Moderator: Kevin Wall Network Live
Jon Zellner XM Satellite Radio
Dan Diamond National CineMedia
Patty Ishimoto DirecTV
Erik Flannigan AOL

With industry heavyweights like AOL, DirecTV, and XM Radio represented here, traditional talent buyers and promoters may have felt a touch of ambivalence toward this lineup of digital music media execs.

While subscription TV, radio and Internet services don’t compete directly with the concert biz for ticket dollars, everyone knows consumers have limited disposable income; if people are paying for entertainment media, they might be passing up concerts.

And to be honest, the opening comments from the panelists didn’t do much to assuage any uneasiness about the topic. These people all work for companies that have grown very rapidly and look poised to envelop (or, yes, cannibalize) any competitive threat.

Moderator Kevin Wall of Network Live – a joint venture of AOL, XM and AEG designed to bring live music and comedy to the Internet and beyond – started by saying he hoped technology will help solve part of the equation by raising awareness of concerts and tours.

In just its few months of existence, Wall’s Network Live has become the world’s biggest provider of on-demand digital content. “Anywhere, any time, any device” is Network Live’s mandate. It’s easy to see why the venue-bound folks might be both apprehensive and intrigued by the subject.

XM Radio’s Jon Zellner said bands that hook up with his company are doing better at the box office. Bands provide the live music content to the company, and the satellite radio giant generates awareness and excitement about the tour by broadcasting it – repeatedly, in many cases.

DirecTV’s Patty Ishimoto reiterated the theme: “We’re not competing with live events; we complement them,” she said. “We focus on working directly with the labels and artist management in developing a strategy to promote the artist in whatever their key initiatives are.”

According to Erik Flannigan of AOL, the company’s use of original live events helps set it apart from
its competitors.

“We embrace those live performances almost to the point of replacing (in importance) music video. If we have a live version of a song, we put that front and center.”

AOL’s involvement in what Flannigan described as “the arc of an artist’s project” now includes ticketing. AOL made a deal with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill to be the first to announce presale tickets and promote the presale through the AOL network.

The deal also includes an AIM interview, a concert, additional sessions and other elements that will run throughout the Soul 2 Soul II tour.

“We want to play a bigger role in expanding an artist’s audience. If they want to expand, this is how they are going to get to that next group of fans.”

AOL Music is aggressively pursuing new consumers and Flannigan said a key part of the growth strategy involves attracting the adult music fans who buy concert tickets. “In terms of approaching that audience, the
live component has to be there.”

The trick, it seems, is combining digital content sales with concert ticket sales.

Dan Diamond of Cinemedia, which presents digital concert broadcasts in movie theatres, said one key component is reaching the audience and promoting awareness of the concert experience. “We’ve done 30 concert events in the last two years, all of which have done extremely well and energized ticket sales,” he said.

Screening concerts in movie theatres live in surround sound, or on a pre-recorded basis, provides a unique con-sumer marketing opportunity for everyone involved. It provides an opportunity to do a national event with
local grassroots community involvement. “There aren’t many opportunities for fans to gather locally for a major national or international event.”

It looks like digital media aren’t saving live music so much as they are capable of generating interest and enthusiasm with fans. And they don’t have to be scary, profit-eating threats, either.

Rather than figuring out how to compete with digital media for the consumer’s entertainment dollars, every level of the concert industry needs to find a way to join the revolution.

The good news is that the distributors are interested in having that dialogue and working with the people who make and promote the music, even at the local level.