Worcester, MA. (Top40 Charts/ IBS) - Two leading digital music providers, Trakheadz and SMtv Music, have agreed to offer royalty-free music to over 1,000 college and high school radio stations via the Intercollegiate Broadcasting Systems' new IBS Student
Radio Network, operated by Backbone.
The agreement will offer broad exposure to the emerging artists and their music, and will allow the IBS Student Radio Network to offer its listenership fresh, alternative music content from many of tomorrow's hottest indie bands and performers.
This development follows the recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which significantly increased royalty fees that Internet radio stations must pay to major record labels (RIAA) for each song aired, and it eliminates the differences in rates between Internet and terrestrial radio stations for these artists' music.
"We appreciate Trakheadz and SMtv Music providing their content to the IBS Student Radio Network for royalty-free streaming," said Len Mailloux, Chairman and Executive Vice President of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS) "Trakheadz and SMtv Music recognize the promotional value of providing this type of programming and we look forward to breaking some of the new artists that they represent. Providing their content under the same terms as terrestrial broadcasters will ease the administrative burden on college radio stations to comply with increasingly complex broadcast rules and regulations."
"The IBS Student Radio Network offers an excellent opportunity for Trakheadz.com artists and labels to get their music heard," says Steve Keitt, CEO of Trakheadz.com. "The information that will be passed back to us on listenership and playlists will be invaluable to our members. For decades both indie and major labels have relied on college radio stations to help them introduce new music to the record buying community. The IBS Student Radio Network ensures that college radio remains an indispensable source whereby up and coming artists can gain exposure that is essential to achieving mainstream success in the music industry."
"I'm honored to be providing audio feeds of SMtv to the network," said Samantha Murphy, founder, host and producer of the popular SMtv podcast series which each week introduces tens of thousands of subscribers to new singer-songwriter performers. "SMtv has been an incredible promotional opportunity for myself and the artists I've featured for the last two and a half years. By partnering with the IBS Student Radio Network, we'll create another valuable distribution channel for the artists featured on SMtv. The proposed CRB rate increase threatens to remove an entire online audience from our reach. In light of this, we must act accordingly to not only protect this vital promotional resource, but to also send a message of web radio's importance to the CRB and the RIAA. As emerging artists, our very careers depend upon it."
"This is an exciting advance for Internet radio," said Richard Cerny, President of Backbone Networks Corporation. "The synergy between student audiences and independent music artists is extremely deep. College radio is where new artists find an enthusiasm for fresh and creative material, and Trakheadz and SMtv Music will be supplying an important resource in their vast catalogs of independent music for stations to play. This type of cooperative relationship between artists and broadcasters will help accelerate the adoption of the Internet as the broadcast medium of choice."
The IBS Student Radio Network is the first true Internet radio network, one that specifically aims at enhancing the student radio education experience. The IBS Student Radio Network will use Backbone's advanced client-server Internet radio automation software to enable student operated stations to syndicate live and produced programming among member stations, as well as automatically access royalty-free programming from worldwide third-party sources such as Trakheadz.com and SMtvMusic.com. Artists supplying music to the network through Trakheadz and SMtv Music will be provided with statistics informing them which stations played their music, as well as other data including times, dates and the number of listeners.
Network stations will be offered collections of news feeds, royalty-free music from emerging and alternative independent artists, and other programming that will be available only to stations on the Network. Member stations will be able to draw programming from one another through shared server databases, as well as have access to each other's live feeds, including sporting events and concerts. A simple laptop computer with a wireless card will enable a school correspondent to cover remote events, including play-by-play coverage of away games.
IBS and Backbone Networks recently announced the pilot program and have signed pilot stations to the network. The fall semester will witness the launch of the network with demonstrations and additional sign up opportunities at all of the IBS regional radio/webcasting conferences. The IBS Regional Conferences are this fall in Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles (www.collegeradio.tv)
