NPR Should Take BBC’s Lead & Launch a Streaming Service
Music streaming and how to monetize it fairly for artists and songwriters has been one of those ever-present issues for the last couple of years, with the average consumer being way too busy to wade through the complexities of the matter, and many artists, labels, and songwriters too engaged in being heated over the subject to actually think about composing pragmatic solutions to solve it. In the end, consumers just want to be able to access music easily, some of them care about their favorite artists getting paid (but probably don’t want to put too much effort in figuring out how), and artists want to make a sustainable income. On the edge of a new paradigm, things always seem to be shaky, especially when they concern the lumbering music industry.
In June of 2014, Saving Country Music published an in-depth proposal of how NPR Music could potentially do a solid to the music industry, music fans, songwriters, artists, and publishers by launching their own streaming service to compete with services like Spotify and Pandora—companies whose minuscule payouts are at the heart of streaming music ire. SCM detailed how NPR has the name recognition, the infrastructure, the local and national footprint, and industry relationships to pull it off, and most importantly, might need to pull it off in the changing music and radio environment to survive. And because NPR is not-for-profit, it could give the organization a competitive advantage over a crowded field in being able to compensate artists equitably for their music.
The not-for-profit nature of NPR was also probably the biggest hurdle to NPR actually taking up the streaming challenge, but now a new wrinkle, and a new example of how streaming may soon take over the entire music and radio enterprise, should spurn NPR into looking more deeply into its streaming prospects.
Announced last week, the owned-by-the-public British institution the BBC is putting together their own streaming music format, called the “New Music Discovery Service.” It will include over 50,000 tracks that have been broadcast on the BBC in recent months, customized playlists to help listeners navigate the crush of new music and discover something they may enjoy, and hopefully put the BBC on a more equal playing field with services like Spotify and others.
“The rapid growth in digital and online access to music is responsible for significant change in the UK music industry and is affecting how audiences use our music services,” says the BBC. “We must evolve our music offering so that it serves new audience needs and habits and allows us to remain a strong partner and contributor to the UK creative sector.”
And even more interesting, the BBC says the emphasis on their streaming service would be on more niche and independent music, which regularly gets overlooked by larger commercial listening outlets on traditional radio.
“We would make this product a champion for new UK music … We would also use it to increase our support for specialist genres, independent artists and labels those who are less supported by the wider broadcast and digital market but for whom there are enthusiastic audiences. We would do this by featuring their music prominently in the playlists we curate, and we would add to the range of broadcast tracks by also offering a set proportion of music from [labels] which has not previously featured on BBC services.”
Right now there is no set timeline of when the new BBC streaming service may launch, but there already may be a snag. Music industry trade group BPI is worried the BBC thinks it won’t have to pay royalties for the music streamed on the service, but the BBC seems to be early enough in its planning stages that this hurdle should be cleared.
Back to NPR, one problem with launching a streaming service now is there is significantly more competition, including a new streaming service through Apple which shares many of the same listeners as NPR. In fact the BBC lost one of its most popular DJ’s, Zane Lowe, to Apple as part of Apple’s new streaming launch.
However the launch of NPR One—a curated streaming app for news from the organization, could be the precursor to offering curated music streaming as well.
It may not be a question of if, but when NPR will get into the streaming business as it quickly becomes a necessity to survive in the digital era.
September 15, 2015 @ 9:01 am
Or we could go back to physical music like CDs.
September 15, 2015 @ 12:03 pm
Or buy music digitally, like I do.
September 15, 2015 @ 12:26 pm
Still the main way I listen, with the exception of a few podcasts. But I am an old fart.
September 15, 2015 @ 4:31 pm
People are too addicted to having music on their phones.
I feel like the streaming debate is a complicated one. On one hand, the services should be paying out more. Then again like I posted earlier, most of the streaming companies are currently losing money and while companies like Amazon, Google and especially Apple have plenty of money to pay out more, they treat music streaming as a bit of a red headed stepchild that they leave in the corner and ignore. On the other hand, the record labels still take WAY too much of the cut and have really screwed over a lot of artists when it comes to streaming royalties.
September 15, 2015 @ 9:07 am
I was just thinking this same thing yesterday while watching Chris Stapleton on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert video on youtube. I think it’s an excellent idea and one that has the promise of benefiting NPR, the artists and listeners.
September 15, 2015 @ 9:15 am
As much as I would like it, they would face an uphill climb. The music streaming business is so freaking saturated right now and as far as I can tell, none of them are making money. I mean, Spotify is the biggest horse in the race with the most subscribers and I think they are even losing money overall.
Apple Music has pretty much been a failure as it seems their retention rate of trial to paid subscribers is not very good and I honestly don’t see Tidal being in business in a year or so. Nevermind that Rdio and Rhapsody are in the corner crying for attention and Google and Amazon seem to treat their streaming service like an afterthought.
I would love to see it, but I’m not sure a NPR streaming service would make much dent in the market sadly.
September 15, 2015 @ 9:23 am
or Baboom. thus far, I’ve seen no other service give kickbacks or control to artists like baboom does. I have a strange adoration for Kim Dotcom and his need to not fit a mold.
September 15, 2015 @ 12:11 pm
It is difficult to compare NPR and BBC, since BBC has a much larger operating budget and has a much more reliable funding source in the British government than NPR, which relies mainly on donors. As such, BBC has more latitude to take risks like starting a streaming service.
September 15, 2015 @ 4:47 pm
Clearly the mainstream public doesn’t understand the issue at all. It take too much work to understand a complex issue and I’m not certain the musicians grasp it either other than getting the shaft.
https://twitter.com/jetfury/status/587744520403607552
September 15, 2015 @ 4:54 pm
Also found this info graphic to makes us all feel bad.
http://factmag-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IIB_Musicians_streaming_2015_final.png
September 16, 2015 @ 7:33 am
I almost entirely blame the record labels. I remember during the Sony hack, that The Verge released documents that basically showed contract details between Sony’s music labels and Spotify and the label was taking a MASSIVE cut of the streaming money.
Basically the labels negotiated a crappy deal and artists are getting screwed over because of it and everyone is blaming the streaming services even though none of them seem to be churning much—if any–profit.
I agree that artists should be getting paid more for streaming, but at the end of the day the labels are mainly to blame for me.
September 16, 2015 @ 8:41 am
Of topic but I’ve always been peeved that labels continue to make profits off of dead artists like Jimi Hendrix or Sinatra or Cole Porter. It’s just kind of disgusting really.
And don’t ask me why I don’t have the same problem with publishers making money off of dead authors. It just feels less icky somehow. Maybe because music is so much more prevalent and out there than a book.
September 15, 2015 @ 11:41 pm
The BBC’s new streaming service may well be good news for British country. BBC Radio 2, whose remit partially includes promoting independent artists, has been instrumental in promoting upcoming British talent in country, to the point where the UK’s rising country starts such as The Shires and Ward Thomas almost definitely wouldn’t be where they are without the support of the BBC. Fingers crossed their new streaming service will continue this trend.