Interview with Jim Donio - 01/28/10
By: Jim Donio - President of NARM
(National Association of Recording Merchandisers)
DK: Good evening, this is Dennis Kelly with Chicago Music Guide and I am on the line with Jim Donio, President of NARM. Are you there Jim?
JD: Yes.
DK: How are you this evening?
JD: I'm great. How are you, Dennis?
DK: Doing pretty good. It’s great to have you on this evening.
JD: Nice to be back.
DK: So, a lot of catching up to do since our last conversation back in April of last year, the Record Store Day was just about to happen…
JD: Yes
DK: and of course the 2009 convention. How has 2009 been on the whole?
JD: Well Record Store Day in April of 2009 was a huge success and NARM was a sponsor last year and we’ll be a sponsor again this year. And the organizers were able to more than double the number of retailers around the world who participated in Record Store Day, which was terrific. The publicity was global as well and the record companies stepped up with amazing, unique, one of a kind products, all kinds of music from vinyl to deluxe products to CDs, etc. for music fans and enthusiasts and consumers to come in and take advantage of on that one day. So, it was very exciting. I was at J&R’s Music World in New York City and it was just amazing to have people streaming into the store and just communing about music and their favorite artists and how they enjoy shopping in stores and so on and so fourth and those same kinds of stories and experiences were replicated, as I said, around the world. And then our convention in 2009 was in San Diego and we had a great turnout even with all the many economic challenges that our members and businesses worldwide were facing at that moment in time, we had about 900 attendees which was certainly smaller that our convention the prior year but understandable given all the many challenges. The reviews for the event were very good and people who participated got a lot of business done and it was a terrific time in San Diego.
DK: Very good to hear. Sorry that the economy must have really played a factor in the attendance in the slightly lower attendance. Do you foresee something like that continuing on for the 2010 convention?
JD: Well, we’re coming back to Chicago, The Windy City, the Second City (laughs), a city that hosted us in 2007 with a terrific event. We got to meet you for the first time and we look forward to seeing you again and seeing many of our friends and colleagues from the Chicago music business community to come and participate again in 2010. I can’t quite believe it’s been three years already. As you know we mounted last year what we call our music business “Crash Course” and it was very successful. We had projected possibly in the range of anywhere from 60-75 attendees and we wound up with between 150 and 200 for the crash course. Which is a music business course that is designed to help introduce small labels, artist owned labels, performing artists, managers, etc. to the ways in which they can achieve their goals in the music industry in today's very challenging climate. So, based on the feedback from 2009 we are expanding the course, so for the first time and with Chicago as the host city, it will be a day and a half. It will be on Friday May 14th and Saturday morning, May 15th. It is open to anyone who has involvement in the music business, as I said managers, labels, artists, students, etc. and we’re very excited to be broadening the program. It will have probably maybe half the programming will be new programming from last year as we expand on some of the discussions and the feedback that we got from people who participated in San Diego. So we’re really looking forward to that. You can get details about it and register for the course on NARM's web site, which is www.narm.com and you can go to the registration tool which is called Event Brite and register that way. We have great, affordable rates for different levels of participation and all of those rates are under $100.00 which is terrific for what you're going to get.
DK: For sure.
JD: We just revitalized, refreshed and rebranded our own web site and a lot of the new features of the web site touch on the opportunities that exist today with the various social media. It’s much more engaging, interactive and vibrant than our prior site. So I do encourage people to check that out, as I said at www.narm.com, we’re always looking for feedback as well.
One of the other exciting things that we just announced literally a couple of days ago, you know that one of the things that NARM is known for and the convention is known for is introducing new artists and music to the industry and we have a great track record for artists who've made their debuts on stage going on to literally superstardom, Josh Groban, Mariah Carey, N-Sync just to name a few. And this Year, for the first time, we announced a contest where we will judge entries from musical artists from anywhere and everywhere and we will award as the prize an opportunity to perform at NARM on the NARM stage. The winner will get a ten minute unplugged performance at NARM in front of all the most powerful voices in the music industry. The contest is open to both signed and unsigned artists so they can be on the label and have released music or they can be brand new and looking to make their mark. All the details for the contest are also on our web site. The deadline for the entries is February 12th and we’re really excited about doing this.
DK: As am I to see, like you said it is an incredible opportunity for a young up and coming band or artist to suddenly make their break.
JD: Yeah, we’ve already in the first 36 hours or so already received many, many, many entries that we’re already listening to and looking at what we've received. We’ll have an expert panel that will help narrow them down to a handful of finalists and then we’ll have the final judging among some of our members who will make the final selection. So, it’s really something new and different for us to do, we had a contest about six years ago with some of our music schools that participate in NARM and awarded a performance opportunity to performing students from one of our college members in Nashville Tennessee. So, it’s been a while since we've done this and we think that Chicago's a perfect place to do it. We've gotten already some entries from some Chicago based artists which would be really cool to see if that were to happen. But make sure everyone understands whose listening you don't have to be from Chicago although we have entries already from Chicago based artists, this is open to artists and the rules for the contest, what's included and what they need to do is all on our web site
DK: OK. And some of the other things that have been going on have been some of the salons that NARM has been providing for people. I just saw that one of the salon events has been announced for February 23rd for the digital licensing, can you tell me a little more about that?
JD: Yeah, that's our second in this new series, as you mentioned, our salon series. The salons are designed to bring NARM to our members and to the music communities in different cities around the country. We had one in New York last October, we actually had one scheduled in L.A. for last week, unfortunately it had to be rescheduled, so that will be later in the Spring.
DK: OK.
JD: The second one in New York is, as you said, on February 23rd. You know digital licensing and the challenges around securing content and going through all the procedures and processes that are necessary to accomplish what you want to accomplish and get the music as part of your business and as part of your model, whatever that might be have new challenges today. So, we’re pulling together a group of experts from various disciplines who know all the ins and outs of this digital licensing process which appears to get ever more complicated with each new business model that enters our marketplace, so we’re really pleased to be presenting that. And the other benefit of these salons you know particularly for companies and for people within those companies who may not necessarily have the travel budgets to come to our larger events is the opportunity to have the sense of community with NARM in their own area and to meet people and have the networking opportunity to make business contacts on an ongoing basis.
DK: Definitely great. As a person involved in the music industry I have to thank you also for everything NARM provides, its great resources on the web site for information and again as far as having great ways of interaction and allowing input from every level of the industry, so I for one definitely appreciate everything that NARM is doing.
JD: We thank you for that. We’re here to serve and to be a resource as you said. And not every person has the opportunity to even come to some of the smaller events, you know budgets are very tight and time is at a premium. So one of the other things that we've embarked on is an online seminar and presentation series that we started in November and we had November, December and January sessions that people can find out more information about, sort of the back story on what we've provided on our web site. And then upcoming on February 11th, the next online seminar coming up is being presented by Futuresource Consulting, which is a global research and analysis company that's going to provide some forecasts and some consumer market intelligence on sales on media products across the spectrum, so music, video and games and what it looks like for these industries in the coming year. So we’re very happy to be presenting that and that webinar is free to our members, but it’s also available to non-members at a higher rate obviously, to take advantage of our offerings. And they can check that out on the web site as well and there will be upcoming webinars in March and April as well with several of the other renowned research companies. Our member’s in the industry at large is hungry for consumer and market intelligence, hunger for research information. You know, companies have had their own research budgets slashed because everyone's looking at every dollar that gets spent, so one of the important roles that NARM plays is being able to aggregate and pull together and partner with these research companies and help our members gain this kind of intelligence and the information they need to make more informed business decisions and ultimately improve their bottom line. We see this as a very, very important service that we provide.
DK: Most definitely. Now getting back to the convention, has there been any solidification on any of the events or any of the scheduling of the convention as of yet.
JD: We worked really first on getting the Crash Course set up so that's in place and now we are looking at the other programming. It’s going to be a slightly shorter event than it was this past year or in prior years. It had been about 3 1/2 – 4 days and we’re shortening it to about 3 days in response to feedback from our members and from our companies wanting to again be more efficient with their time and their resources. So, it’s going to be very jam-packed with meeting opportunities and programming opportunities and of course the musical performances, we usually keep them pretty much under wraps in the early planning stages as we’re confirming who's going to perform. So, stay tuned for more news about that and then of course we bestow a handful of very prestigious awards every year to business executives and to artists for lifetime achievement, for humanitarian, charitable and philanthropic efforts for innovation and creativity, etc. So, we’re just confirming some of those awards and we’ll be announcing those in the coming weeks as well. And we are looking at the possibility of an off-site music event in Chicago that would enable music professionals and music enthusiasts and fans to sort of rub elbows with our audience, our members and see some great music. So, stayed tuned for that, we’re in the very preliminary planning stages for that event as well.
DK: Awesome. I am definitely excited to hear as this progresses as we plan to continue to talk with you over the coming months as the convention gets closer. So, it will be very exciting to hear every little detail that comes through. Is there anything else you would like to share?
JD: I will look forward to our continuing chats as we come close to the convention. We’re working on as an association, a variety of other industry initiatives in the digital and mobile space bringing together thought leaders from those areas to challenge and to make progress on some of the less exciting, but nevertheless very important aspects of advancing the business of music, be-it operational, or be-it from a perspective of sales measurement or product development, so that is one of our big priorities for this year. We’re also looking at how the equilibrium of music sales will sort itself out, by that I mean, we've seen a decline in CD sales over the past several years, but CDs still account for a significant portion of music sales, particularly album sales overall and we think there will be a balancing act of digital, physical and mobile sales for the foreseeable future. So we’re looking at what role does each of these delivery opportunities play and how can the industry maximize those and we’re adding into it discussions about music in the cloud and further development of ad supported and subscription models etc. etc. So, all those things are on our agenda along with looking at the concept of music gift-giving. Music is still an extremely popular gift item for this past holiday season, I think it was even bigger than in prior years because people were looking for an affordable, terrific gift to give someone that is a gift that keeps on giving because people enjoy giving it, and enjoy having it and loving it for a long time afterwards. So that is another one of the projects that we’re looking at in the coming year.
DK: Another thing that I wanted to get your opinion on was the announcement of the iPad; I don't believe there will be much impact on the music industry.
JD: At face value, at its introduction, music is not a primary component, of the plan as it seems for the iPad, however, we certainly look forward and think about what the implications could be going forward, you sort of, never know when new devices enter the market place, what someone will think of to do with them and what the opportunities might be. So, it is certainly another exciting development in the overall media space when you look at printed media and you look at newspapers etc., magazines, you look at books, you look at games, you look at all of the intersection of all these things. We certainly watch that very carefully and on the point about games we certainly look at the intersection of music and games as games continue to be developed with music as a significant underpinning for the creation of those games, you know, what opportunities exist there for the game developers and music content owners to come together and that will likely be the source of some meetings and programming at our event in Chicago as well.
DK: Well definitely it was a pleasure once again to catch up with you and I definitely look forward to getting back with you next month and seeing how things have progressed and I very much appreciate your time today.
JD: I appreciate talking with you Dennis as well. I look forward to chatting with you in February, I'm sure we’ll have some nice announcements that I can make at that time and continue to get Chicagoans excited about NARM coming there in May.
DK: Well and thank you once again and have a wonderful evening.
JD: Thank you Dennis. Good night.
What is NARM?
The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) is a not-for-profit trade association that since 1958 has served the music and entertainment content delivery community in a variety of areas including networking, advocacy, information, education and promotion.
Our general members consists of music wholesalers and retailers, including brick-and-mortar, online and mobile music delivery companies. Our associate members consist of distributors, record labels, multimedia suppliers, technology companies, and suppliers of related products and services. Individual professionals and educators in the field of music are also members.
In today's evolving marketplace, we are welcoming new members that represent the technology and services that are shaping the future of the industry. Our newest members represent mobile and telecom companies, along with new content providers and digital companies who all contribute to our growing community of members.
Our retail members operate thousands of physical, digital and mobile storefronts that account for an estimated 90% of the music sold in the $8 billion U.S. music market.
For more information about NARM, please visit their web site at: www.narm.com
Related Links
Interview with Jim Donio - 04/13/07Interview with Thomas Dolby at NARM Convention - 2007
Interview with Terisa Griffin at NARM Convention - 05/01/07
Interview with Jim Donio - 04/17/09