The CSA, the French Institution that regulate media in France, has launched a call for applications for a broadcasting platform for digital terrestrial radio and possible potential satellite broadcast, like CanalSat for television. The CSA wants to give a chance to those who want to break into digital radio and have a very specific project in mind.

In 2012, the CSA plans to launch a call for applications on a scale large enough that manufacturers can make the receivers en masse. The CSA has asked the French government to define new technical standard to support a European project and not just a French-centric one.

Forbes takes a look at the CEO of Spotify, seen by some as “the most important man in the music industry.”

Three years after its launch, Spotify, the music listening platform, continues to grow. Spotify, with 500 employees, owns 2% of the market for online music and generates about $300 million a year through advertising and its 2.5 million subscribers.

The formula is simple: users build their library for free and link up to the service by sharing songs on Facebook, while having to pay to enjoy this experience on their mobile.

After its amazing integration into Facebook, the free streaming service subscription has launched a new version of its application with a completely redesigned radio service.

Now, Spotify allows you to create as many radio stations as desired, with stations based on any genre, artist or song. No more unique radio stations created from genre suggestions, often difficult to customize.

Spotify’s value is estimated at 780 million euros. Warner, Universal Music and Sony own shares in Spotify estimated at 20%. Spotify has benefited from several successive fundraisers for 40 and 117 million euros (Sean Parker, Li Ka-shing, Accel, Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, DST).

Spotify was launched first in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Britain and Spain in 2008. Now Spotify is available in the United States, the UK, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Very soon Spotify will certainly integrate Siri into its app for the iPhone.

Brands can get an increase in awareness, attitudes, favorability, intent, and preference by using creative ideas and solutions that mixes Radio, Internet, and Social Media.
This presentation shows how efficient, cheap, and creative this media mix can be.

If you’re in charge of a brand, take a look at this keynote, and let me know how this media mix worked for you.

Earlier this week, Paris-based marketer Gregory Pouy released an excellent presentation about the Best Digital Campaigns of 2011.

Pouy manages to avoid focusing on the usual viral campaign suspects such as Evian, Old Spice and Tipp-Exx, and focuses instead on work done by Ikea, Nokia and Intel.
These brands have taken truly innovative steps in digital marketing, and there are many lessons to be learned from their success. Pouy offers many, but let’s focus on a couple of important lessons.

1. There are no secret tricks or shortcuts to viral marketing success.

Instead, successful marketers create unique cocktails based on key ingredients such as trends, constraints, personal stories, dreams and glam.

For example, Microsoft took advantage of the release of Jay-Z’s autobiography to create a unique advertisement for Bing Maps. Bing enlarged particular pages of Jay-Z’s biography and displayed them at their settings. Then, they integrated the search for the pages with a Bing Maps online game. End result? Approximately $1.1 billion worth of media impressions. The cocktail is simple: creativity, relevance, and celebrity.

2. There’s no separation between online and offline anymore.

A successful campaign must be multichannel. For example, Tesco used physical display ads, integrated with smartphone shopping, to become the #1 online supermarket in Korea without increasing the number of their stores.

3. Gamification’s a huge draw.

Print marketing has always succeeded by appealing to the consumer’s inner selves. Well, the same is true of digital. Gamification engages a basic human desire: the desire to win. Positive game experiences not only work to imprint your brand on consumer minds, but bring them back again and again.

4. Be creative

While there’s no magical ingredient, there’s one element common to all the brands that Pouy highlighted: creativity. However, creativity doesn’t have to come from a vacuum. A marketer should take inspiration from other successful viral campaigns, find ways to piggyback on other big marketing events and think about how to stand out from the crowd.

See and download the presentation

By Emmanuel Legrand
From Emmanuel’s blog

[This story was initially commissioned by the UK’s BASCA. Here’s an expanded version of the story published in the winter issue of the organisation’s magazine.]

It is easy to see why China and India may look like ideal playgrounds for British songwriters, composers, artists, labels and music publishers: both countries have an impressive population (1.3 and 1.2 billion inhabitants, respectively), with a large share of under 25. Despite remnants of poverty, they have booming economies and a growing middle class counting hundreds of millions of people with purchasing power and an eagerness to consume; plus they are the two largest markets in the world for mobile phone usage.

But the conditions for a thriving music market have not been achieved yet in both countries – although they offer a lot promise, they certainly have their own market idiosyncrasies to deal with. On the positive side, both India and China have made efforts in the past decade to bring their copyright regime in line with that of other countries.

“Generally speaking, the Chinese copyright law in itself is adequate enough to build a sound business, and like in China, India’s Copyright Law in itself is generally speaking adequate,” says KT Ang, the Singapore-based Regional Director & Regional Counsel of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) for the Asia-Pacific region. But, added KT Ang, in China the problem stems from the “implementation of the law” that has been “less than desirable,” while in India “the difficulties are the market practices and interpretations being made of it by the courts.”

For Safta Jaffery, Managing Director of London-based Taste Media, one of the key issues in India is the “lack of philosophy of paying royalties and no culture of respecting copyright”. Jaffery spent the most part of three years, between 2008 and 2010 focusing on the Indian and Chinese markets. He was working on a project together with ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ score composer A.R. Rahman and an established music publisher, with the ambition to create a credible publishing company in India, but the project was stopped because, in Jaffery’s words, “nobody believed we were going to get paid”.

“I think we were blindly optimistic,” explains Jaffery, who adds that it is unlikely that the system would change in the foreseeable future. “It is a system that has been working for a long time and which benefits all the main players, who are incredibly powerful and who have no interest at all in changing the way it works,” he continues. “If you have a good song, film producers will take it, pay a flat fee and that’s all. Who is going to break this mould?”

One who has tried and still does – with some success – is Bollywood legend Javed Akhtar. The Indian lyricist, poet and screenwriter is the most prominent figure in the fight to try to get the government and legislators change the copyright regime in the country. Thanks in part to his efforts, the Indian Parliament is about to debate and, hopefully adopt, this autumn a new Copyright Act, which will amend the Copyright Act of 1957. One key amendment in the bill proposed by the government asserts that authors of underlying works and those to whom they assign their works are each entitled to an equal share of the royalties received for non-film uses, including for performing rights.

This will mark a radical transformation from the previous regime, which was centred on the “work-for-hire” philosophy and transferred all ownership of works from composers, lyricists and performers to film producers. In his keynote speech at the World Copyright Summit in June in Brussels, Akhtar noted that even the greatest composers in the country such as A.R. Rahman did not earn royalties from the use of their works in India, but ironically did so when their works were played outside the country.

“Historically, India’s songwriters have not been able to exploit performing rights,” explains Karen Buse, MD of International at PRS for Music. “The major change in the new proposed Copyright Act is that it prohibits composers from waiving all their rights. We believe this is a good thing.”

For Universal Music Publishing Group Executive Vice President for International, Andrew Jenkins, the proposed changes in the Indian copyright law, introducing a non-cessible performing right to songwriters will be a game changer. “Songwriters and composers will not be able to assign all their rights, so this will change the situation significantly,” he explains. “Indian songwriters will enjoy an ongoing right to royalties when their songs are used in future. At the moment, there is not much incentive for [non-Indian] composers to write for Bollywood movies if they have to give up all their rights.”

Jenkins believes that the Indian government “is determined to bring India’s copyright practices in line with the rest of the world; it will create a level playing field for both local and international songwriters from the world in India.”

Most industry executives agree that India presented opportunities in the music field. “There have been three quite welcomed developments in India in the past 10 years: they have reduced significantly the level of piracy in the country, there is the beginning of a retail structure, and commercial radio is emerging as a sector,” comments Dominic McGonigal, Director of Government Relations at performers’ and record companies’ music licensing organisation PPL.

Universal Music Publishing was until recently the only major publisher operating with a stand-alone company in India – Mumbai-based Deep Emotions Publishing, a joint venture initially set up by BMG and a French expat, Achille Forler. Meanwhile, in September, Sony/ATV announced a joint venture with Sony Music India to administer and develop the company’s publishing catalogue. “This is good news,” says Forler, Managing Director of Deep Emotions Publishing. “The more the players, the better.”

Forler, who has been working in the music business in India for almost 20 years, has been focusing, alongside Akhtar, on the status of local collection society, IPRS. For historical reasons, the society has been controlled by record companies and the current situation is challenged by Akhtar and a few other authors and composers who are pushing for changes and more transparency. “Our idea is to simply say that authors’ societies must be controlled by authors,” says Forler.

“There are challenges in certain areas,” PRS’ Buse says, rather diplomatically. For her, revenues collected by IPRS are growing and progress has been made in many areas and there are potential benefits for UK songwriters/composers with new satellite channels that could play international movies. “We are seeing double digit growth with public performances this year,” she explained.

However, the level of revenues remains low: PRS for Music PRS regularly receives about £5,000 per year from China and is expecting £50,000 in 2011, while streams from India should reach £50-60,000 for 2011. On the flip side, she said, PRS does collect significant amounts of money that go back to Indian and Chinese songwriters.

On the question of performance rights for recordings, PPL’s McGonigal, reports some progress in India, where revenues from performance rights for recordings grew from $26.2 million in 2009 to $40.1 million in 2010, according to the IFPI. “Revenues in India are still low but they are there and they are growing,” says McGonigal, who was the signatory of the reciprocal agreement between PPL in the UK and its sister society PPL India in 2006. He attributes most of the growth to positive developments in the mobile sphere.

According to local data, Indians bought roughly 150 million portable devices, in 2010. The mobile market reaches over 800 million consumers in India. Ralph Simon, Chief Executive Officer of Mobilium International, believes that a lot of progress has been made in India thanks to what he describes as “the mammoth rise of mobile and the delivery of all kinds of IP and copyrighted content to phones – including audio content from Bollywood movies”.

Simon notes that with “the rise of the Indian ‘underground’ music scene, more artists and writers are opting for their own control and holding all digital rights” but admits that Copyright laws in India “are vastly outdated and urgently in need of addressing digital developments of all kinds”.

In addition, the country only opened up its radio airwaves about a decade ago. However, even though about 250 stations operate in the country, very little revenues go back to songwriters and publishers in terms of rights, according to Forler. But despite administrating over 2.7 million works, Deep Emotions receives a mere $40-45,000 per year from IPRS. “Public performance rights barely exist,” he said. For Indian songwriters, it was not that there were no performance rights, but they were not getting a penny of it as they had relinquished their rights to Indian film studios, according to Forler, who wants the system to change.

Not only do radio stations pay very little right, but many of them challenge in court the validity of performing rights. To make matters worse, IPRS and authors recently suffered legal setbacks. “A couple of Indian High Court decisions that effectively held that when a composer or author agrees to have his musical work included onto a sound recording, he thereafter loses his exclusive right of public performance or broadcast to the producer of the sound recording,” explained CISAC’s KT Ang.

But even is the situation was to be rectified, western artists would not stand to gain much as there is a very limited amount of non-local music played by Indian radio stations. “There is very little pop on Indian radio – it’s mostly Bollywood music,” confirms Buse.

The same applies to China, where local repertoire dominates the market and where MCSC, the Music Copyright Society of China, is in charge of collecting and distributing royalties. PRS for Music CEO Robert Ashcroft went recently to China to meet the key players, including sister society MCSC, and assess the importance of the market.

For Buse, at best, western music accounts for 10% of the total music played in China, and PRS could claim 2 to 3% of that amount. “In China, the biggest challenges are the still rampant piracy and the very low tariffs,” explains Buse. “Up until last year, broadcasters were not paying performing rights and the new tariff is so low – 0.2% of their revenues – that it will not generate much revenues.”

CISAC’s KT Ang confirmed that British songwriters could potentially generate revenues in China, mostly through covers of songs. “If a UK work is being covered or used in China, it would be perfectly possible to make money,” he says. “However, it is important to the writer to have a good representative in China who knows the market and has the right connections in the industry.”

MCSC was established in 1992, in the wake of the country’s first Copyright Act, implemented in 1991, which established the framework for authorship, ownership of works and copyright regulation. The copyright law was amended in 2001 and the main issue for rights holders has been the slow pace of its implementation and enforcement. In addition, for Ralph Simon, “There is still a lot of teething that both countries and their collection societies have to overcome to be fully cognisant with the digital and mobile age and its new demands.”

UMPG’s Jenkins agrees that, “China is a difficult place to do business because it does not fit any rules that we are used to working with”. “But the Chinese government is slowly moving forward to try to make things easier [for foreign businesses]. We ourselves must adapt to fit in there just as much as we look for changes in the Chinese market,” he adds.

For all those who have worked with China, one of the factors to take on board is that the political system is centralised with decisions made by the ruling Communist Party. MCSC, for example, is under the supervision and management of the General Administration of Press and Publication of China (GAPP) and its offshoot, the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC).

“Everything goes through the government and no company eager to do business there wants to damage the relationship with the government,” says a music industry executive, pointing out to the recent difficulties of Google in China, which have shown that no matter how big the company, trading is China can be hazardous.

One industry executive suggests that the pace of change in China is likely to be slow as the current status quo benefits local artists, and that the country will open up when it will also have guarantees that revenues will come from the foreign exploitation of Chinese repertoire. “They have no advantage in speeding up the process,” says the executive.

Yet, many executives also believe that China is a land of opportunities. Stuart Watson, founder of Singapore-based music company SWAT, has organised several trade mission to China and India for western companies. “It is very exciting to be in Asia at the moment and China epitomizes the excitement,” says Watson.

He notes that many encouraging changes have taken place in China recently. Until recently, he explained, karaoke bars did not pay royalties in China, although they were by law supposed to since 2006. It is estimated that over 3,000 establishment (out of an estimated 100,000 in the country) will be licensed in 2012 and start paying royalties per booth rather than as a percentage of their turnover. “This could be huge,” says Watson.

Thanks to a rise in karaoke and sync revenues, Jenkins reported that UMPG “has seen an incredible growth in revenues year on year in China and expects the trend to continue.” Jenkins mentions, for example, a recent $100,000 sync deal based on a Bee Gees song to be used in an advertising spot. “If a Chinese company wants to use a certain type of music, they are prepared to pay for that,” he says.

Jenkins also points to a deal made in July 2011 by major labels and China’s leading online platform Baidu, for long considered a rogue site. In July 2011, Baidu announced an agreement with One-Stop China – a joint venture formed by Universal, Warner, and Sony – to distribution their catalogues and the launch of its music online platform Baidu Ting. “This is a breakthrough that will monetise key areas of digital music use in China,” says Jenkins.

Overall, most executives appear to believe that there is potential in both countries. Forler is buoyant regarding the future of the music market in India. “Very few countries have such a passion for music like India, so that’s why I am optimistic,” he says. “We need to fix a few things, and I do expect that in the near future, it will not be $45,000 a year that I will get from IPRS, but rather $400 or 500,000!”

SWAT’s Watson advises to adopt a strategy of localised efforts. For example, he suggests to pitch Indian film producers and try to work with them, and also advertising agencies, both in China and India. But for that strategy to work, “you need people on the ground,” he explains. “In Asia it is all about knowing the right people and establishing long-term relations.”

Mobilium International’s Simon considers that India and China are both “in the middle of a tussle and a transition between the pre-digital view and the post-digital cross platform era”. However, he seems more confident about building digital business in China than in India. He explains, “One can build a sound business [in India], but the waste of money, time, productivity and energy on non commerce producing administration – vital as it is – saps a lot from growing young new age companies. In China, there appears to be an earnest attempt at safeguarding creative rights – as this is also in accordance with the WTO rules that China has signed up to.”

Universal’s Jenkins believes that both India and China will become in the next 5-10 years Top 10 music markets, with India perhaps leading the way. “Undoubtedly these are the two most exciting and challenging markets we operate in, both of them with huge potential,” he said. “If you plan to invest in China, you should take a longer term view. In India, we are already seeing double digit annual growth in the music business and you might see a more immediate result.”

Emmanuel Legrand is a London-based freelance journalist, blogger and media consultant, specialising in the entertainment business and cultural trends. Over the years, he has interviewed artists such as Peter Gabriel, Charles Aznavour, David Gilmour, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Feargal Sharkey, Salif Keita, Manu Chao, among others, as well as filmmakers (Alfonso Cuaron, Wim Wenders, Ken Russell…), industry leaders (Virgin’s Richard Branson, Universal Music’s Doug Morris and Lucian Grainge, Vivendi’s Jean-Marie Messier, Google’s David Drummond), and a handful of politicians. He is the conference coordinator for the World Copyright Summit, organised by CISAC (the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers). The latest event took place in Brussels June 7-8, 2011. He was from 2007 to 2009 the editor of Impact, a quarterly magazine for the music publishing community. He was until March 2006 global editor of US trade publication Billboard. From January 1997 to July 2003 he was editor in chief of Billboard’s sister publication Music & Media, the leading weekly pan-European trade magazine covering the music, radio and new media industries.

Despite the fact cable TV was introduced nearly 30 years ago and despite the fact television viewers can often have 100+ channels at their disposal, most people still watch networks like CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox. Likewise, even in the face of growing competition from music services like Pandora, iHeartRadio, Spotify, GoogleMusic, podcoasts, Facebook’s music app, and dozens of other options, most people still get their music and talk via good old fashioned FM and AM radio. Recent research by Arbitron found, in fact, FM and AM radio reach 95% of Persons 12+ every week, an increase from 91% in the 1970s when there were far less choices.

This is not to say that number won’t decline in the coming years, but it does suggest broadcast radio isn’t facing a death sentence. Yet it seems broadcast radio is always defending itself when, in fact, it should be proud of what it does well, and should be working to keep doing it well and figure out ways to do it even better.

Chances are you have a friend with a 64 GB iPod full of music and podcasts, but what’s on their iPod at any given moment is but a fraction of all the music stored on their 1 TB external hard drive. Oh, and guess what …your friend has an iPad and a half dozen thumb drives full of music, and sometimes they burn MP3s onto a disc. Your friend also has an iPod Nano (for wearing during workouts). Further, he probably has satellite or cable TV and those services typically provide 40+ music stations to enjoy at home, and there’s a good chance he has and subscribes to satellite radio in his car. Oh, but he’s not done there. Lately, your friend probably has been raving about iHeartRadio and Pandora, and he uses them on his iPhone, his PC, his iPad, and anywhere else he can install the apps. But just wait until he discovers Spotify. And lastly, don’t forget the music he stores on his iCloud and two other cloud services. He has no shortage of ways to find and listen to music, and at cocktail parties he probably will tell everyone in the room he thinks broadcast radio is dying and he never listens to it …well, except for NPR every now and then.

But guess what? Though it seems like the person described above is everyone, he’s actually less than 5% of people. Most people don’t want to work that hard to avoid Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift. In fact, most people want to hear Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift and they want to know when the next Lady Gaga comes along, and they get the music they want on FM radio.

Pandora was first and gets the most attention, and rightly so. It’s creative, fun, and commercial free. It certainly has its appeal. Pandora (and now iHeartRadio) create custom stations based on an artist or genre of music, and each plays random songs that “sound similar” or are “liked by other listeners” who also like the artist or genre you like. So if you start a station on Pandora or iHeart based on Led Zepplin because you want more 70s-sounding rock with driving guitar riffs, a high-pitched front-man, and mythic themed lyrics, Pandora and iheart are going to start throwing bands into your playlist like Yes and Rush, and then they’ll try and find similar artists. Some people enjoy telling Pandora and iHeart ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on the music and creating a perfect station that sounds like Led Zepplin. Pandora was built around a complex computer program that can detect certain music algorithms and themes, pace, and style and then create a perfect blend of music for your station – you create your own station.

Pandora appeals to music snobs who thumb their nose at formulaic pop-music or an endless supply of classic rock that can be found on broadcast radio. It appeals to the crowd who can’t understand how anyone can listen to Christmas music beginning in mid-November and seemingly never tire of hearing Burl Ives’s “Holly Jolly Christmas” (Christmas stations typically double or triple their listenership when they flip to 24/7 Christmas music).

Broadcast radio should, and is, paying attention to new and creative music services, but it should not lose sight of what it does best.

If you were given an FM tower, what would you do with it? Some people would tell you they’d do something decidedly different than what current FM radio does. They insist they’d play cool acoustic music and deep tracks off old 70s and 80s albums that never get the light of day, and they would introduce and play a great deal of underexposed modern music like Wilco and The Decemberists. Now, suppose those same people wanted to actually attract listeners? And suppose they also wanted to make a few bucks and earn a living? If that was their goal, you can bet their FM station would suddenly get a healthy dose of Lady Gaga.

Truth be told, despite the fact Pandora boasts 2.1-billion hours worth of music, some people – no, most people – don’t want or need that much music.

Broadcast radio is still in the drivers seat. It’s only major liability might be its a lack of locality and increasing lack of creativity, but it can fix that quickly. Over the past 5 years, broadcast radio has gotten away from what truly makes it great and unique – it is local and part of the community. But even as large corporate owners try and control it from on-high, it still must be doing something right because most people are still listening – and younger listeners (Teens, Adults 18-24) are listening at their highest levels in history. Plus, broadcast radio hasn’t even figured out a way to tap into it’s full bag of tricks, namely HD Radio, which makes your FM signal digital and delivers an amazing audio experience. What’s more, with HD Radio, there can be 3 or 4 stations on any given dial position, called side channels. If you have an HD Radio and you live in a city where programmers have control over these side-channels, you already have an amazing world of alternate music and talk programming just waiting for you to find it.

Broadcast radio has programmers, promotions, and personality. To survive and thrive, it should depend upon these people more than ever. Perhaps the non-FM listener shuns broadcast radio because it lacks the creativity, diversity, and discovery it once seemed synonymous with, but radio can fix that and get back to its roots while still maintaining mass appeal.

By Sam Zniber & Emmanuel Legrand

‘Don’t Stop The Party’ is the Black Eyed Peas’ new motto. But the party hasn’t even started in American radio!

Dance and electronic music are the natural soundtracks to parties and have been programmed on European radio for the past two decades. These once underground music genres reached mainstream attention 10 or 15 years ago thanks to the likes of The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, or even Moby.

But when listening to radio in the US, it feels like the trend started and ended with Ace of Base in the 1990s! OK, we’re stretching it a little bit to make a point, because the point is that US radio is missing out on a music format based on a genre that is attracting a growing number of fans and that has a lot to offer, both on air and off air.

If you go to Miami’s Ultra festival in March, you’ll get a sense of the tidal wave that is in the making: Thousands of people dancing to these big phat rockin’ beats blasting from the massive PA and powered by the world’s most famous DJs. And for all these partygoers, this is the coolest place to be.

For most of today’s radio programmers, acknowledging this new scene is probably akin to what happened in 1967-69, when the establishment saw with disbelief rock music going from counter-culture to mainstream, using a new medium, FM radio, and congregating in gatherings such as Woodstock. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, ‘there’s something happening and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?’

Electronic music – often referred to in the US as ‘techno’, although it is just a sub-genre – could be a programmer’s dream: there’s a vast pool of talent, with DJs and producers who are also much in demand for dance mixes of established hits (think David Guetta or Armin van Buuren); audiences are ‘connected’ to the music and among themselves, which allows for community action; and it is virtually a virgin format in US radio, so the first ones to establish a footprint are likely to be winners.

The downside is that you have to get it right. Electronic music is a confusing genre because of all its subtle sub-genres, going from the ethereal synth waves of ‘ambient’ to the hardbeat ‘trance’.

Electronic music is quintessentially global, so an eclectic programming mix could include the likes of Italy’s Benny Benassi, Brazil’s Gui Boratto, Austria’s Elektro Guzzi, Germany’s Robag Wruhme, France’s Etienne de Crecy, the UK’s Metronomy, Sweden’s Swedish House Mafia, the Netherlands’ DJ Tiësto and Afrojack, the USA’s LMFAO, or Romania’s Edward Maya. You could even wrap into the programming some more mainstream acts such as…Adele, whose ‘Rolling in the Deep’ has been given an upbeat remix by Romeo Blanco.

The time seems about right, with rock music almost disappearing from the Billboard Top 100 charts in the US. What dominates the charts nowadays are tracks that usually have a very strong electronic/dance foundation: LMFAO, Rhianna, Stereo Harts, Cobra Starship, Nicky Minaj, Lady Gaga, Pitbull, Katy Perry, Britney Spears… And one of the world’s most in demand DJ/producer is Frenchman David Guetta. He’s been working with virtually everyone in the US music business, from Will.i.am to Usher. He’s made electronic music ubiquitous and is certainly now one of the most popular artists of the times.

The fantastic aspect of electronic music, aside from the creativity of the scene, is that this music genre is totally in synch with the digital generation. Digital natives are fully wired and their use of electronic machinery – from iPods to tablets, video games and PCs – and their mastering of the web 2.0, is matched by their interest in electronic music. It’s their world, their digital world.

If you are managing radio stations or programmers, you’d better take notice. Teenagers aged 15-20 spend a lot of time chatting with friends, using Facebook, sharing music and going out to clubs – and they listen to electronic music. A vast majority of these youngsters have been lost by traditional radio, simply because they could not find there what they wanted. So the big challenge for radio executives is – how do you attract them?

In Europe, stations like Fun Radio in France, Galaxy and Kiss100 in the UK have managed to move the genre from niche to mainstream. What have they done? They’ve blended urban music (R&B or hip hop) with upbeat electronic music and created a new sort of CHR/Urban mix, very dynamic and in tune with the young demo.

European programmers have perfected this format because there was a direct link with the very lively electronic scene that has been blossoming in Europe since the 1990s. Add to that the R&B/hip hop component from the US that delivered fantastically well-packaged hits, and you have a very solid proposition for an audience avid of beats and longing a different radio sound. After switching to the format, Fun Radio’s market share went from 2.5% to 4.5% and raised its cumulative audience from 5.1% to 8.1%.

[It must be noted the one of the writers of this piece, Sam Zniber, was the architect of Fun Radio’s switch to the format, and that he no longer works for or advises Fun Radio and its parent company RTL Group. He also worked with Galaxy.]

Can it be replicated in the US? We don’t see why it could not. The upbeat R&B component already exists and is milked to the core by the biggest CHR stations like Z100 in New York. But the idea is to keep some R&B and hip hop components and get rid of all the “middle of the road” pop and rock tracks, while adding electronic music, to give the station a defining sound. The result is what we’d call the “Electronic/Dance Format”.

Mind you, there are some station in the US that claim to be Party machines, like WKTU in New York, but they tend to target female adults, whereas the “Electronic/Dance Format” caters for youngsters, usually under 25, regardless of their gender.

Strategically, such format would be the perfect potential “flanker” format to give leading CHRs a ride for their money. You can create a market for yourself by tapping into a new audience but also by winning the “left-wing” audience from the dominant CHR, CHR Rhythmic and Urban stations. And if they try to follow you they risk losing their mainstream audience, while their “left-wing” audience will probably stay with the new format and not come back. So there’s a lot to gain with this format for radio groups looking for ways to secure clusters and tap into new reservoirs of audience.

Launching such a format in a new market would require the following:
- Break electronic music into different music types (probably up to 14 different types);
- Create prototypes with the different types of electronic music;
- Aggregate them into one seamless and dynamic music programming;
- Build a coherent schedule and sound, by coaching on air talent and producers;
- Put together all the different features of the stations in a coherent way;
- Go after the competition to “steal” listeners and bring in new ones.

Adjusting the format it is slightly more complex than just that. Because programmers are dealing with such a variety of styles and genres, experience has proven that what really matters is the balance in the music mix, and playing the right track at the right time. And it’s more than just having the right programming; it is also about getting the “right attitude” and know how to address the community.

These radio stations have to be immersed in their local communities. They must work the local clubs, find the right events to partner with, and if they don’t find them, then create them. The connection that you can build with the world’s leading DJs will be a significant factor in the success of the format. The DJs are today’s hot brands and stations will define their DNA by partnering with the right “brands”, sorry, DJs. And you can also build a significant online following too, with a smart use of the internet, phone apps and specialized playlists.

So if you are in a competitive radio market, with a couple of dominant CHRs or Urban stations, it may be worth considering a new format.

Time has come to party, for real!

Recent tracks fit for the Electronic Dance Music Format

ALEX GAUDINO FEAT. KELLY ROWLAND – WHAT A FEELING
ALEXANDRA STAN – MR. SAXOBEAT
BLACK EYED PEAS – JUST CAN’T GET ENOUGH / THE TIME (THE DIRTY BIT) / DON’T STOP THE PARTY / I GOTTA FEELING
BOB SINCLAR FEAT. RAFFAELLA CARRA’ – FAR L’AMORE
BRITNEY SPEARS – TILL THE WORLD ENDS / HOLD IT AGAINST ME
CHRIS BROWN FEAT. BENNY BENASSI – BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
DAVID GUETTA – SEXY CHICK (FEAT. AKON) / WHERE THEM GIRLS AT (FEAT. FLO RIDA & NICKI MINAJ) / WHO’S THAT CHICK? (FEAT. RIHANNA)
DJ ANTOINE VS. TIMATI FEAT. KALENNA – WELCOME TO ST. TROPEZ
DUCK SAUCE – BARBRA STREISAND
EMINEM FEAT. RIHANNA – LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE
ENRIQUE IGLESIAS FEAT. LUDACRIS – TONIGHT
EXAMPLE – CHANGED THE WAY YOU KISS ME
FAR EAST MOVEMENT FEAT. CATARACS & DEV – LIKE A G6
FLO RIDA – TURN AROUND (5 4 3 2 1) / CLUB CAN’T HANDLE ME (FEAT. DAVID GUETTA)
INNA – SUN IS UP
JAMES BLAKE – LIMIT TO YOUR LOVE
JENNIFER LOPEZ FEAT. PITBULL – ON THE FLOOR
JLS – EYES WIDE SHUT
KATY B FEAT. MS DYNAMITE – LIGHTS ON
KATY PERRY FEAT. KANYE WEST – E.T.
KE$HA – WE R WHO WE R / BLOW / TIK TOK
LADY GAGA – BORN THIS WAY / JUDAS / THE EDGE OF GLORY / POKER FACE / ALEJANDRO
LMFAO FEAT. LAUREN BENNETT & GOONROCK – PARTY ROCK ANTHEM
MANN FEAT. 50 CENT – BUZZIN’
MARTIN SOLVEIG & DRAGONETTE – HELLO
MILK & SUGAR VS. VAYA CON DIOS – HEY (NAH NAH NAH)
PITBULL – GIVE ME EVERYTHING (FEAT. NE-YO, AFROJACK & NAYER) / HEY BABY (FEAT. T-PAIN)
RIHANNA – ONLY GIRL (IN THE WORLD)
STROMAE – ALORS ON DANSE
SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA – SAVE THE WORLD / ONE / MIAMI 2 IBIZA
TAIO CRUZ – HIGHER / DYNAMITE
TIESTO VS. DIPLO – C’MON (CATCH ‘EM BY SURPRISE)

About the authors:
Sam Zniber is a radio consultant. Over the past 20 years, he’s worked in the radio field in the UK (Chrysalis Radio), Australia (Clear Channel) and in France (NRJ, RTL Group, Lagardere Active). He currently consults radio groups around the world.

Emmanuel Legrand is a London-based freelance journalist, blogger and media consultant, specializing in the entertainment business and in analyzing cultural trends. He is the former global editor of US trade publication Billboard and the former editor in chief of Music & Media, the leading weekly pan-European trade magazine covering the music, radio and new media industries.