Tamara Conniff, "Billboard" editor: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 2

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ANDELMAN: Let’s come back to the music industry. Among the major labels, and even what few independents there are, whose star is rising these days and whose is falling?

CONNIFF: On the label side?

ANDELMAN: Yeah.

CONNIFF: You know what? The indies are definitely on the rise. You look at a number of indie labels and indie distributors and so many indie releases that have come out. Koch is definitely hot right now. Victory Records always has some great hardcore rock fans. Even Sub Pop is sort of having a new revolution since the grunge era in signing artists. I think a lot of artists are opting to go in indies because the deal terms are better. The advance money isn’t as big, but the deals are better, and the rights are better. The other thing about the indie labels is that they are much more nimble and able to adapt to changing technology much faster than the big conglomerates who aren’t. So if I were an artist today, I would definitely look to go with an indie.

ANDELMAN: It seems like there has always been an opportunity in music for independents to rise up. I just read a book, I think it’s called Machers and Rockers, about Chess Records. That was a great example of it. You know, who’s this guy Chess? Where he’d come from?

CONNIFF: Right.







ANDELMAN: Sub Pop Records, of course, with the whole Seattle, as you mentioned, the grunge, and there has always been that opportunity. So where does this leave the major labels today? They’re merging, and they’re eating each other alive. Are any of them doing it right?

CONNIFF: Very interesting question. I would say that probably the people who are furthest along the right path is Warner Music Group, mainly because they’ve been forward-thinking about technology. And while they’ve had a lot of layoffs, they really trimmed fat and focused on smaller rosters that they can work better as opposed to over-signing. So I think that Warner is probably, in terms of technology, Warner is a forerunner.

Universal Music Group is, of course, the largest, and each label within the Universal Music Group system is very different, and certainly all of the Universal labels have probably among the best leadership in the business. We’ve got Jimmy Iovine at Interscope. A&M/Geffen is brand-oriented and big picture. L. A. Reid, who’s a music guy through and through who’s taking care of Island/Def Jam. So you’ve got good people in place, it’s just the economics are difficult. Here’s the best way I can explain it. Ten years ago, the number one album in the country sold, I don’t know, like 2.5 million albums the first week. In January 2007, the number one album sold 70,000.

ANDELMAN: I wanted to ask you about that. It is astonishing the change in what’s considered a big hit album right now compared to a few years ago.

CONNIFF: Oh, absolutely.

ANDELMAN: The buying public’s tastes have become that diffuse, I guess, because they have so many options.

CONNIFF: No, I don’t even think it’s that. There is a whole generation of consumers out there that have never, ever, ever bought a CD. It’s like completely foreign to them. “A CD? Why would I buy a CD? I’m going to get that off iTunes, or I’m going to get it from a peer-to-peer service.” They just have no concept of buying a physical product, so they’re buying the music, they’re buying the ring tones, they’re buying the songs, they’re just not buying it on a physical disc.

ANDELMAN: I don’t imagine my daughter, who’s 10, ever buying a CD or whatever follows it, whereas, we’re still buying the occasional DVD, and of course, there used to be VHS tapes for her. She’s been able to download music for the last two years. Why would she want to do anything different?

CONNIFF: Yeah. It’s a waste of space.






ANDELMAN: Speaking of downloading music, still, what’s holding up at this point The Beatles and EMI from getting their music into the digital era?

CONNIFF: Rates. It’s cost. It’s rates.

ANDELMAN: They want more money for it.

CONNIFF: Yeah.

ANDELMAN: That’s all it is?

CONNIFF: Yeah.

ANDELMAN: So at $1.29, the deal that EMI struck, do you think it will happen?

CONNIFF: I think it will. I think the Beatles are very perceptive over their music and are not going to give it away cheap. It is the most popular music in the world, and there is no reason for them to give it away cheap.

ANDELMAN: Is there like a bell-shaped curve on this, though, at some point, if they wait too much longer, do they become irrelevant?

CONNIFF: No.

ANDELMAN: Really?

CONNIFF: I don’t think so.

ANDELMAN: Be interesting to see.

CONNIFF: I mean, I honestly don’t think so.

ANDELMAN: Okay. There are kids my daughter’s age who, the name “The Beatles” means absolutely nothing to them.

CONNIFF: Yeah, but they also are discovering you can still stream Beatles music, so I’ve actually found that more kids are actually discovering The Kinks and The Monkees. How would you even know them, and they find them online.

ANDELMAN: Right. But every day, every year, there is so much more music out there to discover. When I was her age, it was the music from the ’50s and ’60s. Now, it’s the same type of music, it’s the ’50s, the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s, the ’90s, and the ’00s, so I wonder if they will discover it the same way they might have a few years ago.

CONNIFF: I think so.






ANDELMAN: Let’s turn to your own publication. How has Billboard changed in the last couple years, and how will it be different, let’s say, four or five years from now?

CONNIFF: Billboard has changed dramatically over the past three years. For many years, Billboard is 113 years old, and for many years, it was, let’s say in the past 15 years, it was a very true reflection of the recorded music industry, where it had its head in sand about technology. It wasn’t evolving where things were evolving in much the same way the record labels were not. And as a result, we went through kind of rough patch, because no one was really reading it. It wasn’t that interesting to read, which had to do with a lot of different things. You take a trade publication, you take a particular style of reporting, you take an industry that’s downsizing in panic, it was sort of like a tipping point, I think. Or a sea change or a perfect storm, one of those buzz words, and so I came on with Billboard three years ago at a point where it either needed to change drastically or it was going to continue to go down, and we redesigned it 100% where it actually, even though it is still a business publication, it looks like a consumer publication. My theory on that was, this isn’t your daddy’s trade pub, so it doesn’t have to look like it. It can still have the information in it, but we’re in the music industry. This isn’t Progressive Grocer.

ANDELMAN: Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

CONNIFF: No, and Progressive Grocer is a sister publication; I say that with a lot of love. And we also adapted our coverage dramatically in that we started covering the real music business, which includes advertising agencies, all technology companies, branded entertainment, everything that you can possibly imagine where music is, television, film. My theory, my mission, I guess, was I wanted Billboard to be a place where all these different energies could meet and understand each other better.

I think one of the biggest hurdles of technology and music is that they are very different breeds of people, and they don’t always speak the same language. I kind of use Billboard as a translator tool. This big technology has come out, here’s what it means to the music business. The music business can go, “Oh, okay, this is what the technology means.” Or, I can explain how contracts work or how deals are struck, or the interest of the record label is that if they’re going to give a single, it has to be part of their overall strategy for an album. They can’t just like give it to you, which a lot of technology companies thought they could do.

We are ahead of the curve instead of on top of it, which is key. Our readership has gone up substantially. At a time when print is considered a beast, our print is stronger than ever. and we also developed, we have a half dozen products, such as a mobile application where you can get Billboard information on any device you want.






ANDELMAN: Any trade publications that you kind of look to at this point, three years on, and want to emulate further or that you admire?

CONNIFF: I think when I was looking at the redesign for Billboard, one of the magazines I looked at was BusinessWeek, how they organized information, the issues they addressed, the signs, the ease of use, the covers. I mean, Billboard hasn’t had covers since 1930, and we now have covers again. It’s very difficult to have a trade publication have a cover. Trades are generally newsprint on the front cover, so I really did look at BusinessWeek as sort of a model.

ANDELMAN: It’s a good model. They’ve won a few awards. I know you guys won an award recently.

CONNIFF: I know. It was so exciting. We actually won an Eddy. We’re a 100-plus years old, and we’ve never won an Eddy, so I’m very excited.

ANDELMAN: That’s very good. Now, before we wind up, I have to ask you, I told a story about growing up in my unspectacular house. I have to tell you that I am very curious to know what it was like to grow up in the Conniff family. Was there a lot of music?

CONNIFF: I consider myself one of the most blessed humans on the planet. Whenever anyone asks me, “Is Ray Conniff your father?” and they say that they’re a fan, I always say, “Yes, and I’m proud, and his music is fantastic, but the most important thing about his life is that he was a great father and a great husband.” He was truly a family man.

It was always exciting, I guess. Growing up, obviously, music was always in our household. My father was recording up to two albums a year for a long period of time. Later, he went on to doing just one album a year. He toured once a year, and he would take the family with him, so we’d go touring in South America and be treated like rock stars. And then we’d come back to the United States, and our family vacations were taking my mom, my dad, our animals, and me and packing us into a motor home and driving across the country. That was our family vacation. My dad was happiest when he was wearing jeans and climbing underneath the motor home. I had a great upbringing, and I was lucky that my dad taught me a lot about business, taught me everything I know about the music business.

ANDELMAN: Really? Okay. See, I wondered about that. Obviously, you’re covering music as opposed to making music, which some people might have thought would be a natural progression. Can you play any instruments? Are you musical at all?

CONNIFF: I started playing piano when I was four. I actually played with my father on tour, and I played on albums with him. I never wanted to be, I mean, I am a musician, because I’ve played or studied, but I never wanted to be a performer. I always wanted to be a writer. I think everyone has their calling, and writing was my calling. It’s ironic -- I actually had no intention of being a music writer, I wanted to be a political writer. Bizarre. I guess it’s the same thing, sort of. You’re attracted to what you know, and I guess these opportunities just kept coming up for me, and it’s what I know. If there is anything I know on the planet, it’s the music business. You end up writing what you know, and it sort of happened that way, and I couldn’t be happier.

ANDELMAN: We’re coming up on I guess what will be the fifth anniversary of your dad’s passing. I assume that the Conniff family has a personal interest in music rights and royalties, that kind of thing. What do you think will be the music that your dad will be most remembered for and that will be the most enduring?

CONNIFF: It’s very interesting. I’ve been having interesting conversations about my dad’s music. A lot of young kids are discovering it on the Internet and are really into the sort of jazzy, hi-fi kind of stuff. I think what my father will be remembered for is as the brilliant arranger that he was, and he will be remembered for the stuff he did with Artie Shaw. I think above all, he will be remembered for, he created the sound, that he was the first to put voice and instrument together in the way he did. There are many people who followed, but he was the architect. He was also the first person to ever perform in stereo.

ANDELMAN: Oh, really? I didn’t know that.

CONNIFF: Yes. And the first Western artist to go to Russia. And amazingly enough, I think there’s also a big legacy for him in young composers. There’s not a young self-composer I’ve met who’s not been inspired by my father’s arrangements, so I think that it’s a great legacy, and I aspire to take good care of him and keep his music alive.

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.