Audio Recording

I know Jango Internet radio when I logged-in to my Broadjam account several years ago and they recommend me to submit my music to Jango for an online play. What I do next is go to Jango internet radio website:

http://www.jango.com/

And then I click the link “Artist and Labels, Get your music on Jango”.The next thing I see is this URL:

http://airplay.jango.com/music+promotion/home

Under pricing information tab; it provides some quick information such as:

250 plays – $10
1000 plays – $30
4000 plays – $100

And then with a stat that says: “1000 plays typically gets 30-50 new fans -which you can contact!”

OK now we have the stats; assuming you are planning to get an airplay. What you will get from this investment? What potential income can you get from this?

1.) If you are a member of performing right societies like Sound exchange, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, they will pay you performance royalties. The question is how much? Well, it might sound a bit complex but stated here:

http://www.copyright.gov/carp/webcasting_rates_final.html

It says that the royalty is around 0.07 cents per performance to a maximum of 0.14 cents per performance.
If you analyze Jango stats provided above, you are investing at cents per play:

250 plays – $10 OR 4 cents per play
1000 plays – $30 OR 3 cents per play
4000 plays – $100 OR 2.5 cents per play

And when you read that document closely it is a royalty payment for the use of sound recording not the song copyrights itself (example the lyrics and melodies). So if we factor performance royalties earned by song copyrights, how much would that be? The figure should be somewhat similar to royalty figures above, say 0.06 cents per play and additional 0.07 cents, and total 0.13 cents for both use of sound recording and song copyrights. For better estimates say you will use the modest figure of 0.07 cents per performance.

Income possibility through Performance Royalties

Is it possible to earn money through song performance in Jango? Theoretically, when you subscribe for airplay at $100 for 4000 plays, the following are the financial stats:

Investment:
4000 plays for $100: 2.5 cents per play

Update: May 6, 2011, A correction suggested by Katrise Dillon (thank you) , I made a mistake on the calculations before. It has been corrected below.

Income:
Performance royalty calculated at 0.07 cents per play:
Performance royalty receivable in 4000 plays: 0.07 cents x 4000 = 280 cents = $280
Net profit = $280 – $100 = $180

Have I done the math correctly?

It shows that by theory it is possible to profit by performance alone ; provided Jango.com pays 0.07 cents to either Soundexchange.com as mandated by law.

So what you can do further to increase your income?: Tapped other income generating opportunities. Like CD sales, single downloads via iTunes, etc. The more fans you have , the more likely you will earn. The good thing is that if your song is a true hit, it can get free plays (not paid), so in the end; by stroke of luck you might be getting a stable royalty income.

Disclaimer: Those are just approximated figures and may not reflect the reality. For legal aspects, you may consider hiring an entertainment attorney.

August 30, 2011 update from Jared Hallock • University of Idaho:

YOU DO NOT MAKE MONEY ON JANGO. See the following response from JANGO…

“Thank you for your inquiry about performance royalties payable to Jango Airplay artists. Just like MySpace, FaceBook & YouTube, Jango Airplay is a promotional platform for emerging artists so royalties for plays on Jango.com are waived.

We looked into this originally and discovered that difficulties such as data management problems, incredibly low royalty rates ($1 per 10,000 internet plays), and the small percentage of Airplay Artists that are actually registered meant that we could better serve our artists developing Jango Airplay to become the best online promotional tool available.

These sites mentioned as well as Pandora cannot provide you the service that you are actually paying for here at Jango Airplay. Here we are allowing you to pay for that direct promotion to the listener and utilize our promotional platform by giving you more than just a play. Specific play reports, real time listener feeds, fan communication, and complete control over your dashboard and promotional campaign are also included in your airplay package.

Presently we reward almost half of our artists each week with bonus play credits based on their Jango PopScore, we highlight the Top 10 each week in our listener newsletter that goes out to over 3 million subscribers and we have a ‘Top Emerging’ module on our listeners ‘User Home’ page. We are also always working on future initiatives to create more exposure for our artists on Jango.com and with our online partners.”

Conclusions and Recommendations

Based on the update above, it looks like the royalty has been waived. In this case, you cannot earn money in Jango by performance royalties alone. As a recommendation, try to look twice into how you could use Jango in marketing your music and earning money. In fact, one better strategy would be to establish connections to fans and sell your CD. Say for example, it has been a said by Jango that:

1000 plays typically gets 30-50 new fans -which you can contact!”

For example you want 4000 plays which is a $100 investment. You need this airplay to market and sell your CD album in CD baby. Supposing you are selling them for $15 per CD. Also “assuming” you have a conversion rate of 10% which is pretty conservative in selling albums to your fans. Therefore:

Number of fans you get from 4000 plays = 30 fans/1000 plays x 4000 plays = 120 new fans
120 new fans x 10% = 12 CD album purchase
Total sales = 12 x $15= $180

Thus, based on the above calculation, you will made $80 profit per $100 investment assuming a CD sales conversion rate of 10%. Of course the conversion rate might change (higher or lower) depending on how you approach your fans in delivering your product and how good is your CD album and songs. Use the above concepts in calculating profitability in any online music investment.