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Thank God it's finally here: USA Network's "unique sonic brand." This thanks to a deal between Yahoo and USA Network in which the two companies will join forces to promote emerging artists and share in resulting revenue. According to Chris McCumber, USA's senior vice president of marketing and brand strategy, this "innovative partnership has the potential to create a new model for the way musical artists are discovered and developed." (note to Chris: sonic branding refers to audible brand signals like the 3-note Intel sound or AOL's "you've got mail.")
In this arrangement, Yahoo Radio will identify unsigned artists with high listenership and pass them on to USA where they can be signed by NBC Universal (what NBC Universal will sign them to I can only guess; they don't have a record label. Did I mention most musicians want recording contracts?). While this is no doubt an oversimplification of the process, you can see why it's so important; it's not enough that consumers have already identified these artists as being relevant by listening to their music and, most likely, shared their selections with their friends and cohorts.
No, to really work, it has to make some uninvolved third (or fourth or fifth) party money. Only in this instance, the uninvolved party is making it's money on the backs of the consumers who have taken over the role of the traditional record company A&R guy (again, I haven't been able to track down the record label in this mix; the relevance of record labels will be a post for another day).
Yahoo Radio is a great offering; it's easy to find and easy to use. You can listen to a lot of music, create your own station, see videos (already better than MTV) and share the things you like. There are lots of artists, both well known and not so well known so it's pretty obvious why USA/NBC Universal would want to hop on this bandwagon. And the promise of creating a "unique sonic brand" is so enticing.
But for the consumer and the artist, what's the upside to a "sonic brand" from USA? Are they going to distribute music? That's already going on. Are they going to become a label? That business is proving less and less relevant. Are they going to put these artists on TV? Well, it won't be the Monkee's but TV distribution is ultimately what the end game probably is.
So, in a round about way, USA/NBC Universal is telling the audience of Yahoo Radio to get the hell away from that computer and get in front of your TV! Which is a further round about way of saying what you want to do is not as important as what we want to do: make money off of you.
I just can't wait until we start getting some unique visual brands for radio.
Today I read that ABC and ESPN (parent company: Walt Disney Co.) has put together a deal with Cox Communications regarding their video-on-demand service that will effectively disable the fast-forward function on programs like "Desparate Housewives", "Grey's Anatomy", "Lost", and "Ugly Betty". Granted, these programs are available for viewing the day after they run in their regular time slot but I have to wonder...
Cox's consumer customers pay a fee for VOD service that has certain features and benefits that they (the customer) have determined are worth a premium price. Now, Cox has decided that the needs and wants of their business customer (Disnsey, ABC, ESPN) are more important so they are, in effect, changing the offering for their consumers to satisfy their business customers.
Now I love cable TV. I love TV in general. But I would bet my hard earned cash that Cox didn't mention to their consumer customers that they were changing their offering. I'll bet they never asked them if they'd mind a change in the offering. And I'd bet even more they never said, "Look, we're making this deal and it's going to change the way the service you pay for works; you won't be able to fast-forward for certain shows. If you want to be able to fast-forward with the service you pay for, there are other offerings out there that will let you like a satellite service or competing cable provider; you should go there."
The president of advertising sales for ABC, Mike Shaw, says that cable operators "are in the same business we're in", that being the business of selling ads. But here's sort of the rub: if you're in the business of selling ads, then the programming should be free for consumers, as it is, for the most part, on network TV. I know cable costs money but that is my next point.
Cable operators are in the business of selling access — not ads. Cable subscribers pay for access to the infrastructure that the cable companies have built. Networks also fund that infrastructure by paying to access it as a means to delivering their content (ad funded) to consumers; it's a cyclical thing.
But what Disney, ABC, ESPN and Cox are missing is that they are trying to force an outdated model and method of thinking on a progressive and independent consumer; a consumer that has made a decision to assert some control over something that was previously out of their control.
Part of the reasoning that makes Cox and Disney think they can devalue the consumer role at this point is that VOD and DVR have a low penetration into consumer households and that, at this point, there are fewer people to piss off. I think that this is a bad idea and a bad precedent if other cable operators, satellite operators, and others, adopt this thinking and approach.
It seems appropriate to insert this quote from, of all things, the movie Network: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
