One thing's for sure: there’s no smooth sailing ahead for the smooth jazz format and its fans. But perception, both inside and outside the format, may be a bigger problem than the industry realizes. One take is that since the format has been abandoned in several notable markets, it’s spiraling downward.
“How do we find those new, young fans that will revitalize this format?” asked Frank Cody of Beverly Hills-based Rendezvous Entertainment on Wednesday (Sept. 20) as he moderated an R&R Convention panel titled “Smooth Jazz - Label Confidential.”
“We need new, young artists,” suggested panelist Bud Harner, but he warned that those younger artists “need new, fresh music. They cannot sound like the old artists.”
“We are going to have to find the customer,” said another panelist, Dave Love. “The customers are not going to the record store anymore.”
But Allen Kepler, president of Broadcast Architecture, isn’t about to round up the Britney Spears crowd to bulk up on audience. Attracting that audience “is like hip-hop saying it needs to get more 50+ listeners,” he said, adding that the smooth jazz format's target audience is 35 and older, with 50 being the bulk age. It’s a demo, Kepler believes, that has money and will buy CDs.
By Jeffrey Yorke - radioandrecords.com
Technorati Tags: Jazz, Smooth Jazz, Music
No comments:
Post a Comment