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Eco survey hopes to aid axing of the promo CD
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 23 July 2010
As previously reported, a CMU survey earlier this year found that while some music journalists are very supportive of the emergence of digital promos, the majority oppose the move away from physical promo CDs being sent to music reviewers, for a variety of reasons outlined here.
Various labels have been dabbling with digital-only promos for a while now, though it was Sony Music who were first to issue a resolute “no more physical promos” ruling earlier this year, motivating the aforementioned CMU survey. Of course, the main reason for stopping the mailing out of hundreds of physical CDs to journalists is to save costs, though there are, obviously, environmental benefits to going digital also.
And it is those environmental benefits that a new survey by record label trade bodies BPI and AIM will investigate, with the support of the music industry’s “be more green, OK?” organisation Julie’s Bicycle, some indie labels and a couple of digital distribution firms. Independent labels signed up to either or both of the trade bodies will be asked about how many physical and digital promos they send out, and researchers will then do some clever maths to work out the carbon footprint of promo CD mailing.
Commenting on the research project, Alison Tickell of Julie’s Bicycle told CMU: “Everyone feels strongly about the wastage in physical promo distribution, and this research, which builds on our previous work looking at CD packaging, will identify the scale of the problem and the change we can make by increasing digital distribution”.
She continues: “We are really pleased to be working with independent record labels and also excited to work with the digital delivery companies – these digital methods have their own carbon impacts too, and it’s really important we focus on efficiencies in the digital space as well”.
The research obviously aims to persuade those currently resisting the move to digital promos that physical promo CDs have to go for the good of the planet. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure research is needed to win that argument. Even the most ardent promo CD fan out there in journo land wouldn’t deny the environmental benefits of going digital.
The music industry would probably be better off surveying media types about the best ways to provide promo music digitally, because we found that a lot of the resistance towards digital promos exists because – with a couple of exceptions – most of the digital systems currently being used by both major and indie labels are really shit.
In most cases, it’s obvious that said systems have been created with no input from reviewers or their editors, and with no understanding of what happens to a promo CD once it’s been posted. They are systems that serve the needs of the record labels running them and not their target audience – ie journalists – a bit like all the download stores the major labels spent millions building, before iTunes blew them all out of the water, were skewed towards the whims of a record label exec and were therefore totally alien to the average consumer.
Given how right Apple got it with iTunes, perhaps the record industry should just ask Steve Jobs to make them a digital promo system in any spare hours he might have at the weekend. Or perhaps they should just leave it to similarly user-adjusted digital companies like Soundcloud; who are, we should probably note, one of the digital companies involved in this research project.
