Yahoo! Music Helps USA Networks Discover Music for Television

60,000 albums are released yearly. How can any one break through the clutter to get noticed if you’re doing it independently? There are now hundreds of cable TV stations people can choose from. How can an unsigned artist even get to one of those for music placement? And how can I get big internet music players and cable channels to notice?

Well, the top internet music site and the top cable network are listening for new music. And we’re going to anoint the best with exposure that is unprecedented in the music business. Who are these power players? Well, Yahoo! Music is obviously one, I’m sure you already guessed. We just announced our partnership with USA Networks to find and break bands. Knowing the quality of the programming and the sheer millions of people who use each media outlet daily, we’re gonna do it.

Here’s how it works. Independent bands are submitting music for airplay on our #1 LAUNCHcast service by the vanload. It’s gotten so big in recent months that Will Abramson, our Assistant Music Director in charge of indie music, had to get his mailbox expanded to twice the size. I think the IT people are going to kill us as we keep expanding the maximum capacity of Outlook for him to handle the MP3 submissions. So we take those submissions and we add them to the LAUNCHcast player. Every last one of ‘em, even if it sometimes takes us a few weeks to do so. We then watch how you, the Yahoo! Music radio listener, likes the song. If you really like it, we send a copy to USA.

They listen and, if they know that the music would work in the promos or episodes for any of their big hits such as Monk or Psyche, they call us and say “Let’s go!” We then play the record in LAUNCHcast while they play it on the TV network at the same time. With all those ears hearing the music, big buzz ensues and the artist is on their way to big success.

As someone who’s worked closely with artists for many years, I’ve really gotta tell you about the secret sauce. The deals we’ll make are some of the most artist friendly I’ve ever seen. Spencer Proffer, who is running the venture for us and USA, has been in sync with us on ensuring that the artist is not tied to some horrible, onerous agreement. Listen to this. The artist retains the rights to their music. The artist is committed for a short period of time and if nothing happens they are free to go elsewhere. The artist retains creative control. Personally, I was thrilled to hear all those things as we put this together.

Who will the first artists be? We’re deciding now and we’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, if you’re a LAUNCHcast user, here’s another great reason to rate the music you hear. You could influence what gets on USA Networks and gets signed! For artists, send Will your music. He might keep Red Bull in business if he has to find the time to listen to it all, but he loves it and he’ll do it. For us? It’s just one more step in our continued support for music artists of all levels.

Jay Frank, Head of Programming & Label Relations
Yahoo! Music