Give it away give it away give it away now

[audiodb]

Not what I said . Please don't put words in my mouth.

Not trying to....must be misinterpreting what you posted. Please elaborate.

[Todd Tanji]

The direct sale value of media heads to zero very quickly over time. The real value of media

is in advertising revenue. Television and radio figured this out a long time ago. Sponsors pay for

television via advertising. If they asked people to pay for it directly few people would

watch it and it would not have the relevancy that it currently enjoys. Movies still have

direct sales but more and more revenue is being generated by advertising.

Classical music has figured this out recently. Just about any classical work you can

imagine is available on Youtube. You can stream live and recorded orchestra concerts

for free from the world's top orchestras. Their main concern is concert attendance and

donor support, and that is achieved only if the population as a whole cares about classical

music.

Jazz music has not done this and is suffering dearly for it.

Drum corps needs to be relevant if it is to survive. In arts and entertainment that means the

general population at least knows it exists. Corps and DCI, by protecting their puny direct sales media

revenue, are missing an incredible opportunity to gain relevance through the internet. Not only

should they offer their content for free, they should gear their show designs towards creating

content that looks and sounds good on the internet.

Drum corps right now cannot get major corporate sponsors beyond companies that deal directly in

the marching arts. That is the basic economic nut that needs to be cracked if the activity is to

ever find sustainability.

Edited April 19, 2011 by BDUFLS

[DrillmanSop06]

Dude, I'm on Facebook. Frankly, that's a bit insulting. You're funny. Obviously that 500 million number is HUGE, but it's NOT all in America. That's worldwide. 500 million out of 6.7 billion. The US population is ~307 million, so obviously not everyone is on FB yet.

How many people in America are on Facebook over 40? What percentage?

All I said was that it's going to take a few more years for that approach. You need to have a more holistic approach.

...and try not being snarky...

Just keeping it real....

And the Fan Network is around for those dino fans who know about and love drum corps already.

[jjeffeory]

And the Fan Network is around for those dino fans who know about and love drum corps already.

Dude, I'm NOT fighting you, I'm just giving you a different point of view.

There are many merits in the idea, I'm just questioning the timing of going all FB/Twitter. looking at the whole picture.

I've been in IT for a while, have education in it, so I'm pretty tech savvy and realize the numbers. Give it time.

No need to be insulting, rude, or snide. Remember, you shouldn't say anything on a forum that you wouldn't say to a person's face.

It's just not a very humane to treat one another. ... and it's kinda old.

You don't know people's backgrounds and expertise, so you don't know how informed or uninformed they are...

What we should be really talking about is how to slowly move to this kind of model and overcome the copyright issues.

Also, how do we get the VAST majority of people to do it?

'Cause DCI needs more than the 10-25 crowd. ( And those are numbers that "I" pulled out of my butt, I know many people over that use social media. They just don't obsess over it as much).

Edited April 20, 2011 by jjeffeory

[Jeff Ream]

Trying to make money on every small thing often causes you to miss larger potential revenues. The Fan Network is not really making all that much.

There are arrangements with groups like YouTube where you are able to maintain distribution controls in order to be in compliance with various rightsholders (including geo limiting/tracking for royalty reporting and contract compliance, etc.).

I'm not guessing on how any of this works... I know it stone cold, because my company managed this for various artists with individually distinct contracts. I first got into how all of this stuff works with rights, royalties, etc. when I created a company years ago that sold ringtones in several different countries, including the US. My partner in the company spent 10 years as an in-house lawyer at the largest record company in the world. I was schooled in this daily.

Again, the Fan Network is an island... and one that only the most informed fans know where it is.

Drum corps is never going to attract everyone, thankfully... but... there are actually a lot of people out there that, if they became more aware of it could have even a casual interest. So, they might ever attend only 1 or 2 shows in their entire life... and maybe pick up a t-shirt they thought was cool... but, enough of these individuals churning through can help improve the profitability of events.

Drum corps needs to stimulate more IMPULSE PURCHASING... needs to do the marketing equivalent of the displays at the store check-out. They need to get it in front of more people and FAMILIES in tha various local communities... where people might think, why the hell not, and check it out.

With this company, we were doing campaigns and promos for rock, pop, country, jazz, classical... the full spectrum. Each is a bit different, but same basic fundamentals apply.

Also, regardless of the revenues of the entire corporation each individual artist has their own budget. You'd be surprised at how much smaller they are now, because it is usually actually coming out of the artists pockets now, just floated by the label against other returns. There is not really a lot of room to experiment.

Again... I have done this sort of thing - A LOT. I know it will work, because I have done it. I'm not guessing here.

Steaming live events... fully different deal. That will appeal to the hardcore fan and can be a source of revenue. This is completely different than taking down all performance videos out there on YouTube because of concerns about cannibalizing Fan Network subscriptions and download purchases.

here's my one question:

have you, with all of your experience, approached DCI about this in a way to help them?

or would you rather just armchair QB on here?

[danielray]

Okay -- I'm interested.

Lots of talk about the delivery method.

No talk about the licensing issues.

Without content, the delivery doesn't much matter.

Any takers with experience in actually doing this before -- using music and video that is, for all practical purposes, on loan from the original copyright holders -- and distributing that intellectual property for free?

Just askin's'all. . .

Chuck Naffier

I used to have to deal with a lot of this. We were doing campaigns for consumer brands like soft drinks, which would have as one of many instant win prizes the ability to download a free ringtone or video ringtone.

I also did a campaign for Adidas for the World Cup, where participants could download for free some music videos and tracks from select artists that were licensed for distribution in association with the event. The World Cup is a little bit larger than DCI Championships.

A lot of times, these ringtones were not the original artist, but we needed to pay for royalties and synch rights to various parties even though they were not sold. We were also responsible for reporting distribution numbers.

Most of the contracts were capped at a number of distributions, so, when the limit was reached, we'd pull the distribution. We were doing hundreds of thousands of such distributions per month, both free and paid.

Anyway, the costs on this we're not all that significant, multiples less than the technical infrastructure costs of the Fan Network.

Edited April 20, 2011 by danielray

[danielray]

The direct sale value of media heads to zero very quickly over time. The real value of media

is in advertising revenue. Television and radio figured this out a long time ago. Sponsors pay for

television via advertising. If they asked people to pay for it directly few people would

watch it and it would not have the relevancy that it currently enjoys. Movies still have

direct sales but more and more revenue is being generated by advertising.

Classical music has figured this out recently. Just about any classical work you can

imagine is available on Youtube. You can stream live and recorded orchestra concerts

for free from the world's top orchestras. Their main concern is concert attendance and

donor support, and that is achieved only if the population as a whole cares about classical

music.

Jazz music has not done this and is suffering dearly for it.

Drum corps needs to be relevant if it is to survive. In arts and entertainment that means the

general population at least knows it exists. Corps and DCI, by protecting their puny direct sales media

revenue, are missing an incredible opportunity to gain relevance through the internet. Not only

should they offer their content for free, they should gear their show designs towards creating

content that looks and sounds good on the internet.

Drum corps right now cannot get major corporate sponsors beyond companies that deal directly in

the marching arts. That is the basic economic nut that needs to be cracked if the activity is to

ever find sustainability.

I agree with you on this one 1,000%.

There IS money out there for corporate sponsorship of drum corps. Drum corps just needs to prove the ability to reach a wider audience. It cannot do this by being an island.

For all of those that think DCI and the Fan Network have great numbers.... to put it in perspective...

DCI vs. The Klingon Language Institute

Other than a seasonal spike, DCI is pretty much on par with Klingon language learning in terms of number of people it actually reaches.

The Fan Network vs. The Klingon Language Institute

That is a seriously, seriously sad figure right there.

Getting drum corps to the next level in terms of financial success is fundamentally dependent on the number of people it can reach and engage. There are extremely inexpensive opportunities to reach massive numbers of people, ways that have never existed in the history of the activity.

Focus should be placed on maximizing usage of these inexpensive tools and channels to QUICKLY increase the number of people it can reach and engage... if you can show even decent numbers and validate them... there is sponsorship cash out there to support this.

If done correctly, the financial situation of the activity could be dramatically improved within even 2-3 years.

[danielray]

here's my one question:

have you, with all of your experience, approached DCI about this in a way to help them?

or would you rather just armchair QB on here?

indirectly, but i'm not going to chase anyone.

no. i just have some time on my hands these days... and don't really have the patience for stamp collecting or attention span for a ship in a bottle. :-)

[bawker]

In an effort by DCI to cross-promote, any future releases of the 2005 Cadets show and its "drum speak" will now be dubbed over in Klingon.

bortaS bIr jablu'DI' reH QaQqu' nay'

qaStaHvIS wa' ram loS SaD Hugh SIjlaH qetbogh loD

noH QapmeH wo' Qaw'lu'chugh yay chavbe'lu', 'ej wo' choqmeH may' DoHlu'chugh lujbe'lu'

Qapla'!

. . .much more effective.

[audiodb]

DCI vs. The Klingon Language Institute

Other than a seasonal spike, DCI is pretty much on par with Klingon language learning in terms of number of people it actually reaches.

The Fan Network vs. The Klingon Language Institute

That is a seriously, seriously sad figure right there.

Why is that so "sad"? Like it or not, Star Trek was a successful major network series that generated such lasting and renewed interest to spawn eleven movies and four sequel series. Oh, and it has over a million Facebook friends.

I'm sure you'll keep coming up with these graphs until you hit on one that is sufficiently "embarrassing". Of course, if you devoted that much time to promoting drum corps on YouTube instead, we'd already be trending much higher, right?