Record Deals Are Never Free

The biggest misconception in the music industry is that music deals are full of up front money and equal profit sharing. Again this is a huge misconception! Even though the traditional music labels are dieing daily I recently read an article in Billboard about Marilyn Manson signing a deal with an indie label overseas.

I would have to say that at best less than 1% of musicians are in a category to receive an advance. What also has to be understood is that is an "advance" the record label will hold back any profit to the artist until that advance is recouped. Also remember that it's just not the advance that has to be recouped before the artist starts making money. Any money spent on marketing, distribution, promotion etc... is part of that equation as well.

In reference to Manson's new deal "The structure is a 50-50 profit share after the label recoups its costs, which include an advance paid out to Manson and a major marketing commitment."

Everyone here at Tate Music Group and Variance Magazine continue to stand by our contract as an industry best. Our contract benefits an artist who is not in the public eye from the start to someone like Kenny Rogers, Katy Perry Toby Mac etc... TMG pays 50% on all digital sales and the artists has the ability to make 70 - 80% on physical CD sales.

TMG Radio on Live365.com

In a continuous effort to promote Tate Music Group artist on the radio TMG has officially launched TMG Radio. This is an internet station where the TMG Radio promotion department controls the content.

The content of the station is predominantly a mixture of Christian rock, contemporary, worship, and even urban. We play both the top TMG artists and the best of what is currently on the charts now (from Need to Breathe to Skillet to Lacrae).

TMG Radio has some special programing as well:

The Morning Drive – we play only the top artists from Christian rock, AC, and CHR charts. 8-9am

The Retro Lunchbox – we focus on the best Christian music from the 80’s and 90’s.

The Carman Cure – yes…that is correct. We have a segment dedicated to the king of all Christian music…and possibly the reason TMG can be TMG…Carman. Every day at 2:30, we play a favorite Carman song…to help get you over that afternoon hump.

Breakthrough Sundays – every Sunday morning we play great worship music all morning long.

Variance Magazine Passes 200,000 Hits

The revolutionary music magazine passes 200,000 hits with their second issue. Variance Magazine is a magazine for the people by the people.

Industries boast that they are concerned with what their consumers want to hear about but Variance is the only one that actually puts truth behind that statement. The magazine accepts article submissions and publishes those articles in upcoming issues. More than half of Variances articles are written by people not employed by Variance.

Their tag line says it best when referring to article submissions "if you got em we want em".

Radio

It is pretty universal regardless of the genre of music being created, most artist want to be on the radio. It is probably one of the first questions we get asked when artists are ready for marketing here at Tate Music Group.

If you've read any of my blogs you know that I am a big fan of performing over radio success. I believe that by performing you are creating a larger buzz and it will be easier to break radio than by starting cold in the opposite direction. With that said Tate Music Group offers great resources to our artists that help them find success.

Anyone who has ever tried their hand at the business knows that breaking into radio is one of the hardest aspects and provides some of the greatest challenges for an artist, label, manager, or promoter.

One of the cool aspects about Tate Music Group is that we have relationships with hundreds of radio stations across the nation. Our relationships and partnerships have allowed us to create weekly programing for these stations where we are able to insert TMG artists into a top 40 format.

Over a two week period we average 92 plays for TMG artists on over 433 radio stations across the nation. Again Tate Music Group chooses the artist we want to submit into each format. This is a win win for everyone involved and allows TMG to provide a radio resource to our artists.

Even though those numbers are incredible in their own right that is not where our radio promotion stops. Tate Music Group has our own in house division that works with advertisers and outside promoters to push our artists music even further.

We work with hosting companies such as PlayMPE and others to send TMG artists music directly to Dj's and PD's. This is how music is transferred in today's climate. If you are sending a physical CD to a station you are probably wasting your money. We've just been selected as a VIP partner to a hosting site that allows us to send music to over 40,000 radio professionals worldwide. This service is automatically created when marketing starts for every Tate artist.

Radio is a hard nut to crack but Tate Music Group provides our artists with the correct resources to do so.

Variance Debut Magazine is a Huge Success

Variance Magazine released its debut publication July 1st and has since garnished over 65,000 unique impressions.

Variance is a new venture and I think we hit it out of the park for our first issue. I had a goal of 50k impressions by the next issue and it looks like we will destroy that number. The magazine is another killer marketing option TMG is able to provide our artists with. Along with Nationwide TV commercials, radio programing we have a share in the three major marketing and advertising mediums available. As Tate Music Group grows so will our share in all three. Variance gives us a go to resource for ads, reviews and articles that demands the attention of people interested in music, books and media. Tate Music Group and Tate Publishing have been able to drive thousands of impressions to our artists and authors this last week that wasn't available two weeks ago. As the viewership increases over time these numbers and results will only get better.

With the positive responses we've received we are excited to get started on the next issue!

Is One of the Worlds Largest Labels Shifting Their Focus

A recent press release from EMI leads people to believe that they are shying away from developing new artists and instead, focusing on exploiting their enormous back catalog.

“Owning and exploiting the copyright to songs, rather than selling recordings of songs, is where the money’s going to be from now on.” EMI’s new organization structure “implies a lighter commitment to breaking new artists in favor of relying more heavily on selling publishing rights to its enormous back catalog.” June 22nd Billboard article.

If you don't think the music industry is changing you are crazy. When the largest players in the industry shift their focus off of what has been a cash cow forever it is a great indication that the old model is dead and they are now trying to find new avenues of success.

Being an artist in todays market is much more blue collar than ever. Many can make a living if the effort is there but there will be fewer and fewer at the top.

Even Less Shelf Space Ahead

If you've read any of my blogs or talked to anyone in the music industry you've heard over and over that digital distribution is what matters 100% to 99.99% of the artists out there with a product. It allows artist to distribute their music to the masses 24/7. As an example Tate Music Group provides artists with over 170 different digital retail outlets through our partnership with E1 Entertainment. If asked right now I couldn't name you 17 physical retailers that sell music in today's economy and it looks like another Major Retail Chain is redirecting its focus.

Billboard reported today that "BEST BUYS LOOKS TOWARD GAMING"
-- "As Billboard already reported, Best Buy shares dropped 6% on weaker-than-expected quarterly profits. The company did not reveal much about music sales, but it did make clear the category was among the losers last quarter."

What that means in the long run. As expected retail chains have dramatically reduced their shelf space for music, and it looks like the trend will continue. The majority of CD sales come from live events. With the ability to download singles and albums over the internet, physical CD distribution is becoming extinct.

Regie Hamm's Release Party at SESAC

Tate Music Group Director of Development and Music Operations Bryan Norris and I were in Nashville this past week for TMG Artist Regie Hamm’s official release party for both his new CD “Set it on Fire” and book “Angels and Idols”.

Regie’s release was held at the Nashville office of SESAC, where Regie has been a SESAC writer for over 16 years and awarded SESAC writer of the year 4 times. The turn out was really impressive with about 15 different media representatives in attendance close family and friends and a ton of industry pros. The place was packed!

MTV Taking to Social Networking

Whenever an artists arrives in marketing her at Tate Music Group one of their questions is "How do I create a buzz"? The simple answer is to network your butt off. TMG always emphasizes the importance of social networking...blogs, twitter, myspace, facebook etc...

Tate Music Group understands how important these networks are for artists that our production team goes as far as building and designing these sites for all of our guys so that they have a professional page to direct family, friends and fans too.

In a recent article in Billboard it looks like MTV understands the importance and power of social networking and wants to create an outlet where fans can follow artists and keep up with all of their network sites.

"MTV Networks wants to establish its Web properties as the go-to outlets for fans to track all of their favorite artists’ social media activities.

MTV executives said the initiative is aimed at "super-serving" music enthusiasts that expect back-and-forth relationships with their favorite performers, while enabling fans to foster those relationships in a single locale."