Why MTV's New Music Meter Matters

Here's a new article by our friend Jeff Pollack from Pollack Media for Huffington Post:

"It's time for music discovery platforms to catch up with their users. There are plenty of services out there that will collect lists of new artists or provide the user a group of artists that sound similar to one the user has entered. While these sites are useful and were amazing when they first launched, the increased ease accessibility of all things, especially media, on the Internet, is rapidly dating these sites. Today, the average music fan has come to expect a product that is nearly infinite in catalog and provides them with a unique experience which, at the same time, is clean, organized, and intuitive. As MTV prepares to launch its new Music Meter, they seem to have this modern fan in mind and have developed a platform that makes discovering new music and artists a much more active and user-controlled experience.

Before the Internet, on-demand services, and iPods gave all of us musical ADD, MTV was where music fans would go to watch their favorite clips and discover new ones (full disclosure, they are a long time client). With the new Music Meter, which MTV describes as "a quick and easy way to discover new music - a daily list of lesser known artists that music fans are listening to, talking about and sharing across the internet and the real world ", it seems that the network has once again tapped in to how the next generation wants to experience their favorite music and be exposed to what's new and what's next.

The Music Meter has a two-fold appeal: it ranks the 100 most buzzed about new artists (on and offline) and provides a music recommendation service. (...)

This is on-demand music discovery. It's interactive, user-controlled, and can last a few minutes or hours. Pretty cool. (...)"

This is just an excerpt. Please find the whole article here.

Photo courtesy of MTV Networks

Apple kills the Radio App – folgt Facebook?

Das App-Verbot von Apple kann im wahrsten Sinne zur Killer-Application von Radio werden. Zumindest verdeutlicht es zwei Punkte:

1) Das Image von Radio in der New Media Welt ist nicht besonders gut.
Wenn Apple Radioprogramme als ‚Spam‘ bezeichnet, ist das ein Imageschaden von unbeschreiblichem Ausmaß.

2) Bleibt Apple bei seiner Entscheidung, verliert Radio darüber hinaus seinen wichtigsten Touch Point zu den Meinungsführern an den iPhones.

Es geht primär um das Image einer ganzen Branche, die nicht verstehen will, dass sich mit einem schlechten Gattungsimage in Zukunft unter Umständen weniger Geld verdienen lässt als mit einem noch nicht ganz klaren Geschäftsmodell.

Umso wichtiger ist es deshalb, dass Radiosender beim Thema Social Media kurzfristig mehr Gas geben.

Facebook zum Beispiel bietet Radiosendern die einmalige Chance, die Kundenkommunikation zu verbessern und Glaubwürdigkeit bei Hörern und Werbern aufzubauen.

Ein Radiosender, der Facebook nicht als Verkaufskanal versteht, sondern als Quelle für Co-Creation mit den Hörern sowie als Touch Point mit Meinungsführern, schlägt drei Fliegen mit einer Klappe:

1) Hörergetriebener Content (überraschend, kreativ, glaubwürdig, hörernah, günstig)

2) Innovatives Branding

3) Marktforschung mit Fans (Feedback vom Hörer zum Programm)

Keep Going!!!

Happy Birthday, Totalni FM!

In this case we really mean "birthday" because last Wednesday morning, a new nationwide radio station network in Croatia started going on air.

Its name is Totalni FM.

Here’s a video the team made to capture the starting moments. Enjoy watching and listening!

Großer Frequenzenwechsel in Berlin steht bevor

4 Sender tauschen in Berlin ab 1. Dezember 2010 ihre Frequenzen.

Außerdem kommt wohl oldiestar auf der bisherigen Frequenz von Radio Paradiso neu hinzu im Berliner Radiomarkt, wozu jedoch eine endgültige gerichtliche Entscheidung noch aussteht.

Hier die Übersicht der alten und neuen Frequenzen in der Hauptstadt:



Quelle: radioWOCHE

Interview mit Stephan Schmitter

promedia - Das medienpolitische Magazin führte kürzlich ein Interview mit Radio Center Berlin Geschäftsführer Stephan Schmitter. Die wichtigsten Aussagen werden so zusammengefasst:

"Das analoge Radio funktioniert auf der einen Seite nach wie vor sehr gut, weil jeder problemlos seinen regionalen Lieblingssender und seine gewohnte Marke hören kann. Auf der anderen Seite sind wir längst in der Zukunft angekommen und bespielen alle digitalen Verbreitungswege, die aus unserer Sicht sinnvoll und bezahlbar sind", so der Geschäftsführer der beiden Berliner Radiosender 104.6 RTL und 105'5 Spreeradio. Diese Meinung verdeutlicht die Position der meisten privaten Radiosender. Während Regiocast weiter für eine nationale DAB-Verbreitung eintritt und sich auch für eine Frequenz beworben hat, lehnt die RTL-Radiogruppe DAB als Alternative zu UKW ab. "DAB oder DABplus ist für einen privaten Radioanbieter in der jetzigen Form nicht finanzierbar", so Schmitter.

Zugleich betont der RTL-Radiomann, dass die Nutzung der Radioangebote Online und über Apps deutlich zunimmt: "Unsere Apps werden momentan 10.000-fach heruntergeladen und landen regelmäßig in den Top Ten-Listen des App-Stores." Inzwischen seien mit den Apps auch Erlöse zu generieren. „Es ist ein Geschäftsmodell, das von Monat zu Monat, von Jahr zu Jahr besser wird. Das ist aus unserer Sicht vielversprechender als DAB."

New UK webradio player will include public & private stations

A new online player for both public (BBC) and private radio stations from the United Kingdom was presented in England yesterday.

This is what British newspaper The Guardian writes about the project:

'iPlayer for radio' set for December launch
Radio streaming application containing content from BBC and commercial stations unveiled at Radio Festival in Salford

A BBC-backed radio streaming application with the potential to allow users access to audio content from more than 400 stations nationwide is to launch in December.

The first working version of the UK Radioplayer project – dubbed 'the iPlayer for radio' – was unveiled at the annual Radio Festival in Salford yesterday.

Content from about 50 radio stations, both BBC and commercial, will be available when the site goes live in December, with 150 more on board at the time of full commercial launch in February 2011.

Click here to read the whole article.

No, new music doesn't suck

Please enjoy this excellent article written for the Huffington Post by our partner Jeff Pollack in Los Angeles:

"I have been struck by the number of comments to some of my recent blogs about the continued deterioration of the traditional music business, that the main culprit (other than the greed of the labels) is the low quality of new music today. But it's simply not the case. This tired argument has been used by each succeeding generation after they pass through their primary music discovery years. Somehow, the music from the era they grew up in represented a special window of innovation and quality that will never be duplicated.

In the past 50 years, it's certainly true that there have been a handful of bands and artists whose originality, lyrics, and musicianship have provided us with timeless music that resonates with a wide range of ages. And among those artists, there are a small number of remarkable gems - what I like to call "100-Year Artists"- who like Gershwin, will be listened to forever. But these are few and far between, historical aberrations that emanated from the real world of contemporary music and transcended any era. We talk about Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd still today because they were Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, not because they existed in the past.

It's easy to forget that the majority of music of every era and every genre was disposable. We forget that The Beatles flourished at the same time as Freddie and the Dreamers and Herman Hermits. Joplin and The Doors were released around the time of the Monkees and Tommy James. So many of the guilty pleasures of the 80's, like the Buggles and Flock of Seagulls, had little to do with real quality but were of a time, place, and mood. In each era, a few bands are truly great, but mostly the old disposable music is replaced by equally forgettable songs... no different than what is being produced by Idol today."

To read the whole article, please click here.

Is the U.S. Music Download Boom over?

The latest report of Nielsen Music reveals that music downloads in the USA are at a turning point.

While music downloads in Germany are still going up - by 19% in the first half of the year, the numbers in the U.S. haven’t grown in the same period. It seems that the U.S. market for music downloads is saturated.

As the United States market is regarded as a predicting market for Europe, losing dynamics there is already making the music industry here in Europe nervous.

Nielsen General Manager Jean Littolff is looking for explanations: “As soon as the traditional music buyers have completed to transfer their CDs to MP3 the download potential for ‘old music’ will go down rapidly.”

There might also be other reasons to consider, says music consultant Christoph Pöschl (CEO Brand Support):
“After people have downloaded all the songs from their lives' soundtracks, it is really hard for them to find new songs and 'new old songs' that sound like the favorites they used to love in the past. Therefore recommendation management connected with people’s personal sound preference will become more important in the future in order to motivate people to listen to and buy new
'old music' and new music that sounds familiar.”

New Study: 6 Types of Social Media Users

Social Media is THE hot topic in all media discussions at the moment. We at Brand Support know this from discussing the possibilities social media platforms offer with our clients. Now a new global study called “MePublic” and presented by MTV Networks and car manufacturer Volkswagen gives you an idea who uses social media and to what extent. For the study, young people (14-29-year-olds) in 10 countries (Mexico, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy) were asked how they use social networks.

The study identifies 6 different types of users:

The “Mediacs” are the largest group with 23%. They are very much committed to social networks and spend more than 160 minutes there every day. More than a quarter of Mediacs (28%) access the communities via mobile phones.

The “Tagtics” (22%) tend to use the platforms to get specific pieces of information. They are not as committed as the Mediacs.

The third largest group (17%) can already be referred to as skeptics: “Skipits” keep their distance from social networks. They have a hard time recognizing the point of such communities. It must be added that they also use other media less.

“Funatics” are mainly looking for entertainment in social networks and prefer to observe what the others are doing instead of becoming active themselves. Two thirds of Funatics are female.

“Crewsers” (13%) see social networks mainly as a place for exchange with friends.

Almost as big as the Crewsers group is the group of those who do not want to use social networks or tried it once and then quit: the “Nobuddies” (12%). As their reasons for quitting they named having no time, being afraid of becoming addicted or being harassed by others. A quarter of "Nobuddies" does not want to join the networks because of data protection concerns.

It should be noted that social networks are only used daily by a little more than half of all 14-29-year-olds (58%). In the study, television is in first place with 69% daily use.

As radio people we certainly have to add that in reality our “good old radio” is in the lead, which is still used by approx. 80% of the total population and by more than 70% of 14-29-year-olds every day.

Sources: wuv (German), Volkswagen press release (English)

Broadcast Symposium 2010

The continuation of a tradition: bci & Foster Kent Broadcast Symposium on November 13 in Nürnberg!

bci and Foster Kent, the music production company from Salzburg (Austria) are starting the ‚autumn sound campaign‘ on the radio: Meeting point for an intense, creative and future-oriented exchange at the „Broadcast Symposium“ is November 13 in Nürnberg (Germany). With this event the bci Group and Foster Kent are continuing an established tradition.

The focus will be on new trends from the areas of ‘Acoustic CI’, ‘On Air Marketing’ and ‘New Media’. The Broadcast Symposium is specially tailored for the medium radio and the choice of all topics is based on the daily business at a radio station.

The event is addressed at all station managers, program directors and managers as well as heads of design.

The one-day symposium will create the right atmosphere for an intense exchange and discussions with speakers and colleagues. This event gives you the opportunity to get to know methods, techniques and tips and tricks of other ‘radio people’.

Don’t miss Jochen Lukas’ workshop “Data meets Creativity – Defining your perfect (music) positioning with research”. We hope to see you there!

Interesting Article on Local Radio

We found this in our friend Nik Goodman's blog and would like to share it with you.

You can find more radio related articles in his blog at http://nikgoodman.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

The Real Reason for the Repetition Problem in Radio

Check that out!

Axis Of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song (with song titles)

New Radio Expres Campaign

Radio Expres is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year - congratulations!

The slogan of their new campaign "Už 10 rokov vo svojom živle" means "Already for 10 years in your mood".



Along with the campaign comes a cute little video game where you can feed the fish.

RadioAsia 2010 in New Delhi – a unique experience!

by Jochen Lukas

After having been held in Singapore for several years, RadioAsia, the main radio convention in the Asian region, moved to New Delhi (India) this year. As in previous years the broadcast partner (Brand Support & bci) were co-sponsor of the event and also participated in the convention with a workshop (’10 Great Elements of Great FM Radio’) and a speech (‘How we became Top of the Market’).

What makes this conference so fascinating is that completely different worlds meet in one place. Radio professionals from highly developed radio markets like Malaysia (currently preparing to go digital) or Japan meet with ‘radio freaks’ from countries that are still in their very early stages of development – such as Pakistan or Indonesia.

A special focus this year was on radio in India. It is a fascinating market, serving one of the largest nations in the world – with currently around 270 stations all over India. At the moment India is preparing for the so-called ‘phase III roll-out’. This should result in the ‘birth’ of another 800 (!) radio stations and the digitalization in 2012 (although 2015 seems to be more realistic). Looking at the way they lay their cables, anything else will be an improvement!
The strongest station network is still the ‘public’ All India Radio (AIR) (with its many different channels), which is also the only station network allowed to broadcast news and services. Until now private radio stations in India must focus on ‘music and entertainment only’. But this is currently under discussion and very likely to change in the upcoming years. At the moment it seems that in a first step private radios will be allowed to broadcast news and information provided by AIR.

Private radio stations are rapidly growing – with Radio Mirchi, a station network, being the strongest private radio brand. Most private stations play very similar formats, primarily based on the highly popular Bollywood music and only very few ‘international hits’. A number of other formats do exist, e.g. Meow FM, a station ‘just for women’, but their market success is limited (similar to ‘niche formats’ in Europe). (Pictured: Wolfram Tech of bci & Nitin Gupta of Meow FM)

Besides the conference, Delhi itself with its estimated 20 million inhabitants is an amazing experience. Loud, smoggy and crazy, with great food and tuk-tuk drivers that always take you to the same ‘buy a carpet or a Pashmina shawl’ people, no matter which address you give them :-) If you don’t drive a hard bargain from the beginning, they will always rip you off. And forget about ‘western sales seminars’ – you’ll never learn more than from the experience of an Indian carpet salesman bargaining with you for more than an hour over the price of a carpet, telling you the most entertaining and incredible stories while doing so.

India, we will definitely come back and long to see more of your madness!

Radio FM1 increases market share by 25%

According to the latest official ratings in Switzerland, our client Radio FM1 from the St. Gallen area was able to increase its market share by 25% in the second half of 2009 compared to the first semester.

The number of daily listeners rose slightly again to 180,000, while the daily TSL went up to the excellent figure of 55 minutes. That resulted in the above-mentioned increase in market share both in German-speaking Switzerland and in the Radio FM1 coverage area.

Radio FM1 was launched in May 2008 as a merger of Radio Aktuell from St. Gallen and Radio Ri from Buchs. The teams of Brand Support and bci helped FM1 before, during and after the merging process with image and music research studies and programme consulting.