Jango Offers Indie Artists Pay For Airplay
Payola. Pay-to play. Ugly terms from a different era or a new way to get exposure and monetize internet broadcasting? Jango, a US based music site with 6 million monthly listeners, has decided to find out.
For $30 for 1,000 plays, indie artists get airplay to fans of setablished artists of their choice. If a band's fans say they remind them of U2; then that band can now target airplay to U2 fans only. A display ad running alongside encourages listeners to rate the song or become a fan. In addition to targeting by music taste, artists can also target listeners by age, gender and location.
Internet broadcasts are not regulated by the FCC in the same way as over the air broadcasters; so what Jango is doing is perfectly legal. But is it right? In a fractured and cluttered media landscape should artist's pay to get played? How will Jango's audience react to the new music by artists they've never heard of.
Share your thoughts in the comments section and vote in our poll here.
This isn’t anything that Last.fm hasn’t been doing for years. It is by definition payola. Is this wrong? I don’t think so when it comes to the internet because there is so much variety and one person or company no longer controls the channels. When the majors held all the cards with distribution/radio/Mtv etc.. Then I think that made it a quadopoly which stifled creativity and radio airplay became a major factor in whether an artist was discovered. Now that the game has been switched upside down this is a welcome way for people to discover new music. And it’s not the only way to find new music. So I say bring on payola to radio (As if it ever left ;))and the internet now too . Not like anyone is listening to radio anyways.
Based on how the labels and radio are feuding over who’s going to pay what to whom, I’m thinking this is the future of all radio play. I don’t like that, since I’d rather have my stuff played for free (for me and the radio stations), but I can certainly foresee this becoming a more standard thing and payola becoming legalized.
Now that I’m looking at it, I’m surprised someone didn’t do it sooner!
From what I see, it’s basically Pandora–except for us musicians, they guarantee airplay (Pandora doesn’t).
Do artists get any sort of stats or results?
And the big question: could someone upload music so terrible and awful that Jango would give them their money back? 🙂
Just because the powers that be are gonna make it happen by the sheer force of the marketplace doesn’t mean it’s right. I mean, it’s not WRONG like selling arms to Sudan is wrong, but it’s certainly not right. Whatever happened to editorial integrity? The separation of commercial, biased promotion and non-commercial, objective content? Sure we can have the news that way too. Anyone who pays get to write the headlines of the day. Oh, I guess that’s blogging… but seriously – radio stations where artists pay to be played? Come on.
Jango is a great service. I’m the artist they mentioned in this article (Mikey Wax- not Mickey). Anyway, It’s definitely worth it if you’re an independent artist looking to get your music out there- either to push a single or get a quick response to your music. I’ve tried Last.fm before but Jango gives you much more for your money. They do better promotion and make it easier for fans to connect- they also allow you to qualify for general rotation if your song receives a high number of “likes” from the Jango community. Definitely worth checking out.
I think this is a brilliant idea on the part of Jango. This model has worked in the past so why re-invent the wheel?
However, I am concerned with the filtering process. Once again, fans will be spoon fed junk music by anyone with a $100 bill. Isn’t this how we got into the current predicament?
No offense to you Mikey Wax, as I’m sure you take your craft very seriously. I’m just concerned that this will give the average Myspace band an avenue to compete with seriouis musicians like yourself.
Like Dylan’s thin man suggests, “Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is”. Here’s my gut reaction: A buzz went up my spine like a carnival gong-hammer game. Jango Radio is a home run and for someone in my pre-geek generation, that’s saying something. I logged into Joan Baez music and immediately got recommendations that led me to create my own station “Back To The Garden” with access even to “B” side songs I could only dream about, and recommendations that were spot on. The quality suffers a bit, but I found that I was willing to trade that for a welcome from old friends like a 30th college re-union where age has been graceful. I loved the concept of being in control with pause, fast forward and a rating system that results in intelligent programming catered to my taste. It’s the only thing I can listen to while I work and I love the lyric option in case my hearing isn’t up to the words, It’s almost too good to be true because it’s free AND they say they pay radio royalties to the artists through the PRO’s. As a singer/songwriter I think that the payment up front is a brilliant and fair way to bring a shady practice into the light of day of ordinary commerce. And as for filtering, it seems to me that is a code word for the kind of gatekeeper mentality that is on the way out. Let the audience decide directly with the tools on this service. Meanwhile I welcome the possibility of coming upon writers like Dar Williams who take up the mantle of real songwriting. This service seems like a win/win for all the right people.