Todd Rundgren urges the music industry to evolve...

Todd has always tried to stay a step ahead and has been seen as an innovator in the music business. Here he is addressing where it's been, where it's at, and where it needs to go. This is definitely worth your time. Watch it, listen to what he says and join me tonight (Monday, Feb. 2nd) to discuss it live on the AYRE? Talkcast: http://www.tinyurl.com/livetalkshow

Comments

[Gary]

I love Todd, and he's spot on. Except, his solution using the Cable industry is probably missing a key element. There's a problem with the cable companies delivering "content", the future is the content being delivered through the Internet NOT through standard cable boxes through a signal that is broadcast through on a regular cable model.
With services like Hulu, where its backed by the studios, you can see where the future is going, and its not through the cable companies. Its directly to the consumer, from the studios and you'll be paying them, not Comcast, the delivery is just that, the payload and you should not be paying a middle man to control what you want to see or hear because they have the infrastructure and have the monopoly over the town you live in.

The first problem to solve is the access problem, we only have 2 or 3 major players who provide Internet access in the country and they all are terrible at it, and they charge far too much money for what they are providing for a service -- and they control your access in ways that only benefit them. Further, most connections over 10mbps per month are $150 - $200 a month depending on your region. Not at all affordable if you want to stream music or video. But this is all just part of the problem. The real issue is that its privatized and its not a mandatory utility like a telephone or "over air" broadcasting. Remember our history, the US government paid the phone companies to make it so people in Iowa and Hawaii would have telephones. This was subsidized. The same goes for what the FCC did with the television so that anyone can buy a television and watch it without paying a fee.

What happened to the Internet.

The same MUST happen for Internet connectivity. Its too vital to the new economy and if we are to be moving forward. Most major companies now rely ONLY on the Internet to do business with customers, if that's the case how come people in say, Montana still can't get a high speed connection, how do they do business or watch a streaming program, or listen to music? They can't.

Todd's right on, subscriptions are in fact the right model. Music IS a service, not a product and he's totally correct about that and does a good job of proving that point where he demonstrates the moment when people went from thinking about music as a "service" to a product and how they could charge "per song". What needs to happen now isn't really about the cable companies selling on-demand services, its about the music industry setting up a "Hulu" situation and allowing customers to pay for things they want to hear. Its no different than how musicians get paid anyway. They play a gig, they perform a service, they get paid... customers can choose to go or not, but its available to them and they know that if they want to experience that performance.

The issue I believe is that the delivery of the content is probably not going to be paid by a middle man (cable company), it really should be controlled by the record companies.