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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Internet Radio European Summit event is this Friday!


RAIN 10/2: Even the U.S. will be well-represented at RAIN Summit Europe

Paul Maloney
Special thanks to our U.S.-based industry friends who'll make the trip over to Berlin this week for our very-first RAIN Summit Europe. This is especially for attendees here in the United States that will incur the time and expense to take advantage of this unique learning and networking opportunity. We'll do our best to make it worth it for you!
Some of our esteemed experts who'll speak are also U.S.-based. We've previously announced Liquid Compass CEO Zachary Lewis (here) and Triton Digital's Patrick Reynolds (here). Joining Reynolds from Triton will be VP/Sales for Europe, Daniel Karlsson. He'll take part in the "Targeted Advertising & Listener Registration" panel.
Also joining us from "stateside" will be TuneIn VP/Sales & Business Development Carl Rohling. TuneIn is the free online radio tuning service, which aggregates over 70-thousand music, sports, news and current events stations from around the world. TuneIn functionality is available via TuneIn mobile apps, and is built-in to select BMW and MINI car dashboards (Rohling will speak on "The Connected Dashboard" panel).
The Echo Nest is a "music intelligence" company, the largest repository of dynamic music data in the world. This data helps application developers build smarter music apps. The Echo Nest's customers include Clear Channel, Nokia, eMusic, MOG, Rdio, Spotify and more than 15-thousand independent app developers. You'll agree, then, that it makes perfect sense for The Echo Nest to be represnted on our "Personalized Radio" panel. Doing the honors will be CTO Brian Whitman.
We're proud to welcome Spotify's European GM and VP of Ad Sales Jonathan Forster as our keynote speaker. Spotify now has 15 million active users worldwide, 4 million of whom pay for the service every month. Besides its on-demand streaming product, Spotify Radio is a personalized radio stream listeners create based on artists, songs, or genres, which can be further influenced through "thumbs up/thumbs down" song ratings.
We're looking forward to Friday's (October 5th) RAIN Summit Europe, at the stylish nHow Berlin. We hope you'll be able to join us (Click here for registration info and the agenda).
Paul Maloney
Billboard, as part of an article on Apple negotiations for a webcast service, sheds more light on music publisher Sony/ATV's announcement to pull out of ASCAP and BMI (we covered this inRAIN here).
[Note: this story regards digital music services' use of the composition right of a song; not the copyright sound recording.]
Digital services (new ones immediately, others when current deals expire) will have tonegotiate with Sony/ATV (which now also owns EMI Music Publishing) and will no longer be able to rely on the "compulsory" license to use compositions and simply pay ASCAP or BMI the going rate.
Sony/ATV (and EMI) represents hundreds of thousands of songs.
"'All we are seeking is a fair and reasonable royalty for the writers and ourselves for digital performances,' Sony/ATV chairman/CEO Martin Bandier told Billboard.biz. 'We think the songwriter is just as important as the master recording and should get a fair price.'"
The "master recording" is the sound recording, for which webcasters pay a far higher percentage of their revenue than other forms of radio, and (for now) for other royalties.
Billboard reports Sony/ATV is pulling its digital performance rights, including EMI, from BMI and ASCAP on January 1, 2013. Apparently, Sony/ATV is not pulling its digital rights from SESAC, which is not under the "government consent decree" and "sometimes has greater flexibility in rate negotiations than BMI or ASCAP."
Read Billboard.biz here.
Paul Maloney
Maybe the most enthusiastic endorsement of Internet radio for advertising came from panelistTaylor Wood (pictured right), National Radio Supervisor at Group M. Discussing how campaigns delivered on digital channels generate so much data beyond simple "impressions," he said, "It's bringing a life to radio that's never existed before. We're finally able to capture actions that are taken off of our audio messaging," e.g. "retweets" and Facebook "likes" generated from campaigns. "We need to be capturing all this data," he continued. "Clients aren't used to getting all this data back on their buys."
Michael Theodore, Vice President, Member Services at the IAB moderated the panel "Identifying Opportunities for Advertisers in Internet Radio" at our recent RAIN Summit Dallas event.
The panelists agreed that advertisers have exited what Theodore called the "101" phase in that most we're well aware of the Internet radio medium, and the advantages of the platform. Panelist Karen Cuskey (left) of TBS Promotions said while most clients look initially at a campaign's click-thru rate (to see if the targeting is correct), they quickly want to know more. "Not just 'What's the quatity,' but 'what's the quality' of those clicks? We're looking for lead-generation: are you giving me your name, are you interested in my product, am I actually selling, and if I'm selling, what's my ROI against what I just spent to find you?"
Cuskey made a point for how mobile device-centric the audience has become ("Everything we do is mobile, we're all mobile."). She described a particular Pandora campaign that incorporated a "click-to-call" instant reponse mechanism. With all the tracking involved, she explained, the client could monitor response to the campaign and adjust along the way.
What's good about that, added JWT's Lee Triggs (right), also a panelist, is that with digital, you can test programs on mobile first, before introducing it into other media.
Woods described another unique campaign on Pandora. Pandora develed a custom station for realtor Century 21. But as the client couldn't envision a consumer actually wanting to tune in to a "Century 21 Radio," they suggested keeping the channel private as an internal tool for sales agents, with its custom playlist, Century 21 ads, and customized player. Agents now use it during open houses, and the client feels itportrays Century 21 as creative and unique.
The fourth panelist, Shannon Haydel (left) of The Richards Group, offered attendees some advice: "Think about the (overall) change in (consumers') media consumption." She suggests media planners "start looking at digital and mobile as parts of your overall plan."
"But don't put it in your plan simply because it's 'new & cool,' added Woods. "Know what you're doing, make sure it speaks to client's needs, and develop a custom solution for the client."
Please listen to the entire "Identifying Opportunities for Advertisers in Internet Radio" panel via SoundCloud below (that's moderator Michael Theodore in the photo), and watch for more fromRAIN Summit Dallas.

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