Internet Radio May Save Rock and Roll

December 2, 2008 at 12:02 pm Jennifer Lane Leave a comment

So says Music Industry Veteran Danny Goldberg in this video. In it he’s speaking about his newly published book Bumping into Geniuses, which is a tell-all about the music industry from his personal perspective. Among other things, he was manager of Nirvana.

According to Goldberg, “Internet radio is the silver lining of the deterioration of commercial radio.” He says that commercial radio is all about ratings and reaching the most people, and that is not what is best for record labels. They really just want to reach the passionate active core audience, who get turned off by generic programming. That audience isn’t listening to commercial radio anymore, says Goldberg. But they are listening to Internet radio.

Goldberg is right on – Internet radio’s enormous diversity of programming allows for the kind of personal choice that attracts an active listener. Which he says, is the kind of listener that record companies want to reach because they buy records. By the way, they also buy other things – which makes them a very attractive audience for all kinds of advertisers.

Goldberg’s comments are also interesting as they pertain to the royalty issue – in which the record companies argue that Internet radio does not offer value to the artists who therefore should be otherwise compensated by the stations for playing their music. In fact, Mr. Goldberg’s states that Internet radio is a solution for artists who are trying to find an audience for their music and that this new technology is liberating for artists. Um, that sure sounds like meaningful promotional value to me.