I point you at this obscure small hit from the era of 60s and early 70s - inspired by the sad news of the death of Don Partridge - and urge younger music lovers to check it out and any decent TV executives (there aren't any) to consider putting a decent TV music series together...

JK I despair to be honest. I think I am cutting my losses and giving up with the existing music industry
and the people that populate it. They have given up and think only Cowell can succeed. Cowell is a genius
but only in having a CAN DO attitude like the Americans. But that's their problem. What is needed now is a show
catering to the unsigned acts, creating stars of the future. Recognising the needs of unsigned acts and not
be a farmhouse for signing with the outmoded majors.
I have said this here before and if any major label exec is reading this ACT NOW!
Create a true service oriented label that people can hire (affordable of course) bits thereof. From A&R to marketing.
Forget about owning copyrights that horse has bolted and once they become huge you can sign them for a more managed
service. Man are people stupid or what. This is akin to Rooney standing in front of an open goal and not kicking the ball
in it.
Also TV wise a Top of The Pops that breaks new acts and records. You can have elements of bootcamp (behind the scenes and away
from the public gaze) and create new stars. The public have shown us THEY CARE about unsigned acts from XFactor to MBTM
Man I despair. Google will take over the industry you watch and all these execs will be out of a job if they don't act NOW!

Sorry I have gone all BR/Rocker on you lol

Hello DJKZ, I don't understand your thinking about a TV show for unsigned acts:

a) If you have a TV show to promote signed or unsigned acts, there must be a "machine" / a (major) label or something else to capitalise (instantly) on the pr-effects of the TV show.

b) Do unsigned acts really need the short time success tv shows usually provide? Shouldn't the "new" model be about long term thinking, about ways to find long term success (in a niche market) without the backing of a major label, a TV network, Google, MySpace or any other global company?

"The public have shown us THEY CARE about unsigned acts from XFactor to MBTM"

Does the (tv) public really care about "unsigned acts", about their music or do they only care about the (human interest) stories of the contestants?

A few points to consider:

1. Radio airplay is virtually impossible for unsigned act.
2. Unsigned is no longer a feeding farm for major labels but a distinct category of its own just like Majors and Indies.
3. MBTM proves people will buy if they like the music.
4. MBTM relies on little back story. In any case back story (human angle) is alive and well in "normal" music promotion anyway.
5. The show I am talking of is more like Top of The Pops and focuses on singles.
6. The goal is open. Someone should take a punt and reap the rewards.
7. Most important of all, with radio basically puppets of the majors, indies and unsigned acts have NO chance at radio.
8. TV works

The public cared enough to buy. From 400,000 viewers to 40,000 sales is a bloody good conversion. Theres a lot more I can say
but over to you.

BTW: Where is everyone ? Surely there are people who love music on these boards ? Only Velvetrope seems alive.

To answer your last question KZ - I fear the industry has actually disappeared and there is no interest any more in message boards. The only use is by A&R too lazy to get out themselves who vampire onto here to find unsigned picks - very few... Orson, for example, and Sons of Admirals and now Ulrik (295 views in 3 hours). They feed but they don't give. That is the new music world.

"Soley, Soley" is obscure? I could do with obscurity of that level!

Instead of trying to build a TV show from the top down, it might be an idea to build one from the web up. Find a truly great site with proven A&R acumen and hipness and add on TV elements, Twitter accounts, social elements (vote, buy shares in the band or I don't know what). It's pointless thinking we can re-create standalone TV shows like the seventies. Apart from anything else, JK's wig has disappeared. No, I didn't mean that. I meant to say that apart from that the audiences are no longer there. One of the issues TV producers are dealing with at Mipcom in Cannes next week is falling viewerships. The crinklies are falling away and the acnes have other ways to get their entertainment (come on, how often have we been talking about user-generated content - it wasn't a joke, you know). So the producers are going full blast into cross-platform and multi-format projects and swamping every available media with customised "content". Not many of them - euh, none - involve selling music as single units. It's all part of the package.

This is all a bit jargonesque, I know. But it's the business landscape that we are working in. The music biz has shrunk to being a glorified cottage industry in business terms. We no longer lead. We are an add-on. It's frustrating for those that knew it only 10-15 years ago. But when you get up on the pitch, you might as well know who you're playing against and what the weather conditions are!

By the way, I forgot to mention the only music show I still watch (apart from nostalgic documentaries for which I'm an absolute sucker): Taratata. Major or hot upcoming guests play live in the round, invite some interesting small fry, jam together and often give incredible interviews. It's been going for years on French TV and is now showing in Canada as well. No one does it better, with the possible exception of Jules.

www.mytaratata.com/

This week has Tim Robbins (yes, that Tim Robbins) in Dylaneque folk mode. But their archives are full of incredible material.

Here's one for teh crinklies:

www.mytaratata.com/Pages/ARTISTES_Fiche.aspx?ArtistId=699

Michael wrote:
The music biz has shrunk to being a glorified cottage industry in business terms. We no longer lead. We are an add-on. It's frustrating for those that knew it only 10-15 years ago.

The record industry in the 90s was a travesty, based on the monopolistic control of manufacturing/distribution and control of radio & TV (payola and other forms of collusion between the labels and the "independent" media).

From my point of view the transformation into a "glorified cottage industrie" (comparable to the record industry of the 50s and 60s) would be great.

DJ, perhaps. That sounds a bit too political for my soft brain. But it's a fact that we've lost control, and we ain't close to recovering it. There are far too many other industries of human happiness out there, such as the games industries, the apps business, porno, online pokr, etc. They weren't available in the same way back then.

I'm still mulling the web-up approach, actually. Not a bad idea, now that I think of it.

Michael you're spot on in a way. The web offers the best prospects
for this type of show. It is global, always on and can go viral.
But terrestrial and satellite TV offer prestige that web tv just
doesn't have so perhaps it is possible to do a hybrid show.

But the web up model is excellent and I think it can spread out
through other media hmm. I think one can utilise TV ads for pure
branding purposes whereby you have a constant regular ad at a specific
time using the informercial model. You don't even have to be on a lot
of TV stations just one would do. Interesting discussion.

The music industry NEEDS to create something. Maybe the MusicIndustry Song
contest lol. Eurovision is a massive hit and fantastic show maybe elements
from it could work.

JK you seem to have a lot of ideas and no doubt your involvement in UK TV
shows is without question.