When it comes to promoting new music, pay-for-play schemes are generally frowned upon. The practice, which involves music labels or artists paying radio stations to play their songs in heavy rotation, dates back to the beginnings of terrestrial radio. It got so bad in the 1950s that Congress had to intervene, but it keeps rearing its head in new forms.
Now, pay-for-play has hit online radio. Jango, a music streaming service which claims 6 million monthly listeners, is selling paid placement to labels and artists through a program it launched last week called Jango Airplay. For as little as $30, a band can buy 1,000 plays on Jango. Each song has links to buy the song at Amazon or iTunes.
Given the scandalous history of pay-for-play on terrestrial radio, it is not surprising that people are skeptical about whether it is a good idea to bring it to the Web. Matt Rosoff at Cnet sums it up:
This tarnishes the entire service with a distinct air of “suck”.
Rosoff is under the impression that good artists don’t need to pay for promotion. I am not so sure. Bands don’t break out without some sort of promotion, whether that is paid for by their labels, or earned through new kinds of algorithmic and social promotion we are seeing with online music services from Pandora and MySpace Music to iLike to imeem.
If we accept paid placement in our search results, why should online music be any different? The real question is relevance. Either the paid promotions will make Jango a better listening experience and the experiment will pay off, or it will make it suck and alienate its listeners.
Unlike pay-for-play on regular radio, where the same songs are broadcast indiscriminately to every single listener, Jango’s Airplay songs are targeted to specific stations. The artists themselves choose what other kind of music they want to be played next to, just as an advertiser on Google chooses what keywords should trigger his advertisement. A heavy metal band might be better off buying plays on a Metallica station than on a Bob Dylan station. The whole point is to find listeners who are more likely to become fans.
In addition to being more targeted, Jango offers a feedback loop which does not exists on regular radio. Listeners can block songs from ever playing again, or they can give them a positive rating. Any Airplay song which garners 50 positive ratings gets pushed into regular rotation free of charge. In fact, a drop-down window encourages listeners to rate each Airplay song. My only problem with how this works is that the drop-down box characterizes the song as belonging to an “emerging artist” rather than clearly labeling it as an ad (see here).
It is an ad, and it should be clearly marked as such. I am okay with this sort of promotion as long as t is targeted to my listening preferences. The way Jango has it working now, any given listener will hear an AirPlay song no more than once every two hours, and no listener will hear the same Airplay song more than once a day. That is certainly better than listening to the same blaring commercial for auto insurance every 20 minutes.
But Jango needs to make its promotion algorithm a little more sophisticated. Even before promoting songs with 50 positive ratings to regular rotation, Airplay songs that get rated highly should get played more often, or be cheaper to promote. Just as paid search ads that get clicked on more often are cheaper to the advertiser because they are more relevant, songs which resonate more with their targeted audience should get more promoted plays.
Designed correctly, there is a place for paid promotion in music, despite what the purists might think.
Great article and analysis. Thanks.
Whew, another pay for play? Thanks for the info anyways.
This isn’t so much a big deal as is payola on traditional radio stations. Because you can ignore the songs on this service it makes it fine. But when you have one or two people dictating what song comes up next on a terrestrial radio station in which payola has occurred and they’re dictating what you listen to – outside of touching the dial – that’s the issue.
I think this is a brilliant idea from Jango is administered correctly. We have to be careful not to flood radio with paid slots and ensure that this is about music discovery. I’ll try the service as soon as I get the opportunity and have raved about the service on my own blog. Well done Jango. Why didn’t I think of this first? http://eleetmusic.com/?p=340
“If we accept paid placement in our search results, why should online music be any different?”
Most users don’t want or accept paid placement in their search results, which is why Google doesn’t do that (Baidu does, and Yahoo still does pay-for-inclusion). Users do accept ads in their search results when they’re clearly disclosed as such.
If Jango calls the paid play “emerging artists” and doesn’t clearly disclose the paid relationship, then I’d agree with Matt Rosoff about that tarnishing Jango’s service.
Oh come on. You’re not SRSLY asking anyone to believe that are you?
It’s widely known that plenty of people can’t distinguish the little blue results on the right from the ones in the center. Or the ones on top. They’re all “results” that look kinda the same.
As far as users are concerned, ads running alongside search or above search are “included in search”, despite what carefully positioned gray text demurely mumbles.
Great move by Jango, A great monetization strategy and hopefully a great success.
TechFilipino
Erick, good article and… bad English = If you want to differentiate “regular” radio from “satellite” radio, say so, they are both *terrestrial* –which means:
“pertaining to, consisting of, or representing the earth as distinct from other planets.”
Now, if you are really referring to stations from other planets, let us know! I suspect that Google is somehow involved…
Well, there was a station on Pluto, but they lost their license.
I can pick up another station about thirty light years away, but they only play disco.
I was trying to distinguish regular radio from online radio (ie. music streaming services). I’d lump satellite radio in with regular broadcast tower radio, and I guess technically all three are terrestrial. But terrestrial is also industry jargon for broadcast radio via towers placed on the earth (as opposed to satellites in space).
“Congress had to intervene”. Yep, Congress was forced – forced! – to intervene on our behalfs and make radio safe again. Bless them!
Frankly $30 CPM or $.03 per song, is a horrible use of 4 minutes of the listeners time, UNLESS the song is something the listener would want to hear anyway.
If the song isn’t worth listening to, it’d be better to split to run say 6 :15 ads at a $5 CPM.
Altho, I do love the idea that some music is so bad, the band has to pay me to listen to it.
Payola has never went anywhere, it still happens for every act you hear and see on radio and TV, TC stop playing the “babe lost in the woods” routine.
I guess because you guys stay mostly in silicon valley your not hip on how the entertainment business works.
Jango, kudos for being smart and it’s nothing the FCC or anyone else can do about it.
Intresting article well “payola” as it is called is still going on in the Radio One arena to this day Radio stations’ Progarm directors will take a pay or advertising dollars for placement of a record for artists, so the internet is no different , What makes you a credible artist? Radio plays? BDS spins? No!!! it comes down to having the fan base willing to buy your record, and appreciate the quality and hard work put into that record, $$$$ signs is all a label sees unless you are a new or you fell off the radar and want your name to blow up again, it’s very sad to see talent go down the drain because labels are willing to pay for respect and noteriety rather than earn it truthfully, but that is the nature of the beast in this music/entertainment world you have to pay what you weigh or have some strong relationships in the industry. Do I need to say more?
yes. it’s a bad thing!
I think its great to see these kind of experiments.. the evolution of this market place needs more mutants.. and as long as it’s not the dominant thing.. who cares if you don’t like it.. just don’t listen, right?
As an artist there’s lots of modes to trying to get word out.. and not all of them cost money.. blogging, podcasting, tweeting, youtub-ing, community building.. putting together a press kit and pitching, influencer outreach.. its all more time and energy then money.. I mean welcome to social media marketing and communications, right?
So I don’t know that we artists NEED to pay for promotions but.. but more options is always good.
I frankly think that… well lets say I have a track I want you to hear.. you’re time and attention are limited commodities.. so I mean.. the notion of paying someone to check you out isn’t such a terrible thing to me.. though that’s different from paying a virtual radio station.. and the payment need not be, strictly speaking, economic..
As an artist in social media.. I want the community / consumer / audience / user experience to be the best it possibly can.. and I don’t really want to pay for promotion / advertising where.. it somehow takes away from that.. where a part of what you associate my brand with then becomes the crap you’re forced to digest to get to get whatever it is you want.
But I also thing that super highly targeted advertisement can actually be content.
So in the end I figure.. the verdict is still out.. and I think its more a question of how its done then if its done.
certainly not the first online service doing this… just the only one that divulged its business model
“The way Jango has it working now, any given listener will hear an AirPlay song no more than once every two hours, and no listener will hear the same Airplay song more than once a day.”
The problem with such systems is scalability… the amount of Airplays that Jango can offer is inherently limited by it’s userbase… (the amount of certain airplays possible per day is equal to the amount of daily users and the total airplays that jango can deliver per day is equal to daily users times 12). Sure it isn’t a problem today, but what if the popularity of this pay for play eventually reaches the limit and outpaces new user growth?
Something to think about.
I pray the success of this pay-per-play when Jango repair there ads code as what this post said,More click means less rate,without it,I agree that Jango is Just ordinary ads that is just “learning to Monetize and yet deserve to be called “advertising Unique business model”
Also:
http://www.thed...-explores-p.php
This concept is nothing new. Last.FM has been running a similar pay-per-play program called Powerplay Campaigns in their online radio stations for years.
A similar debate has occurred in the past regarding their program’s similarity to payola. You can see it on their own forums here:
http://www.last...orum/5/_/332810
I agree with most of the comments here that this would be a fine monetization strategy if it was clearly disclosed that these plays are paid-for promotions. I am not aware of either Last.FM or Jango doing so though.
Even then, I’m not sure how large of a monetization opportunity this is, as most indie or unsigned bands will tell you they don’t have much of a promotional budget to throw at things like this. And there are already a variety of free ways to promote your music through iLike, MySpace, etc that I am uncertain if a site like Jango will be able to command the few dollars that these artists have.
it should always be co beneficial for everyone.
http://www.heal...tedirectory.com
Most everyone we know doesn’t like “infomercials.” Indy or emerging artists will likely find this to be offensive. But Erick speaks a great deal of sense when he compares this to paid search. Like it or not, it’s all about business. This is a lot like a Vanity Press, where an author pays to get his own book published.
It seems to be that as long as there is some sort of “full disclosure” that the following song is an advertisement, then more power to both sides. Artists should be able to do this and Jango should be able to charge for it, but let’s make sure that there is no confusion. Like Erick mentioned, they need better disclosure so no risk of confusion. It’s a free market after fall. Let them experiment and see if they can crack the bus model code. Could have some very interesting results.
test
Sure it isn’t a problem today, but what if the popularity of this pay for play eventually reaches the limit and outpaces new user growth?
Adwords-style auctioning.
I love Erick. I feel about this line the way a parent feels about that little dookie his beautiful baby just made:
“When it comes to promoting new music, pay-for-play schemes are generally frowned upon.”
No, widdwe Erick, it’s not “generally frowned upon”. When it comes to promoting new music, pay-for-play schemes are generally illegal.
Hi Erick and everybody,
Dan Kaufman, CEO of Jango here… you raise some good points I would like to address. “Jango Airplay” is about letting emerging artists reach potential fans and helping listeners discover music they’re likely to like – so the question of relevance and quality is a huge part of the service. It obviously has to be a good experience for everyone.
I like your idea of letting good songs get more plays/lower price a la AdSense – that is definitely in line with the way we think about this service, and something we’ll explore for upcoming releases. In a sense, it’s already happening (songs that get more than 50 good ratings enter general rotation and start getting more plays for free) but I can certainly see us developing a more advanced algorithm that rewards songs with high relevance (ie lots of good ratings, etc).
On the other end of the spectrum – songs that are not well received – we already have several mechanisms in place to ensure quality and that any really unpopular songs stop playing entirely. So it’s not the case that anyone can upload anything and it will play as many times as they’ve paid for no matter what. Here’s how it works:
- Quality review
First of all, we review all songs to ensure that they meet (our own admittedly totally subjective) quality standards, and that the “similar artists” chosen make sense – ie no song will be played next to both Keith Urban and Soulja Boy.
- Listener control
If a user doesn’t like an “Airplay” song, all he needs to do is skip. Or if he gives it a negative rating, he’ll never hear it again. This applies both for “Airplay” songs and songs in general rotation.
- Community control
If an “Airplay” song receives more negative ratings than positive ratings, it will be “retired” (and the money refunded to the emerging artist). Essentially, everybody that passes our internal quality review gets a shot at putting their song out there, but if it bombs in the community, it will stop playing. So far though, this hasn’t happened. Unlike many in the peanut gallery seem to think, just because you’re not established doesn’t mean you’re not good – and artists serious enough about their career to spend money on promotion are generally much better than you’d think. So far our users have been giving positive ratings, writing comments and “becoming fans” far more than rating down songs.
- Frequency capping
Lastly, “Airplay” songs play very infrequently compared to established artists. Users will hear an “airplay song” no more than once per day initially. Eventually they may hear more than one per day but no more than once per 20 songs (unless they ask for more).
I hope this clarifies. We’re convinced that Jango Airplay is good for emerging artists AND users. With our quality review, listener and community control, and infrequency of airplay songs (compared to established artists), we believe that adding Airplay songs to the mix actually improves the user experience on Jango. If our users tell us otherwise, we’ll make adjustments (e.g. – let users opt out of hearing Airplay songs). At the end of the day, the whole purpose is to help independents get discovered and help users discover independents – and it’s paramount that it’s a good experience for everyone. If we do that right, we think 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.
as an actual independent artist promoting a CD (”13 Seasons”, March 17th), yet again unsurprisingly disgusted with the invention of yet a new way to part artists from their money.
Already the number of “services” artists have to sign up for in order to have any hope of a successful release in terms of volume, almost from the start guarantees failure in terms of pure unit economics.
Supposedly this type of thing will ‘help’ independent artists gain ‘exposure.’ If successful, all it will do is clamp down on the channels of distribution once more, as this advertising, much like search engine marketing has done, will become so competitive that only those making the most money off the backend will be able to afford it and/or bid competitively in an auction environment (and as the CEO has stated, the airplay is most definitely a limited resource, in order to keep the consumer happy). And those making the most money off the backend are those than can 1) afford to spend the most on the frontend to create volume, and 2) those who can wring the cheapest prices out of their various suppliers and services…so, it would be those folks otherwise known as big-money labels, not independent artists trying to squeak something through that may be “good” but not have the backing it deserves…you know, the same folks that could afford to pay for DJ coke budgets (no, not the soft drink) in the 70’s.
And so, we are right back where we started fifty years ago.
I hate to burst your bubble but pay to play is what goes on in the real world period. Why else would a radio station play the same song 5 times a day, you can’t honestly tell me that people are requesting the songs. Think about it! The rules of making it in the music industry is simple. Record companies pay huge amounts to money to promote their bands and to get them to play your band in heavy rotation. How many times have you tuned to a station and said “not that song again”? “” Don’t you think radio stations are on to that and would correct themselves to keep playing fresh music? NO, BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN TOLD AND PAID TO PLAY A CERTAIN SONG IN HEAVY ROTATION PERIOD. If you don’t understand this, then your band will never make it big. It is not coincidence that a normal band with mediocrity talent is number 1, it is because of radio play… which the record company pushes!
Ok, I’ll shut up!
Wouldn’t use Jango just because they are the guys behind Direct Revenue, the ad/spyware company that was shut down by the state of New York in a lawsuit