R.I.P. Live 365 1999-2016

Live365 downsizing...on the ropes?

http://iphone.allaccess.com/net-new...65-announces-downsizing-in-wake-of-crb-decisi

It's possible no one might miss the little station listed below, but I think there's going to be a shock when people go back to work after New Year's to find their favorite little lunchtime webcast hangout is gone. Mid-days were our prime time.

The iTunes directory has been very kind to us in terms of people finding us there. I don't think it will register with the general public about what's happening until they find the ranks of webcasts on the iTunes, TuneIn and Live365 directories decimated.

BTW, I looked at the effective royalty rates per song that the Roadhouse was paying: on the order of $0.0003 per play or 3¢ per 100 plays. That's a rounding error in the major players book. It demonstrates to me the large amounts of $$ Pandora must be generating to stay afloat with a .0013 rate, soon to be .0017.

The article from RAIN sounds a lot more pessimistic. Sounds like they are basically done for.

http://rainnews.com/live365-suffers...e-lays-off-most-employees-and-vacates-office/

I'll reiterate something I told a friend of mine with a Live365 station:

I think Live365 should have tried to show these artists and record labels how much money they’ll lose by having thousands of stations go dark. That might have gotten them to rethink things a little bit.

I have long been annoyed by the entire process by which artists and record labels are paid for their music. First and foremost, they should be paid. I was appalled by Napster’s existence in the early 2000’s and their brazen desire to allow people to steal music without paying for it. By the same token, the utter idiocy with which the recording industry has treated streaming services like Live365 and even mom-and-pop stores where the clerk at the front desk is listening to a local radio station has helped breed resentment among the public toward paying artists for their work. There has to be a happy medium somewhere. I have NEVER understood why streaming stations and services like Live365 are treated differently than radio stations. If I understand the rules correctly, a broadcast station pays 3% of its gross income in royalty fees. That’s what Live365 and others should pay. The end result would be a lot more people listening to a lot more music and that would probably more than offset the lower royalty fees.

The only people benefiting from the new deal will be outfits like Pandora who will lose a ton of competition with most Live365 (and other) stations going dark. BUT..even at that Pandora is still a money-losing business model. Ultimately the artists and record companies are going to have to decide if they want people to be able to hear their work on streaming services. Right now it looks like the answer will ultimately be no unless congress steps in to force the issue, something they are highly unlikely to do without public pressure.

tested said:

I think Live365 should have tried to show these artists and record labels how much money they’ll lose by having thousands of stations go dark. That might have gotten them to rethink things a little bit.

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The artists don't see it that way. They've been testifying in Congress that they're barely making a living due to these streaming rates. One of the co-writers of Megan Trainor's hit All About That Bass showed a royalty check for a couple of thousand dollars from SoundExchange, based on a couple million plays. They feel that as creators of the music, they should be able to make more from digital.

SoundExchange is the intermediary. The RAIN article pointed out that Live365 could appeal to SoundExchange for a discount, but apparently there are other factors involved in their current financial situation.

TheBigA said:

One of the co-writers of Megan Trainor's hit All About That Bass showed a royalty check for a couple of thousand dollars from SoundExchange, based on a couple million plays. They feel that as creators of the music, they should be able to make more from digital.

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It will be interesting to see their reaction when/if the royalty check gets smaller as a result of all the "small potatoes" streams that will be shutting down now. Of course, at that point we will be telling them that it is too late to close that barn door, because they already lobbied for the horse to be let out.

I doubt the artists will see any decrease in remuneration, given that there are substitutes for people who used Live365 stations. If someone loses "Atlanta's Hot Hits" and replaces it with the same number of Spotify hours, the artists see more money.

TheBigA said:

The artists don't see it that way. They've been testifying in Congress that they're barely making a living due to these streaming rates. One of the co-writers of Megan Trainor's hit All About That Bass showed a royalty check for a couple of thousand dollars from SoundExchange, based on a couple million plays. They feel that as creators of the music, they should be able to make more from digital.

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And how much did the writers (Meghan Trainor & Kevin Kadish) make on digital downloads and radio airplay -- a #1 hit record on one Billboard chart, with close to 5 million downloads in the US alone? My guess is a whole lot more than $2K. I'm all for songwriters getting paid for their work, but this sounds like it's just greed and whining to me.

KeithE4 said:

I'm all for songwriters getting paid for their work, but this sounds like it's just greed and whining to me.

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Maybe, but it's their work, and they're entitled to complain. Yes they have other revenue streams. But the vast majority of artists getting played on internet streams don't get FM airplay. Those are the people who get royalty checks that are less than the postage it took to send them. They're also the artists getting played on these small internet stations. Which would you rather have? A 25 cent check or no check? Not much difference.

TheBigA said:

Maybe, but it's their work, and they're entitled to complain.

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So does a professional ballplayer making $1M in his 2nd year in the big leagues have the same right to complain? Most will say No. That athlete is the equivalent of Meghan Trainor, who first hit the big-time a year and a half ago. And let's face it -- Ms. Trainor ain't exactly Carole King. She has a long way to go (and grow as an artist and songwriter) if she wants a long-term career.

Yes they have other revenue streams. But the vast majority of artists getting played on internet streams don't get FM airplay.

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That's something else I don't understand. Correct me if I'm wrong, but radio doesn't pay "performance fees" for artists aired over its AM or FM transmitter, but has to pay if the station is streamed? Whatever happened to free publicity, with radio play generating record/CD/download sales? Wouldn't that also apply to streaming? And since when does a DJ spinning a record or selecting a song on a screen (or however it's done nowadays) enable an individual performance of a pre-recorded song?

Those are the people who get royalty checks that are less than the postage it took to send them. They're also the artists getting played on these small internet stations. Which would you rather have? A 25 cent check or no check? Not much difference.

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But if these small internet stations are priced out of the market, they're guaranteed to get nothing, both in terms of money and also exposure for their work. For every Bob Dylan with a 50+ year career, there are thousands of Joe Blows playing for tips in a coffee shop and self-releasing their own works. I would think that these young songwriters would be screaming bloody murder over all this, since they'll actually lose their royalites if the small stations are shut down.

KeithE4 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but radio doesn't pay "performance fees" for artists aired over its AM or FM transmitter, but has to pay if the station is streamed? Whatever happened to free publicity, with radio play generating record/CD/download sales? Wouldn't that also apply to streaming?

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Sure, but most of these internet streams have next to no audience. Add them all up, and it's barely enough for Live365 to sell advertising. That's the problem here. Free publicity only matters when someone is listening. For AM/FM radio, 92% of the public listens. For major FM stations or syndicated shows, that translates to millions of people. For the kind of internet station we're talking about here, that usually means a couple hundred. The difference is in terms of scale.

But the real reason streaming pays and FM doesn't is because of the law. There are different laws for digital and analog. When digital came along, the artists got this new royalty. If you want to claim publicity, you can schedule a meeting with SoundExchange, and show them how your airplay has resulted in a benefit for their artists, and they might give you a discount on the royalty. That's what they did the last time the rates increased.

KeithE4 said:

I would think that these young songwriters would be screaming bloody murder over all this, since they'll actually lose their royalites if the small stations are shut down.

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All they seem to be screaming about is how little they get paid. My view is that maybe they'd get paid more if they made more commercial music and spent more on publicity. But that's not how they think. It's their music, and the way the law is written, they're in control. Maybe in a few years, when all the small internet stations are gone, they'll think differently. But not now.

12/31/15... The day the music died, again.

R

PTBoardOp94 said:

I doubt the artists will see any decrease in remuneration, given that there are substitutes for people who used Live365 stations. If someone loses "Atlanta's Hot Hits" and replaces it with the same number of Spotify hours, the artists see more money.

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And before I could start to form a rebuttal in my mind, along comes ...

TheBigA said:

... the vast majority of artists getting played on internet streams don't get FM airplay. Those are the people who get royalty checks that are less than the postage it took to send them. They're also the artists getting played on these small internet stations.

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So the better question is whether those Spotify hours will have more plays of those artists who were getting the smaller stream plays (the ones that pretty much going away at midnight) to compensate for those losses. My guess is no. In fact, my guess is that Spotify doesn't play most of them at all ... and if it does, probably not a high number of spins.

I still think those artists who wanted (needed) the increased royalty payments are going to be the ones who see those checks dwindle and disappear.

frankberry said:

The music has not died. The business model died.
Frank

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Frank, it's kind of a joke to say it because we are losing our stations. We don't mean the music is literally dying.

R

K.M. Richards said:

I still think those artists who wanted (needed) the increased royalty payments are going to be the ones who see those checks dwindle and disappear.

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Maybe, and maybe that'll be the wake-up call for them. Back when internet radio was starting, there were people talking about how the public wanted bigger playlists and no gatekeerpers between them and their music. Now what we're seeing is people need help finding the songs they like. That means gatekeepers (some call them curators, some call them tastemakers) are really needed to weed through the millions of songs and artists.

In addition, when we look at the streaming charts from YouTube, Pandora, Apple, and Spotify, we see the exact same songs that we see on the FM airplay charts. Maybe the chart position is different, but it's Adele, Bieber, and The Weekend. What does that tell you? Maybe the demand for bigger playlists and unknown artists wasn't as great as some thought.

So after 15 years of internet radio, we're getting to the point where it's basically becoming another version of FM. Advertising has become a factor on digital streams, just as it's been on FM. Or you can subscribe, just as you can with public radio. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

frankberry said:

At some point, someone may come up with a solution which will enable the return of the small streamers.

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The problem is that small streamers, like small broadcasters, simply don't move the meters enough to get any attention. There is a reason why we see so much consolidation in so many places. If you're going to base a business model on advertising, and the advertiser is buying numbers, you have to deliver bigger numbers. Not so long ago, the magic number for online advertising was a million page-views a month. Now, that's not such a hard thing to achieve, when you combine web sites from hundreds of radio stations. But if you're a small website operator, and you only get a dozen page views a week, that's not enough to even qualify for Google ads. The economy is built around big. In that race, small can't compete.

The cruel reality may be that our listeners flock to our stations like bees to flower gardens. Once the bees are done with one garden, they're off to the next. And there's an over-abundance of flowers. Less wordy explanation: churn.

I've had our closedown announcement running about twice an hour, urging people to like our Facebook page to keep tabs on further developments. Response hasn't been real strong yet, perhaps we'll see more next Monday when all they hear is the repeating loop.

We've struggled a bit with our business model, which was never envisioned to be anything more than a part-time endeavor at best. We couldn't force people in through our front door, i.e. our website. Boosting our listenership to get above the critical 10,000 listener hours/month level to be able to run ads seemed like a waste of money, as all the ads would do would just pay for the increased royalty and connection costs. So we've just let people find us through the iTunes directory, YouTube, Facebook and other social media (thanks Frank for letting me promote it on my signature here).

The only way I can see the StreamLicensing stations to become viable is through what I'll call reverse royalty reporting. Our metadata is compiled at SL based on the songs we play, then SL pays SoundExchange. If we added commercial matter, it could be tracked in the same way and then the sponsors pay SL per impression. Biggest problem with this idea is lack of control for advertisers in too many stations not keeping tabs on flight instructions. Such announcements would have to be of the general "brand reinforcement" variety, such as the GEICO campaigns. The other route for us to go would be subscriptions.

We'll see how January plays out, though I'm not very optimistic.

joebtsflk1 said:

Boosting our listenership to get above the critical 10,000 listener hours/month level to be able to run ads seemed like a waste of money, as all the ads would do would just pay for the increased royalty and connection costs.

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This is the part in the law that, in my view, needs to change. The original intent was to help small webcasters. But the goal for webcasters is to achieve critical mass. So you get penalized for success. It's an impractical system. That's what happens when you ask the music industry to write laws.