off for indie artists … what it’s not is payola … which is under the table payment for air play on influential radio stations. Jango is not radio, it’s a non influential online streaming service that openly says it will play ‘anything’ 1000 times for $30.00. Nothing under the table there.
Problem for Jango is that they will play ‘anything’ for the fee… which means they will be placing a bunch of crap along side music people really want to hear… That’s tune out time … and the end of Jango.
Meanwhile indie artists will be out $30.00 without a chance of any of the 1000 plays – if they ever get that many – having any effect on their careers…
Dumb idea all around.
March 5th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
@ TonsoTunez
“what itâs not is payola”
When you have to bung money at someone to get them to do something, it’s payola, IMHO. But you’re right as the term is normally applied in the corporate music industry – ie, wherever and whenever the Big 4 are concerned.
“Meanwhile indie artists will be out $30.00 without a chance of any of the 1000 plays – if they ever get that many – having any effect on their careers⦔
And that’s the crux of it.
Cheers!
March 5th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Several really god-awful things about this:
1. “It’s totally optional”: suure, just like signing with the “major” labels is totally optional.
So if I shell over a few hundred bucks, Jango will insinuate my stuff into people’s playlists? Where the hell is the “choice” in that, I ask you? If the site is about creating custom playlists of stuff you like — and finding stuff that’s similar to stuff you already like, that’s one thing. But to pay jango to force my stuff on people surreptitiously? Nah. So all I have to do — if I’m a savvy busnesslike type, is to pick a whole bunch of semi-random things I think I sound like: “I sound like the Beatles, Mantovani orchestra, David Seville and the chipmunks, Eminem, and Billy Ray Cyrus”, and — voilla! — large numbers of people are suddenly exposed to my stuff, which has been inserted into “their” custom-generated playlists, simply on the basis of me paying a few hundred bucks, and saying I sound like their favorites?
Sorry, but I really can’t get into the idea of paying Jango to “pimp” my stuff in that way.
2. What happens to artists who haven’t paid Jango? What if I like “Zippy McWhipplefarb and his swingin’ Kazoo band”, but they haven’t bought time on Jango? Obviously — if Jango even bothers to have their stuff available — they’ll get bumped in favor of people who’ve paid Jango to plug their stuff.
The net result of this will be: “custom, user-generated playlists” which are inevitably skewed AWAY from what the listener would have chosen, and full of the stuff Jango WANTS you to hear. So the “custom playlists” won’t actually be playlists/stations of your own choosing, now will they?
Another result is that if acts didn’t pay Jango, their stuff gets tossed to the bottom — and you can bet that the “majors” will be throwing money at Jango like mad, just like they skew broadcast-radio playlists in their favor.
It’s stupid, overpriced, payola bullshit.
I dunno, but this just stinks of the same old “pay-for-hype” that made Milli Vanilli “stars.”
Something fundamentally wrong with the notion of “buying” popularity.
March 5th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
“… you can bet that the âmajorsâ will be throwing money at Jango like mad, just like they skew broadcast-radio playlists in their favor.”
The majors aren’t throwing money at Jango … Jango has to pay them to play their music via SoundExchange. Why would the labels care about Jango? Once unfiltered indie garbage from everyone who has $30.00 to throw away is intermingled with music most people want to hear, listeners are going to be jumping off of Jango like fleas off a dead dog… which Jango will soon be.
By the way, in addition to having to pay $30.00 to get your music played … Jango ISN’T going to pay the artists performance monies the major acts who are members of SoundExchange will be receiving.
Edited – JN
March 5th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Payola never went away in the first place. It was replaced with corporate playlists, which amounts to the same thing.
March 6th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Payola has also been replaced by ad-play. Labels pay for play under an advertising contract. Then the expense is deducted from the label’s profits as expense. That leads to lower taxes and reduced payments to artists.
If the money is paid through an advertising agent the money really disappears after it is split among the various schemers.
All nice and legal. Better than the old payola because the money was hard to hide in the accounting (as if anyone, artists or government looked at the accounting shenanigans going on, which, BTW is why the wall street collapsed while no one was looking).
March 6th, 2009 at 10:52 am
” Payola has also been replaced by ad-play. ”
It’s been like that for a long time.
The label pays for ad time, the station plays the RIAA label artists song in the
time slot as the ‘ad’. You can tell because they have to ‘announce’ the artist
in order for it to qualify as an ‘Ad’ ie ..” now for the latest song by -indentured RIAA servant- .
It was, ( and probably still is ) a slick way of getting around the Payola laws.
March 6th, 2009 at 11:51 am
As a representative of Jango – I chimed in on a second article that posted today stating:
First – full disclosure – While Iâm not an employee, I work with Jango, and itâs my name that appears on the bottom of the press release issued to announce the launch of Jango Airplay.
I read both todayâs and yesterdayâs articles with great interest – and while I can certainly respect the different point of view – Iâm struck by the assumptions and misinformation that appear throughout. But what I find most surprising is that at no time was Jango contacted for comment. The simple fact that information from the website was posted completely out of context and many assumptions were made without any regard for accuracy is pretty sad. Further to that – commentary from someone not affiliated with the service is posted as follow up -thereâs no debate here – whereâs the balance? Dan Kaufman, Jangoâs CEO is available, and would be most interested in speaking with you to address the potential issues and questions your articles raise. I encourage you to speak with him so your readers get a full picture and can decide for themselves. We look forward to hearing from you.
March 6th, 2009 at 11:56 am
” Jangoâs CEO is available, and would be most interested in speaking with you to address the potential issues and questions your articles raise. I encourage you to speak with him so your readers get a full picture and can decide for themselves. We look forward to hearing from you. ”
Have him pay us a visit here, where there is easy access to him for questions.
March 6th, 2009 at 11:58 am
@ Deana:
Please tell Dan heâs free, and welcome, to join in the discussion with a comment post outlining his perspective on either or both stories [the other is here http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18712 ] in full, and at any length.
Cheers!
March 6th, 2009 at 11:59 am
” First – full disclosure – While Iâm not an employee, I work with Jango, and itâs my name that appears on the bottom of the press release issued to announce the launch of Jango Airplay. ”
i’m guessing that you’re a publicist, or have something to do with public relations for
Jango.
If that’s the case, you’re a specialist and spin and misdirection.
As I said, if the CEO is available have him visit us here to answer questions.
Most of us do not want to generate any hits to the Jango site, which may generate
revenue for Jango which I am pretty sure wouldn’t go to any artists.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
“Anyhow, itâs in New York, NY, from the look of it.”
Radio payolla in NYC!! NoooOOooOOO! Say it ain’t so, Joe!
March 6th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
@ Jon:
Message relayed.
@ Dreddsnik:
I know PR people get a bad rap – and many of them deserve it – but in addition to being a publicist, I’m also a fan and I represent independent artists on my own label. I don’t believe in working on things I’m not passionate about, don’t personally believe in and wouldn’t suggest for the bands I work with. So with that in mind, I don’t consider what I do spin and take exception to being considered a “specialist in spin and misdirection.” I help my clients find forums, but I don’t believe in filters. I think this is a good debate and a good forum…my goal is just ensuring that my client has the best opportunity to respond. At the end of the day, there will be the facts, and there will be varying opinions, and you get to do with that whatever you want.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Hi, Dan Kaufman, CEO of Jango here… just a few notes on how Jango Airplay actually works and why we think this is a great way for emerging artists to get guaranteed plays to people who like their kind of music – and for users to discover emerging artists they would otherwise never have discovered.
- Guaranteed amount of plays.
Fred Wilhelms seems to think that when we receive an Airplay song, all we do is put it into our system as a “similar artist” and if it gets played it gets played. That’s not the case, we pro-actively play it the exact amount of times the emerging artist has paid for â along with a display ad encouraging our users to tell us what they think of this emerging artistâs song and to support the artist by becoming a fan, etc if they like it.
- Results reporting.
Fred seems to think there’s no insight into how the plays are delivered. That’s not the case – emerging artists can log in and see exactly how many plays they’ve had – and they can also decide in what time frame we should play them (1 week, 1 month, etc). When their plays are up, they receive a report with the full breakdown by age, gender and musical taste of the people that liked (and disliked) their
song. In addition, they can communicate directly with all the people that choose to become their fans on Jango.
- Exact artist targeting
We only play Airplay songs to people who like popular artists the artist has chosen. If he/she wants to be played next to Velvet Underground, we’ll only play the song to people who like Velvet Underground – and NOT next to “similar artists” to Velvet Underground as Fred is suggesting (ie no sandwiching in between Beach Boys and Rolling Stones), so the targeting is both precise and relevant.
- Size & targeting
Fred also seems to think that there will somehow not be enough opportunities to play an Airplay song, and that the plays will never be delivered. With six million monthly uniques and 400,000 visits to Jango every day, there’s a tremendous number of songs being played every day and plenty of opportunities to play an emerging artist, so Fred’s point that it will all be diluted and never delivered isn’t correct.
- Quality review
We review all songs to ensure that they are of certain quality, and that the “similar artists” chosen makes sense – ie no song will be played next to any randomly selected popular artists like both Billy Ray Cyrus and Chris Brown. And you’d be surprised at the artistic
quality of the songs we’re getting. Just because you’re not established doesn’t mean you’re bad – and artists serious enough about their career to spend money on promotion are generally much better than you’d think. The fact that our users have really liked the emerging artists we’ve played so far totally supports that.
- Listener control
First of all, our listeners want to discover new music. And with “Jango Airplay” we give them an opportunity to discover emerging artists they would never be able to find otherwise. Also, we only play an “airplay song” every 20 songs or so – and never more than once a day to any given user. And if they don’t like it, all they need to do is skip.
So far, our users have reacted very positively. On average, 10% of users give an airplay song positive ratings, write a comment or even become a fan of the artist!
- Royalties
We pay royalties for every song that’s played – Airplay or not â so any artist signed up with SoundExchange will get their cut of that.
I hope this clarifies. We’re convinced that Jango Airplay is good for emerging artists AND users. With our quality review, infrequency of airplay songs (compared to established artists) and listener control, this is a way to help independents get discovered and help users discover independents – for a music discovery service like Jango this is a MUCH better experience for everyone involved than the alternative – which is a 30 second audio ad for Lending Tree every other song.
Thanks,
Dan