The death of TV news is a self-serving prophecy told by those who don’t know how to save it
→ Antitrust trial begins that could lead to breakup of Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation
The shame here is that after the House of Blues crew took over what became Live Nation, those venues were run better than ever. It’s the handcuffs for artists—you want to play the venue we control in Town X, you…
→ 1 Million Monthly Listeners. 12 Tickets Sold. Here’s The Scam.
Some of us have been talking about this since the 00s.
→ A ‘Cease Operations’ notice was posted on World Cafe Live’s door this week
This whole episode is so aggressively sad. I worked at and consulted for WXPN through the period where Hal and the original team were planning this venue. I walked through this space when it was just a shell. I have…
→ Apple’s 30% Commission Mandate Forces Patreon Into Contentious In-App Purchase Migration
“Apple continues to aggressively defend its commission structure in markets where it maintains the legal authority to do so, arguing that the App Store provides valuable services including payment processing, fraud prevention, and customer acquisition that justify its fee structure.”…
→ Scoring Big on the Secondary Concert Ticket Market
Because I somehow found myself this week agreeing with Kid Rock and what not… (even a stopped clock?) I wanted to resurface this post from ~15 years ago and lament that some of these things have gotten better but somehow…
→ I’m Building an Algorithm That Doesn’t Rot Your Brain
What happens when the For You page isn’t “for you” anymore?
Preparing for the Creator Economy Apocalypse
I put this blog into archive mode nearly ten years ago, thinking I’ve said everything I’ll ever need to say on any of these topics. But a lot of stuff’s been buzzing in my head lately, and Chris Gethard says…
Government arts funding’s going away. It’s our job now.
We knew it would happen someday. Back in 1989, Andres Serrano busted open a simmering debate over whether it’s right (or even effective) for tax dollars to support arts. As a high school student at the time, I got worried…
Getting music picked for branded content platforms
Morning Edition’s Allyson McCabe dropped a five minute mini-documentary about how “pay for play” at radio stations has evolved from the scandalous “song plugger” systems of the 1950s, through the bizarre indie promotion world of the 1990s, and into today’s…
Fighting for the freedom to make music, art, and words worth sharing
spinme.com turns twenty this year. Our mission, when we first launched this thing, was to try to expose the work of artists who weren’t getting enough attention from mainstream radio and television. Today, it seems like radio’s the last place…
Avoiding music business scams
I just posted dozens of “classic” coaching call recordings to our membership area, and even though some of them are over a decade old, many of those conversations hold up really well! (If you take some of the specific technology…