CD TEX-The Texas, Country, and Red-Dirt Song Source for Broadcast

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Since 2002, CD TEX has been a primary source for delivering Texas, Country, and Red-Dirt singles to Radio and the Music Industry. Today, CD Tex includes Videos and Albums-EPs in the delivery service as another marketing tool for artists and labels. The most efficient method of music and video delivery for broadcast is via download delivery. CD Tex targets the Texas, Country, and Red-Dirt radio and music industry and has posted over 100,000 broadcast downloads since 2010, with new subscribers signing up daily. For more information click here. Radio and Music Industry click here to subscribe.

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What if Pandora Did Direct Licenses?

What would happen if Pandora did direct deals with major labels? Less than you might think. As long as Pandora continues to operate as a statutory service, artists would receive 50% of performance royalties that would be paid to labels.

Pandora to Share More Data With Artists

Stung by accusations that it doesn’t pay enough royalties to artists, Pandora Media has been quietly working on a tool that would demonstrate the company's value by giving artists more information on how their songs perform on its Internet radio service.

Cut Through the Noise: 3 Simple And Effective Ways for Musicians to Get Noticed

Smart musicians know that their career depends on building a loyal relationship with as many fans as possible. But before you can start to build that relationship, you have to get people’s attention.

So how do you cut through the noise?

Spotify: Not One Artist Can Demonstrate Lost Sales from Streaming

There's a reason why the Eagles didn't remain on streaming platforms, after all. But streaming cannibalization isn't a debate — in any way, shape, or form — according to Spotify. Here's what one Spotify executive told an audience at NARM when the testy topic came up.

Google Launches 'All Access' Music Streaming Service [Updated]

Google unveiled its All Access on-demand music service at its I/O developer conference. It will charge $9.99 per month after a 30-day free trial; people who sign up by the end of June will be charged $7.99 per month.

SoundCloud to Open New York Office

SoundCloud will open a New York office in the coming months and has hired a former Pandora employee to help build its presence in the city.

First In The U.S.A.: 3D Printed Guitar With 76 Pickup Tones

AweSome Musical Instruments Has Just Released The First Commercially Available 3D Printed Guitar Made In The U.S.A.

Global Repertoire Database HQ to be based in London and Berlin

The Global Repertoire Database (GRD) -- a cross-industry initiative to deliver a global one-stop-shop for the cataloging of music ownership rights -- is to set-up its international headquarters in London with its operations center based in Berlin, the organization has confirmed.

Market Is Ready for YouTube Subscription Channels

Questions popped up as soon as YouTube unveiled its paid subscription channels Thursday. Will people pay a monthly fee to watch videos on YouTube? What will the impact be on cable TV? Can YouTube compete with Netflix?

9 Things YouTube Recommends Musicians Do, That You're Probably Missing

A few weeks ago, YouTube released a creators guide for musicians who use YouTube—detailing best practices and techniques for musicians using the service. The 40 page guide holds much common knowledge but a few gems of wisdom stuck out to me. Below I rounded up a few key points they made, that you shouldn’t miss.

What An Audio-Streaming Device and 3D Smartphone from Amazon Could Mean to the Music Biz

Amazon is reportedly developing a range of hardware products including an audio-only streaming device and a smartphone with 3D capabilities that does not require special glasses. The Wi-Fi audio device, meant for streaming through speakers or a television set, would have implications for the music industry. But the smartphone's potential impact on the music industry is even less clear.

YouTube Launches Subs; RIAA Adds Streaming Data to Gold, Platinum Certification; Apple, UMG Reportedly Sign iRadio Deal

YouTube launches subscription channels; RIAA adds streaming data to its gold and platinum certifications; Apple's iRadio reported UMG deal;Amazon's 3-D smartphone; what's next for departing "American Idol" judge Randy Jackson; Wisin y Yandel not splitting-up; Primary Wave's $125 Mil. deal; Clear Channel's new technology; Selena on Social 50; Ed Banger's 10th; fake Dr. Dre headphones; way more

Clear Channel Working on Song-Swapping Technology

Clear Channel is working on a technology that would replace songs in streamed content with a different song while accounting for the different in song lengths, according to a patent application filed with the U.S. Patent Office. Clear Channel declined to comment

Artist Development Isn't Dead. It's Merely Being Outsourced

As recorded music revenue has plummeted in the past decade, the old traditional development deals that record labels used to offer have largely disappeared.

Liberty Media's First-Quarter Results Rise Dramatically Following Sirius XM Inclusion

The acquisition of a controlling interest in the satellite radio giant boosted revenue and profitability metrics.

3 Ways Your Band Can Use Creativity to Make More Money

Money. Many artists struggle with it: either we’re poor at managing income or we lack creativity in getting it. It’s clear that with the shape of the music industry, most artists aren’t making a living from record sales. So how are they getting the support that they need?

The Music Marketing Manifesto. Ten Principles For Success

It seems like an obvious thing to say, but everything starts & ends with the music. If the songs are poor, the recording is bad, and the live show is dull don’t expect to make a living from music.

Some of the best new bands and artists are let down by terrible videos, bad photography and shocking design.

Pandora's Cap on Mobile Listening Causes Drop in Streams

Pandora’s monthly listening caps pulled down listener hours in April without resulting in a corresponding fall in unique listeners, the company's CFO revealed Monday evening.

YouTube Subscription's Split with Content Creators Likely to be Less than 30%

Content creators will likely receive less than 30% of any subscription dollars flowing to YouTube via a subscription plan that the Silicon Valley company will launch in the coming weeks, according to an executive familiar with the product. YouTube last year announced it would develop a subscription model for a tier of premium channels.

Should Labels Bypass SoundExchange and Enter Into Direct Deals with Clear Channel?

Last year's House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the Internet Radio Fairness Act (IRFA) ended up spending a considerable time discussing the disparity between internet and terrestrial radio royalties.

The 4 Places You Should Be Entering All Of Your Concert Dates To Increase Concert Attendance

Entering concert date is one of the most annoying parts of playing live. It’s both time-consuming and annoying to keep up with. Thankfully, it gets easier and easier each year to do this menial task. Entering dates into the services we have outlined below increases the chance of getting both fans and potential fans to your shows.

Spotify Acquires Music Discovery Service Tunigo

Spotify has acquired music recommendation service Tunigo for an undisclosed sum. The Swedish startup helps listeners find playlists, provides music news and editorial, and offers lists of new releases.

TEXAS THUNDER GIVES ALL

The Texas Thunder festival organizers have teamed up with Texas music artists to support the West, TX community. The Texas Thunder music festival, running May 17-19 and taking place in Gardendale will feature The Randy Rogers Band, Wade Bowen, Casey Donahew Band, Josh Abbott Band, Stoney LaRue and many more and will raise funds for those affected in the tragic explosion.

George Jones Memorial Evokes Tears, Tributes From Fans and Friends

Repeatedly hailed as the greatest country singer of all time since his April 26 passing, Jones received an appropriately grand send-off that included performances and speeches by the likes of Brad Paisley, Barbara Mandrell and former First Lady Laura Bush.

George Jones Returns to Billboard Country Charts

Legendary producer Billy Sherrill gets the last laugh on his dear friend and fellow Country Music Hall of Fame honoree George Jones, as "He Stopped Loving Her Today" soars back onto Hot Country Songs, some 33 years after Jones bet Sherrill that the song wouldn't be a big hit.

Songza Surpasses 6 Million App Installs, Debuts Version 3.0

With Pandora dominating and Apple looming, Songza is adding listeners and introducing features that change the way people use Internet radio. The service had 4.7 million active users in March, up from 2 million active monthly users at the end of the summer, and has served over 560 million songs in the last 30 days.

Nielsen Study Examines Who Is Buying Music, Media

A third of the U.S. population accounts for 70% of entertainment spending, according to numbers released today by Nielsen. The "high spender" group has slightly more females than males, very few teens and a higher share of Hispanics than exists in the total population.

8 Ways to Make the Most of Your Next Digital Release

How to promote your digital music

When you’re getting ready for your next album, EP, or single release party, it’ll be easy to forget about promoting the digital side of things. You’ll have all those beautiful CDs and vinyl records sitting there in boxes just waiting to be purchased by fans, mailed to bloggers and critics, and given away to a few lucky friends.

Governor Perry, Mayor Muska, Senator Huffman all supporting
Texas Thunder Music Festival efforts to raise funds for West, Texas

Gardendale, TX (April 30, 2013) – Today, Governor Rick Perry lent his support to the Texas Thunder Music Festival that will raise money for those affected by the recent fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas. The music event that will host The Randy Rogers Band, The Josh Abbott Band, Wade Bowen, Stoney LaRue, Casey Donahew Band, among others will take place May 17-19 in Gardendale, Texas.

Google Executive: 'We are Clearly a Company That Fights Piracy on the Internet'

Judging by the presentation Google's president of southern and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa did at last week's CISAC (the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies) conference in Bratislava, the company's preferred weapon of defence is denial.

How Often Should You Play? 6 Drawbacks to Playing More Shows

In some of my other articles, such as How to Book SXSW, I mention the importance of playing often. However, I need to add a disclaimer: it isn’t just about the quantity of shows plated, it’s also about the quality. While in theory, it sounds good to perform as much as possible because you can gain more exposure, the results can be quite different.

Vevo's Post-YouTube Strategies: Cable, Paid Subscription, Original Programming, More

With its sales chief out and margins slim, the video service heads to its second upfront presentation this week thinking about what life might look like beyond YouTube.

George Jones Survived ‘No Show’ Period Because Fans Identified With Him

Nashville insiders believe the late George Jones’ career survived his bouts with drug and alcohol abuse because fans could relate to his flawed character

After a Decade of iTunes Dominance, Apple Has a Tough Choice: by Jason Herskowitz

After a decade of iTunes dominance, the rise of streaming has given Apple a “Sophie’s choice”: play to win at streaming music (and maintain their leverage over the rest of the market) or dig their heels in deeper on an ever weakening iOS lock-in strategy. Jason Herkowitz takes a look at the situation in this guest post.

Record Store Day Drives Vinyl Sales to Historic Peak in SoundScan Era

Thanks to Record Store Day, weekly U.S. vinyl album sales hit a historic high: A total of 244,000 vinyl LPs were sold in the week ending April 21, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- the largest one-week sum for vinyl albums since SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991.

House Judiciary Committee to Conduct Comprehensive Review of Copyright Law

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced Wednesday the committee will conduct a comprehensive review of US copyright law in the coming months. “The goal of these hearings will be to determine whether the laws are still working in the digital age,” Goodlatte said.

How the Digital Music Revolution is re-shaping Album Artwork

One of the great things about the digital music revolutions is that it opened the doors for indie musicians to cheaply and effectively distribute their music to a wide audience, without having to invest in physical CDs and records. And yet, many have felt that the digital revolution has deprived albums of their visual and tactile components and depersonalized the experience of music ownership.

Does is still make sense to Buy Music?

Why deal with all the hassles of buying and maintaining a music library when you can get nearly everything you want online?

6 Things You Can Do With $100 That Will Change Your Music Career

Money. Let’s face it: most artists aren’t very good with it. Most of us don’t have much to invest into our music career (relatively speaking), and when we do, we tend to throw it at some random opportunities without a larger strategy in mind.

Why Are Track Sales Down in 2013?

U.S. track sales are down 2% through April 14th, according to Nielsen SoundScan, while digital album sales are up 9%. A deficit in the digital marketplace is unusual. Although tracks were in negative territory through part of 2010 -- they finished that year in positive territory -- there has been nothing but growth since iTunes launched in April 2003.

iTunes Leads Share of Online Video Market (Research)

iTunes accounted for 67% of TV show sales in terms of units in 2012, according to NPD estimates. For feature films, iTunes had a commanding 65% share of the market. This roughly mirrors iTunes’ slice of the market for digital music downloads, which ended 2012 with a 63% share.

A Look at Twitter #Music's First 24 Hours

Data centered around the launch of #Music, recorded by web data and analytics provider Attensity, provides some insight into the app's update and usage across the social web after its first 24 hours.

Local Networking for Musicians

Networking is the best way to get ahead in “the biz.” It isn’t all about sending your music to Pitchfork and blogs to hope it gets some airplay in the corners of the internet. It’s about talking to the people who matter most in your town to help each other out and to build a core fan base you can build from in the coming months.

Willie Nelson Turns 80th B'day Concert Into Texas Blast Benefit

Willie Nelson said Thursday that he will turn an upcoming Texas concert into a benefit for victims of the explosion at a fertilizer plant not far from where he grew up.

ASCAP Expo: Music Supervision in the Digital Age

Take advantage of YouTube, Soundcloud and blogs. That’s been the recurring theme all week at the ASCAP Expo in Hollywood and Friday morning’s “Music Supervision in the Digital Age” panel was no exception, with a few more specifics on offer, too, including the importance of Multi Channel Networks and the necessity of specific targets.

Google Service Disruptions Show the Cloud Is Problematic – But Still the Future of Music

The cloud is the future of music, but the cloud -- or parts of it -- doesn't work properly from time to time. The service disruptions of many Google applications Wednesday morning was a reminder that cloud-based services inevitably experience service problems and users can be forgiving if the company deals with the issues correctly.

7Digital Drives Further Into Autos

7digital, a supplier of digital music downloads and streaming services, has struck a deal to integrate its music store on QNX Software System's Car application platform being used by Audi, BMW, General Motors Co., Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp.

Pandora Hurts the Songwriters and Artists It Claims to Help: Post by Lee Thomas Miller

Songwriter and artist royalties from streaming services, particularly Pandora and Spotify, has been one of the hot-button issues in the music business for the past couple of years. Here, Lee Thomas Miller, songwriter and President of the Nashville Songwriters Association International, responds to an op-ed by Pandora founder Tim Westergren that was posted in Billboard.biz earlier this week.

SoundExchange Distributed $118 Million in First Quarter

SoundExchange announced Tuesday it distributed $117.5 million of digital performance royalties in the first quarter. The amount was a first-quarter record for the organization but was down from the amounts distributed in the third and fourth quarters of 2012.

iTunes Market Share Still Dominant After a Decade (Report)

Nearly a decade after selling its first digital song, Apple Inc.'s iTunes continued to dominate with a 63% unit share of the U.S. market for digital music downloads in the fourth quarter, according to estimates released Tuesday by the NPD Group Inc. Amazon.com's MP3 store remained No. 2 with 22% market share, NPD said.

Garth Brooks Sued by Ex-Partner, Claims Singer Ruined Opportunities in TV, Film

A harshly worded lawsuit says Brooks is a "paranoid, angry, deceitful and vindictive man who will turn against those closest to him on a dime." The papers claim Brooks botched good movie and TV work.

SiriusXM Launches MySXM Interactive Internet Radio Feature

SiriusXM Satellite Radio launched its answer to Pandora on Monday. Called MySXM, the feature creates an interactive Internet radio service by allowing users to personalize existing SiriusXM stations. The feature is available to all subscribers of SiriusXM.

The Most Underrated Things in a Musician’s Career

A few weeks ago, I posted about The Most overrated Things in a Musician’s Career. Due to some requests, I’ve decided to write about the most underrated things that we often don’t think about or use to the fullest extent. Like my previous article, there are a number of things that depend some time or commitment. However, unlike the “overrated” list, these are all things that you can probably never have too much of.

7 Simple Tips to Help You Promote Your Music on Twitter

If you want to promote your music on Twitter, there’s enough good data out there to inform your social media promotion efforts and help you maximize the effectiveness of each and every tweet. First, schedule your tweets at peak hours to get them in front of the most eyes.

What Our 200 Million Registered Listeners Can Mean for Under-the-Radar Musicians: Guest Post by Pandora Founder Tim Westergren

The single-minded quest for airplay remains the industry’s obsession, and for the vast majority of working artists, that quest still ends in failure. But that dynamic is changing. Beneath the radar, there is a sea change that is poised to fundamentally alter the equation for working musicians.

How Sagging PC Sales Will Impact the Music Business

Sagging PC sales will have a definite impact on music and entertainment companies. Time spent on tablets and mobile phones -- and the apps built for them -- will increase as time spent on PCs decrease. These trends will change the power structure in music and entertainment.

When It's Time to Hire a Manager

A manager can be an essential part of your team. But before you hire one, you need to make sure you understand what a manager is for - and assess whether you really need one. Atom Factory's Fabienne Leys has spent years managing songwriters, producers and artists. She's got some sage advice about when and why to hire a manager.

Looking for a Link Between Subscription and Download Sales

Countries with greater adoption of subscription services had lower rates of growth in digital download sales in 2012. This doesn't necessarily indicate subscription services cannibalized digital sales, but it does show that different countries have different types of digital marketplaces where formats are in different stages of maturity.

Indie Artists in the New Music World

It is a new world order for musicians. There’s also a high degree of change in the world of radio. Expectations, though, shouldn’t be changing all that much due to the complexities of rising to the top in a still very difficult system.

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