IODA Marks 5 Years. Competition Looms.

Digital distributor IODA is marking its fifth anniversary. One of the larger players, IODA claims 50,000 artists from 50 countries representing a catalog of over 1 million tracks resulting in average annual revenue growth for the company of more than 370 percent since 2004.

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF IODA & DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION?

• 
  Forrester Research, in its February 2008 "The End Of The Music Industry As We Know It" predicted that one-half of all music sold in the US will be digital by 2011 and surpass CD sales a year later. The report projects digital music sales of $4.8 billion by 2012.
• But labels and artists are increasingly questioning why they are paying 15-20% and more to have a distributor encode and deliver product to the handful of online and mobile outlets that really matter.
• Distributor margins are also being squeezed by competitors willing to take an ever smaller slice for for encoding and delivering product.  Some like TuneCore even offer flat fee distribution. Others like RoyaltyShare offer value added services on top of reduced fees.

IODA has tried to answer those challenges with PromoNet and other value-added services. Their Promonet digital marketing platform connects labels with over 3,000 online music sites, including blogs, podcasts, Internet radio stations, and social networks, and provides the ability to track and quantify digital marketing campaigns. So far the jury is out on these efforts and many labels prefer to handle these tasks in house or via specialty contractors.

But for now its time for celebration at IODA including a SXSW party and accolades coming from around the industry.
"Independent distributors like IODA give labels the support many need in the new
digital economy. Since day one IODA has been their champion providing them
with the technology resources they need to access the many new distribution
networks and new revenue streams essential for their survival," said Rich
Bengloff, president of indie trade group A2IM.

IODA CLIENTS INCLUDE:

Arts & Crafts, Cherry Red Records, Fat Cat Records, Harmonia Mundi, Koch Entertainment, Naïve, Premium Latin Music, Relapse, Rounder Records, and Six Degrees and up-and-comers like Absolutely Kosher Records, Embedded, Flameshovel, Light in the Attic and Paper Bag Records; and distributors such as Allegro/Nail Distribution, Cargo Records UK, Naxos, Proper Distribution, Select O Hits,and Shock Records.