LOS ANGELES-Carriers worried about becoming a “dumb pipe” should jump headlong into the digital music waters, according to entertainment executive Kedar Massenburg.
Network operators have “the opportunity to become the record companies of the future,” the lawyer-turned-music-mogul urged during his keynote address at the Mobile Marketing Forum 2006 in Los Angeles yesterday. Massenburg said carriers can cut traditional record labels out of the value chain by investing to identify new talent and create the stars of tomorrow.
“You guys have the opportunity to do something different, because of the masses, the kids you reach,” said the founder of Kedar Entertainment, which discovered such acts as Erykah Badu and D’Angelo. “This should be a piece of cake for you.”
Indeed, the personal nature of the mobile phone and carriers’ substantial distribution advantages may stand as the best way to boost digital music sales. But it’s unlikely carriers will rush to establish internal music departments: operators have only recently begun to staff up to address mobile games and other entertainment services, and most view wireless advertising-not music-as the most promising potential revenue stream of the near future.
But carriers that invest now to discover and cultivate performing artists could help transform the music industry for years to come, Massenburg implied.
“You have to be innovative and to take that chance,” Massenburg urged. “You have to take on the same challenges the record companies take.”
Massenburg, an African-American, also noted the lack of diversity at the event, chastising the industry for failing to meet the needs of the most voracious consumers of digital music: urban youth.
“There’s only two black people in here,” he said during his speech.
