Lee Thompson, Music Editor at ‘Record of the Day’ discussed the history of music, from records and cd’s to the world of Apple Music, Tidal, Soundcloud and Spotify – where you can have a hit record without radio airplay. But where does that leave the ‘star factory’ legacy of radio? Tapio Hananen, Music Director for YleX talked about the balance between familiarity and discovery in the music industry in 2017. He quoted the idea that ‘if you want to sell something familiar, make it surprising – and if you want to sell something surprising, make it familiar’. His station follows streaming date, shazam and more to make sure they are playing the right tracks – including 40% Finnish music and 20% new Finnish artists. Tapio said that YleX is now a youth media, with radio attached – and social media is a key way of breaking these new artists. Luke Williams of Vector Management talked about his artist, Calum Scott, and his track ‘Dancing On My Own’ and the impact that streaming had on it – it reached 1.2 million sales in the UK. Callum came 6th in ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ and then put out a record independently. His profile built overnight and the song went straight into the UK Top 40. It rose to become Number 1 in 6 countries and has now had over 200 million streams. This was all before radio played the track. Luke says that this is entirely normal now – to have an instrumental, acoustic and remix versions at least. And radio is the thing that pushes an artist’s popularity to stardom. Despite streaming, you still need radio to take new music to that next level.
'If you want to sell something familiar, make it surprising – if you want to sell something surprising, make it familiar' @DJOrkidea #RDE17 pic.twitter.com/kYbhOzMaNx
— Radiodays Europe (@RadiodaysEurope) March 21, 2017
A post shared by Radiodays Europe (@radiodayseurope) on Mar 21, 2017 at 4:36am PDT