As most things go...

People always find ways to ruin a good thing:

A group representing artists and record labels reached a royalty-fee agreement with music Web sites, ending a two-year battle and removing a cloud from over online radio.

"It's a substantial reduction in per-song streaming fees," says Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora Inc., an online music service that will stream about one billion hours of music this year. The royalties question threatened Pandora's viability and hung over all aspects of the business, he said, making it hard to negotiate with potential partners. Now, "we're out from under that," he said.

But as a result of the new royalty rates, Pandora plans to start charging its heaviest users a fee. Those listeners on the free version of Pandora who tune in for more than 40 hours a month will have to pay 99 cents to keep listening for the rest of the month.

To be clear, I'm not one of those who insists that all the best things in life should be free; it's only right that artists are compensated for the use of their work. Yes, Pandora owes royalties.

And it's not the .99 cents...who can't afford a dollar-a-month for anything? But why should the end-user pay?

It's called advertising (something they're already doing btw). By one estimate Pandora has 30 million registered users. Surely it's possible to create an advertising rate-structure that generates enough revenue to meet expenses and turn a profit beginning next year as they are currently targeting.

Question of the Day

Anybody at work paying attention?

Charmed

You know you're living a charmed life when you make a huge error at work, something that potentially will cost several thousands of dollars only to find your client made the even-larger error that saves your bacon.

"I want a new rep"

Advertising is, at it's heart, a business about relationships. Everything we do helps or hurts our working relationships. When our working relationships are good, problems are few but when problems are many, it's entirely too likely that the relationship isn't as good as it ought to be.

Sometimes those relationships end. An account leaves or, at the extreme, you cut them off. Or, occasionally, an advertiser requests new blood. That happened to me this morning.

I only caught two things as the conversation was ongoing; 1. my name and 2. "I want a new rep." With my dander already up, I inquired of my manager exactly what was going on.

When I learned the specifics of which account it was I offered gladly to turn it over. In my mind I already had the file put together and ready for handing over to the next unsuspecting slob.

Then I got angry; these people have been nothing but difficult for the entire time I've called on them. They routinely find ways to slow-pay, under-pay and not pay at all. They want a new rep?! They can have a new rep.

They want a new rep? Well, I want a new advertiser. One that doesn't send us the wrong copy then blame us for running the wrong ad.

I want a new advertiser. One that doesn't demand we write off more than half the money we've billed in the last 12 months.

They want a new rep!? I want a new advertiser. One that pays their bills...on time. Or even at all.

They want a new rep...? Don't get me started.