It’s a great example of the power of a small magazine to influence music sales and unite an industry, earning Songlines a place on the Media Pioneer Awards 2013 shortlist.
Awards attracts media coverage and new readers
The Songlines Music Awards has grown in the last year, with social media helping to double the votes cast to over 5,000 and a new Songlines winners’ concert launched in the Barbican in November 2012. This sell-out event attracted national press coverage and was broadcast on Radio 3.
Publisher Paul Geoghegan was pleased to attract plenty of non-Songlines readers to the concert and sold 175 subscriptions on the night.
Exclusive compilation album now No 1 on Amazon
For the 2013 Songlines Music Awards, Paul has released a compilation album with all 16 nominated artists and is promoting it exclusively via Amazon, who are promoting the album on every single world music page on their site. Released on 15 March 2013, the album has been the No 1 best selling world music CD on the Amazon chart, and has had good reviews in the Sunday Times, Guardian and Evening Standard.
Shortlisted tracks cement relationships with iTunes and Guardian
iTunes is running a promotion on the Awards, focusing on the podcast, app and all the nominated albums. Paul expands on his plans: “We've already had confirmation from BBC Radio 3 that they'll be broadcasting a programme on this year's winners on April 26 and we're working on an exclusive download promotion with The Guardian, offering all 100,000 Guardian Extra members a free track from this year's winning albums. And we're already working on a winners' concert at The Barbican again for November.”
Tablet edition has audio clips and links to music purchase
Songlines magazine launched a tablet edition in January, for iPad and Android, and was the no 3 best selling music mag app (after Rolling Stones and Billboard magazine) on Newsstand on the iTunes US store, getting over 500 downloads a day. The tablet edition is fully interactive with streamed audio excerpts from featured album reviews and with iTunes buy-now click-throughs for the iPad edition and to Amazon for the Android. These are now starting to generate healthy affiliate revenues. Over the first two months since launch, the iPad edition has seen over 12,000 downloads, 349 single issues bought and 93 annual subscriptions, providing a seven-fold return on their app costs.
The links through to purchase music directly on iTunes and Amazon not only provide an additional revenue stream, they mean that Apple and Kindle are happy to promote the Songlines magazine apps in their digital newsstands.
Songlines shows how a well-promoted awards can raise the profile of a small niche publisher at a national and international level. And by linking their editorial directly to music sales, they have built enviable partnerships with iTunes and Amazon.
The Media Pioneer Awards are designed to highlight innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in specialist consumer or B2B media, across print, web, digital or events. Winners will be announced at the Specialist Media Conference on 24 April 2013. The Media Pioneer Awards are run by the Specialist Media Show and supported by InPublishing.
More about how to enter the Media Pioneer Awards and stories of past entrants.
More about the Specialist Media Conference on 24 April 2013.
Closing date for entries 8 April 2013.
