Remote Control

Music Control, the pan-European radio airplay tracking company, is going live with its new website live in July 1999. However, this isn t just any old promo website. It s a highly specialised subscription access vehicle which is aimed at music industry professionals and offers them a mine of useful information on a daily basis. Music Control has been in operation for over a decade beginning it s European activities in Germany. 1995 saw it extend its remit to a wider European market, setting up its European Administrative Headquarters in Dublin.
From its Merrion Street HQ, Music Control monitors airplay of over 600 radio and TV stations in 16 European territories, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All information is collated in the Dublin office and forwarded to the relevant area.
Our new website will bring all of our product on-line, so that instead of getting weekly reports on paper, our clients can now log-on on a daily basis to ascertain the airplay of a particular track or to access an airplay chart, explains Karen O Mahony, General Manager.
This daily reporting is made possible by Music Control s MEDICOR technology that enables immediate recognition of songs as they are played on radio. In effect, a client buys in to the Music Control service. When a track is received by Music Control for monitoring, they create a fingerprint (a unique electronic imprint) for that song which can be subsequently recognised by their software.
The system then cross-references logged plays with audience data. Within 24 hours, a report analysing what radio stations have played which records, how many times a day and to what size of audience, is available online.
The value of daytime/primetime play is recognised against, for example, a late-night low-audience play, notes Karen. Daily reporting enables record companies to react to airplay data in real time, allowing marketing campaigns to be steered on a daily basis in response to current figures.
The importance of airplay to record companies is that they generally put a record out to radio some weeks before it hits the shops, and during that time they want to maximise the audience reached which is where we come in, explains Karen.
Music Control have two main products, an airplay chart and Single Title reports. The latter enables them to ascertain all plays logged for a particular song over a period of one week, including time of play and audience reached.
The airplay chart logs all plays and is available to all our subscribers, while Single Title reports are confidential to the individual record company or publicist themselves, notes Karen. For example, BMG can only receive information on a BMG artist.
Music Control s client list includes record companies, publicists and bands themselves, while associations like IMRO have also utilised their services to ascertain royalty payments due to artists. Music Control currently monitors 16 Irish radio stations, and constantly assesses the panel of stations covered in all territories.
Their new website, which can only be accessed by subscribers, has been designed specifically for music industry executives who require instant access to fast, accurate and detailed information on radio airplay across Europe.
What we do makes getting an artist into the right place at the right time so much easier, sums up Karen. It maximises the impact of airplay and whether it s a record company or the act themselves, they all benefit from that. n