When Turntable.fm launched a few years back, it was an interesting service that filled a unique niche. Two years in, the team behind the service are shattering it. Between scale and trying to monetize, it simply wasn’t working for the Turntable team. Also, they have a new service they want to try and promote a little more.
Turntable Live is an online concert feature the Turntable team is now focussing on, and meant to bring live music to people everywhere. According to the blog post, Turntable is doing this for everyone: we want music, and artists need to get paid. It’s as simple as that.
Turntable Live can be viewed as a last-ditch effort to save a service, or a new day for music. As digital takes the place of physical, the payouts for artists become trying. They make see a lot of downloads, but smaller payouts don’t make sales numbers mean as much anymore. Artists rely on live performances to make the real money, but with the rising cost of tickets it’s a tough ask of fans.
With Turntable Live, anyone can tune in and watch. A recent show with Knife Party had over 20,000 tune in, which is quite honestly more than they’d see in a normal live concert situation. We get to see live music, and artists get to see some deserved revenue. It also opens the world up to lesser-known artists, and helps them to get exposure.
Again, there are two ways to look at it. We prefer to think of it as a new day for live music, and a great new way for artists to interact with fans. It’s early days, but Turntable Live is pretty exciting. We hope it doesn’t meet the same fate as Turntable.fm.
VIA: Android Police
