Is there not an argument for niche releases aimed at markets where a) people still have money and b) the currency is gradually going up against the £ anyway? You could leave the royalties in a Norwegian bank account (they still pay interest here as well) building up. Many entries into the Norwegian "Song For Europe" contest are in English and perhaps written by non-Norwegians. Many British writer producers merely need to find a Norwegian artiste who will return to Norway with their version of the song, enter the song into the Norwegian contest and / or release it and promote it over there.

"Is there not an argument for niche releases aimed at markets where a) people still have money..."

There is no need for an argument about this. The music biz, however, has been skewed towards hyper-competitive, low-return "youf" sectors for decades. It's ingrained by now, and a very nasty habit to have caught.

Don't worry, there are people exploiting under-the-radar niches very happily!

I DO wonder how far away we are from "the public" complaining about the state of new music they're offered. I know a few acts who make an OK living constantly touring and selling CDs direct to punters at gigs. The show makes business sense anyway and the CD sales can top up the takings by £200 a night.

On another topic, I was reading a piece in the Guardian about JK and how "The Walton Hop" was used for testing tracks and working out what the "youf" went for. I've been doing the same thing for years at work, slipping unknown tracks into my break mixes to see how they go down.

If JK had been born 30 years ago, he wouldn't have bothered with "The Walton Hop" because services like jango.com supposedly offer a better and less time consuming way of testing tracks out.

Only if you are trying to work individual tracks. Niches are broader, and bring a range of revenue with them.

On a side note, I spent some time with the metric sites that measure online activity and airplay. We are still quite a distance from away from having metrics and indicators that we can use to build revenue in any significant way.

The depth of knowledge and breadth of opinions I'm finding on here is a revelation. I suppose the point I wanted to make was that being in Norway, I know buying tracks from amazon.co.uk using a Norwegian ISP is difficult, If Norwegians (and Swedes and Danes too probably) have no choice but to pay these kind of prices for downloads and don't flinch at the price, having a successful song in a market like Norway may make more business sense than slugging it out in the price sensitive UK and US etc.

There's another reason for doing this: compare the relative costs of making any sort of impact in the UK and US with a more contained market such as Norway or the Nordic countries.

Combine this with the benefit of working in a niche. Check which genre charts are used locally - any chance of entering one of them? ;- ) Are there any local or niche TV channels that would play ball with you?

I've been working over here for 23 years. There are acts playing "Scandinavian swing" selling bucketloads of CDs direct to punters at huge "dansegalas"

The Norwegians consume far more live music than the English. The Scots consume more live music than the English. I know I'm mixing lots of things up here. I'm an act who makes most of his living gigging in Norway and any income from downloads is almost a "hobby". Some mobile phone contracts in Norway allow you to download x number of tracks per month.

I can see I'm at an advantage because I've been based over here for a while but if you find a great but dated song doing very little, you can always try it in a dated market.

Germany is still a great market for many British acts too dated to get any attention in their native land ("Smokie"?)