Bridgestone Extends Arena Naming Rights

Bridgestone Americas and the Nashville Predators have extended their naming-rights agreement for the downtown Bridgestone Arena.

The original five-year agreement was signed in March 2010 and included the option for an extension. That option was exercised, yielding the just-announced five-year extension. The new deal runs through 2019.

When sharing the news at a press conference, Predators CEO Jeff Cogen and Bridgestone Americas CEO Gary Garfield said they hope to bring the NHL’s All-Star Game to Nashville, possibly after the opening of the Music City Center.

Facebook Ads Moving To News Feed

Currently Facebook displays ads on the right side of the page.

Advertisements will be part of Facebook users’ news feeds in 2012. Currently, these Sponsored Stories appear on the right side of the Facebook page.

The move to the news feed will greatly increase visibility for marketers, and will bring in more advertising revenue for the social networking giant.

During the roll out, there will be about one sponsored story per day in users’ news feeds. The ads will be identified by the word Sponsored.

Initially, these ads will not appear in feeds viewed on mobile devices, but could show up there as early as March.

Facebook is reportedly preparing for a second quarter 2012 IPO.

More from AdAge.

Garner’s Beyond The Hits To Help Others

What has 20 tracks from 20 hit artists, is now available on iTunes and will help support St. Jude Children’s ResearchHospital, the ACM’s Lifting Lives and the CMA’s Keep the Music Playing charities? If you guessed the first project from syndicated radio personality Blair Garner, then give yourself a gold star.

Garner, award-winning host of After MidNite, is releasing Beyond The Hits under the banner of his new production/development company TriPower. The 20-track edition is priced at $9.99.

The collection features hit artists such as Alan Jackson, Jason Aldean, Brad Paisley, Lady Antebellum, Carrie Underwood and many more. (Track list here.)  The music is intended to help fans find great songs that appeared on previous albums from each artist but were never were released as singles. According to Garner the ideas is to, “Focus on the depth and brilliance of each artist as well as the songwriters behind these tracks.”

Garner told Nashville.com writer David Scarlett, “I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. Sharing these great songs that people may not have heard is important. But I also know how much songwriters depend on people downloading their music to make a living. And with so many people no longer buying complete albums, a lot of writers who, in the past, might have been able to make a living getting album cuts until they’re fortunate enough to have a single or two released are now losing a lot of their income. And then, there’s the charity aspect. I’m really excited about being able to devote a portion of the proceeds from this project to causes I truly believe in.”

Galante Adds Sales Perspective To 2011 Performance

Joe Galante

Industry veteran Joe Galante checked in with some astute comments on this morning’s sales article which attributed lagging 2011 country album sales to a weak release schedule. That analysis rings true, but Galante had additional perspective regarding the state of Nashville music sales.

“I read in MusicRow’s year end issue a list that showed only 7 or 8 album titles sold more than 100,000 debut week units this year,” says Galante. “That’s a big issue. We used to be able to count on ten of our acts doing 300-400k the first week or at least a quarter million. Now aside from Taylor and Lady A, we’re not getting those strong debuts. That means that next year, even with a strong release schedule, we aren’t going to be getting the 2 million plus yearly unit totals per artist we had in the past. So it’s a steady decline.”

Galante also does not believe that track sales and therefore TEA (Track Equivalent Albums) numbers will be able to make up for the changes in album sales. “Even with TEAs added in on a relative basis,” he says, “it will be interesting to see how next year compares against this year. We’ll see tracks go up, but physical sales will shrink. My guess is that even with strong releases lining up for next year we still will have a down year.”

According to Galante, there is another issue which does not show itself using SoundScan numbers—profitability. “There’s no way to really show the effect of $5 Wal-Mart catalog titles. It adds units, but each one is dramatically down in terms of margin and revenue. I wish we could show that portion of the equation, because it also makes a difference. We’re showing this year being down say 2 million units, when the reality is it’s down 7, 8 or more in terms of revenue…”

Vevo Explores Expansion At Two-Year Mark

Vevo powers numerous artist Facebook pages including Carrie Underwood and Lady Gaga.

Music video site Vevo is marking its second anniversary this month. The site owned by UMG, Sony, and Abu Dhabi Media, now has 57M unique viewers in the U.S., doubling since the company launched in December 2009.

According to the New York Times, Vevo is exploring opportunities in television, and could become its own channel offering videos and other pop culture content.

Since launch, Vevo’s video streams are up 400% to 827 million per month in the U.S. There have been over 13M mobile downloads of the Vevo mobile app worldwide.

Weak Release Schedule Blamed For Lagging Sales

The 2011 albums race is almost over, with scarcely two weeks remaining to be tallied. Are we going to fall behind last year? “Most assuredly.” The question is simply, “By how much?”

A quick glance at the above chart shows the format currently down 1.9% with total YTD country album sales of 39.811 million. That leaves us two weeks to add the 3.91 million needed to equal last year. However, this week country albums sold a tepid 1.605 million compared to the same week last year that scanned 1.966 million (down about 18.4%). In 2010 the last two weeks sold 2.319 million and 820k respectively. If we simply add those two weeks (3.139 million) and then reduce it by 18.4% our rough guess would be to add another 2.56 million to the year’s tally. Doing the math shows 2011 country album sales off about 3% or about 1.5 million units.

Why couldn’t we surpass last year? “Weak release schedule.”

This week’s details show Lady Antebellum in the No. 1 position on the country album chart shifting over 81k units to push their RTD sales (release-to-date) over the blessed one million, Platinum mark. Congrats to the feisty trio and Mr. Haywood who we hear is planning nuptials (with Warner Music VP Marketing/Brand Management Kelli Cashiola) which would place wedding bands on each member’s hands.

Scotty McCreery follows in the No. 2 spot with over 66k units placing him only a few more weeks away from earning Platinum status. Who would have thought, when he first appeared on the Idol stage as a Josh Turner carbon copy that fans would embrace him so strongly. But the youngster has truly stepped up and seems to be comfortably wearing his newfound fame.

The other eight artists in the Top 10 inlcude Jason (No. 3), Taylor (No. 4 & 6), Luke (No. 7), The Band Perry (No. 8), Miranda Lambert (No. 9) and ZBB (No. 10).

Toby Keith fills the missing No. 5 spot on the Top 10 country album list driven by his plastic fantastic “Red Solo Cup,” which was the top-selling digital country track again this week (over 86k downloads). The “Cup” has now passed the 500k sales mark and is surely headed to Platinum… (Hey, is that Bob Saporiti as Santa in the song’s holiday video version?)

Looking at the industry overall, album sales are up 1.3% YTD with Michael Bublé’s Christmas ringing the Yuletide bells—loudly. Bublé fans scooped up another 450k units of the holiday set this past week giving the album an eight week sales total of almost 2 million, a figure it will undoubtedly pass next week.

A big giant HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all our readers and especially those that follow our weekly sales discussions. Thank you for reading, for sending me those occasional snarky emails and for being part of the fun. Hopefully next year we can jump into positive sales territory. And wouldn’t it be nice if Nielsen SoundScan placed a TEA (track equivalent albums) chart under the tree?

Be safe, hug your friends and family and tune in next Wed. for our next installment…

 

Read comments on this article from industry veteran Joe Galante here.

Digitally Thinking: Albums Sales, Ringtones and stretchy silicon

>>> Sometimes a great tech idea is so easy to understand that everyone wants to join the party. TouchFire, a stretchy silicon keyboard that sits atop the iPad’s horizontal on-screen keyboard is such a concept. Seattle-based software designer Steve Isaac put the idea on Kickstarter and raised over $200k, more than 20 times what he had hoped. The first run of the product will go to Kickstarter backers. “It sure makes us feel very good about the potential for this project and the demand for this project,” Isaac told AP.

>>> Digital Music News writes that reports of the death of ringtones have been greatly exaggerated. In fact the online industry news outlet quotes Gartner Research who says that ringtone revenues are still four times larger than the combined revenues from all the subscription services such as Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio, MOG and all others. The worldwide online music revenue numbers play out with subscription services getting 8.4% of the pie; download services earning 57.3% and ringtones grabbing 34.3%. Total worldwide online music revenue for 2011 equals about $6.34 billion.

>>The Nielsen SoundScan music sales reports come out on Wed. mornings and measure the week which ends the previous Sunday. If you are simply unable to wait, you can click over to HitsDailyDouble.com and view its Album Sales Chart which is usually ‘final’ early Tuesday. Although the numbers may not be precisely the same as SS, they are usually close. With that in mind, it appears that tomorrow’s SS report will show the largest single week country album sales of the year. According to HDD, Lady A’s Own The Night is the highest selling country album with over 80k units. Scotty McCreery follows with about 67,000 units. Jason Aldean‘s My Kinda Party and Taylor Swift’s World Tour Live offering are in the next two positions with around 48,000 each. Stay tuned… we’ll have a complete report tomorrow, including how close we are to reaching last year’s sales totals.

ACAs Boost Track Sales

The American Country Awards, which aired December 5 on Fox, had plenty of outstanding musical moments. In addition to format superstars like Toby Keith, newer faces like Pistol Annies and Thompson Square also had the big platform to expose them to new audiences. Tracking the show’s effect on music sales isn’t clear-cut because the show aired the week after Black Friday and the opening of holiday shopping season.

According to Nielsen SoundScan data from the week ending Dec. 11, album sales were up nearly 16% across the board, likely due to increased holiday spending.

Fletcher Foster

MusicRow spoke with one of ACA’s producers, industry vet Fletcher Foster, who says the show’s impact can be more directly felt with regard to individual tracks, rather than in albums. “I went specifically back to tracks people performed on the show to see if there was a correlation,” says Foster. “You saw the huge sales from Toby. From the tracks standpoint, everybody who performed did well.”

According to SoundScan, digital sales of ACA show closer (and Artist of the Decade) Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup” were up 90% for a total of 96k units. Other performers also experienced increased digital track activity: Pistol Annies’ “Hell On Heels” was up 168% to more than 15k units, with very little radio support. Following Chris Young’s performance of “Voices,” the track had a 211% jump. Similarly, Thompson Square performed “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not” on the telecast and it experienced a 140% sales increase despite it not being the current single.

One aspect in which the ACA show stands out from the rest is its commitment to giving new artists a chance to play. Last year The Band Perry had one of its first big performances on the show, right on the cusp of that group’s chart dominance. This year the group returned with a triumphant and memorable run through “All Your Life.”

“We wanted to be the show that can help break acts,” explains Foster. “Last year we had The Band Perry, and they’d just gotten a Grammy nomination the week before. This year Eli Young Band, Pistol Annies, some really cool acts, got opportunities they maybe wouldn’t get on other shows. As long as you can have those acts that really drive viewership [like Blake Shelton], then you can have some fun and really develop other acts too.”

It’s a trend the show’s producers plan to maintain, to hopefully serve as a bridge in the space between the CMA Awards and the Grammys. With the ACA ratings improved over last year’s inaugural show, network home Fox is pleased with the results and Foster feels optimistic about its future.

“We’ve found more of a balance to give people a really great platform to have their talent exposed,” says Foster. “We’ll look at it again next year, but Fox was really happy—not just with ratings—but the balance of awards and performers.”

And importantly, country music seems to have found an ally in Fox. Its presence can be felt through music heavy shows like American Idol, and the network may have access to a younger-skewing demographic still eager to seek and discover new music.

“It’s definitely a record-buying music-driven network,” remarks Foster. “They have brought music to the forefront and hopefully we can take advantage of that for country.”

Facebook Among Most Popular Android Apps

Among Android users ages 18-44, the six most popular apps are Facebook, Android Market, Gmail, Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube. According to a new study by Nielsen, these apps have the greatest “active reach,” defined by the number of Android owners who used the app within the past 30 days.

When broken down by more specific age groups, 18-24, 25-34, and 35-44 (shown in the graph above), these apps vary in popularity, but all fall within the top six.

In each demographic, Android Market is the most used app, followed by Facebook at No. 2. Among 18-24 and 25-34 year-olds, the Facebook app hovers at around an 80 percent active reach.

The YouTube app is most heavily used by the 18-24 set (64 percent have used it in the past 30 days), followed by 25-34 year-olds (56 percent) and 35-44 year-olds (51 percent).

Game Angry Birds ranks No. 7 in popularity with the 25-34 (29 percent) and 35-44 demographics (35 percent).

Nielsen analyzed usage data from its proprietary device meters on the smartphones of the thousands of consumer panelists who agreed to be part of its ongoing Smartphone Analytics research.

Lost Highway Projects Top Year-End Americana Chart

Hayes Carll (R) performs with Buddy Miller (L) at the 2011 Americana Awards and Honors show.

The Americana Music Association has released its Top 100 Albums of the Year, based on albums reported to the Americana Airplay Chart between Nov. 16, 2010 and Nov. 14, 2011.

UMG’s Lost Highway lands the top two spots on the list with Hayes Carll’s KMAG YOYO hitting No. 1, and Lucinda Williams’ Blessed at No. 2. Rounder also picked up two of the Top 10, thanks to Alison Krauss & Union Station’s Paper Airplane and Gregg Allman’s Low Country Blues, as did New West Records albums I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive by Steve Earle and Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns by John Hiatt. The Top 10 are listed below, and the full list can be seen at americanamusic.org by clicking on the Top 100 albums link.

Top 10:

1. Hayes Carll, KMAG YOYO / Lost Highway
2. Lucinda Williams, Blessed / Lost Highway
3. Steve Earle, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive / New West
4. Alison Krauss & Union Station, Paper Airplane / Rounder
5. Emmylou Harris, Hard Bargain / Nonesuch
6. Gregg Allman, Low Country Blues / Rounder
7. Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Here We Rest / Lightning Rod
8. John Hiatt, Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns / New West
9. Decemberists, The King Is Dead / Capitol
10. Band of Heathens, Top Hat Crown & The Clapmaster’s Son / BOH Records