learned that they had to operate as a business, by attracting and producing music as well as
stimulating demand from listeners to buy the songs. They had to find ways ot creating finan-cial value at each stage of the process, without this being seen as exploiting or 'ripping off musicians or their fans, many of whom saw who file-sharing as a 'free' way of distributing music. The best way they could see of doing this was to maximise interest in their artists' music and therefore stimulate demand to buy it. They aim to identify and develop local talent and to promote this to a regional and national market. The musicians have creative control, working with the production team, and Loudmouth manage the commercial development. Their artists have the opportunity to build up careers and progress towards becoming major artists, even if this results in them leaving the label.
The rehearsal, recording and production services are ail charged at commercial rates, with rehearsal rooms from £10 per hour and studios from £20 per hour depending on size and facilities. A song can be recorded, produced and mixed for download release for as little as £250 in studio costs. If this is downloaded at £l a time, then the direct costs can be recov¬ered by no more than a few hundred listeners. Each part of the business - the studios, production and distribution - aims to cover its full costs and to contribute revenue for further development.
Loudmouth also set up a music publishing company which protects the song publishing rights of its artists, unless they prefer lo arrange this themselves. This ensures they receive royalty payments for radio airplay or recording of the songs by other artists.
We have to make money from studio time, producing artists and selling their songs. We can't do it for free so we have to grow the demand for their work. Our way of working gives us real advantages over the major labels, we just don't have their marketing budgets or distribution networks so we have to use technology to our advantage instead.
Use of technology
Loudmouth aims to use new technologies to make it quick and easy for its creative output to get to the listeners. Listeners are encouraged to visit the website regularly and sign up for updates on artists and latest song releases, which are e-mailed to them. The aim is to release new music constantly, and free samples of each artist can be browsed. Tracks can be down-loaded onto MP3 and iPod players, and CDs can be ordered online. Listeners without credit cards can pay for downloads through their mobile phones. There is a fanzine section which includes news on artists, and listeners are encouraged to send in messages and reviews. The website includes gig schedules of performances by its artists and promotes their appearances.
Loudmouth artists have difficulty getting onto radio station playlists, with commercial radio stations having a limited output dominated by major artists and most BBC stations being conservative in their airplay. However the business was constantly being approached by young DJs who wanted to broadcast and play their music. Getting onto the crowded AM or FM radio frequencies was not possible for Loudmouth, but they investigated Internet radio and found that the start-up costs of an Internet radio station were low and Internet programmes did not have to meet the regulation requirements of a broadcast radio station. As Broadband grew, people could listen to online programming without worrying about dial- up costs. Loudmouth Radio was launched as an Internet station attached to the website. Initially this put out live programmes for a few hours each evening and weekend, when the