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Media
Billboard launches new service for unsigned bands
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 13 September 2010
US music industry trade magazine Billboard is launching a new service for unsigned and self-releasing talent which will apparently enable them to upload music to a new platform and then track plays and chat across various blogs, music sites and social media.
The trade mag will then also compile all that data into a weekly Dreamseekers chart which will be made available to its traditional readership, so there’s an element of “we’ll put your band in front of industry types” to this new promotion. All for a hundred dollars a year.
MySpace Music is a partner in the new service at launch, presumably providing Billboard with a database of thousands of wannabe bands (which might as well be tapped now before MySpace inevitably collapses into the void).
The new initiative follows the purchase of the trade mag by E5 Global Media late last year, and is possibly a sign that the title’s new publishers recognise the magazine needs to expand beyond its traditional record industry readership to survive. Whether the unsigned band community is really one worth expanding into remains to be seen.