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SFX appoints former Thump editor to lead Beatport media ambitions
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 24 July 2015
With SFX busy turning Beatport from a mere download store into a bleepy streaming platform and now into an all singing but mainly dancing media brand of ultimate goodness, the firm has headhunted the former Editor In Chief of Vice Media’s electronic cultcha channel Thump, Zel McCarthy, to be its very own VP Of Beatport Media.
He’ll be responsible for “the growth of all Beatport media properties across the globe” reports Billboard, and while he wasn’t at liberty to tell the US industry mag much about what exactly that means, he did note that “the Beatport brand is synonymous with electronic music because Beatport’s origins were the disruptor within the DJ community”.
He added that Beatport had “evolved so much in the last dozen years and obviously the explosion, post-EDM rebrand, five years ago has changed things”. And also “young millennials, which advertisers are so excited about for whatever reason, they are electronic music fans”. ‘Disruptor’, ‘post-EDM rebrand’ and ‘millennials’, I think that’s “bingo!” Well done me.
McCarthy also confirmed that the Beatport brand is a priority for the wider SFX business, and given his editorial background, his mere appointment suggests that the EDM festival promoter’s main online platform is going to be ever more editorial-led. Oh, and he is promising to “keep the bullshit out of it and cut straight to the things that people are really passionate about”. Which, in this post-EDM rebrand world, is what the millennials expect from a disruptor.
