Why we service pools:
Record pools were originally established to provide an easy way for labels and artists
to get their material to a large, national base of DJs without have to mail to each
one individually. As a bonus, pools were and are today membership organizations and
the members support the pool by paying membership dues. In other words, the DJs
in Pools pay the bills for their own promotion. Pretty good idea.
The Billboard list and Radio mixers are extremely important in the promotion of
Dance Music, but they don’t provide the added base of a fairly large number of DJs
reporting to charts that are read by other DJs in the field. It is becoming more
obvious every day that simply servicing 150 Billboard reporters or mix show DJs
will accomplish certain goals, but the broader coverage of a few good record pools
really helps to increase exposure in the US market. While recognizing both those
groups as important in their own right, it is also important to recognize the necessity
for a larger grassroots base for exposing dance product across the country and the
450 reporting DJs in the 14 pools that report to DJ Times can help provide that
base. They are there, in operation and doing the job and are nowhere near "extinct."
Why we service CDs:
While many DJs are playing digital files, and while most consumers are buying the
digital format, there is still no better way to focus a DJ on a label's priorities
than to stick a physical CD into his or her hands and make them look at it. At the
DJ Times Expo last year in Atlantic City, at a lunch for labels and programmers,
I listened to a number of Radio and Satellite PDs and MDs state that they preferred
a physical CD to files because they were easier to transport to music meetings and
to review and keep track of.
Many of the labels that service our reporters understand that while digital promotion
does have its place, our in-boxes are more and more crowded every day with MP3 files,
YouSendIt or SendSpace links (which often expire if not reviewed quickly), or links to download sites with track after track
available for retrieval from all over the world. So much so that there are not enough
hours in the day to retrieve them all.
All of our reporting Pools accept CDs, and some of them will service some MP3s.
A number of them will only service an MP3 at the specific request and with the
written or emailed permission of the copyright owner. We do not track any of the
MP3 or "Digital" pools, including the ones that claim hundreds of members and
provide "400 MP3s a month for only $20.00." Do you really think that DJs that
frequent those sites are going to download anything that they don't already know
they want? I would caution labels to give some serious thought to making their
product available to those "Download Pools." Remember, you’re selling the MP3s.
When you service CDs, you have a finite number and you generally know where they
are going, and it’s not to hundreds or thousands of self-described "DJs."
I assure you that there are still viable, working pools out there servicing CDs
to their members and reporting to the DJ Times Crossover Top 50 which is read by
over 60,000 dance enthusiasts. And most of those readers are professional, working
DJs.
MP3s are cheap. OK they're free. Great. Now everybody with a computer is a producer
and a label and if you limit your promotion to E-blasts and MP3s you just leveled
the playing field… for them. If they are getting 20 to 30 files a day, what are
they going to pay more attention to, another E-blast or one of 10 CDs that they
get this week? We are promoters. Our job is to get them to pay attention. Think
about it.