tymshft

As modern distribution channels are swiftly trumped

When I first read the story that I’m about to share with you, I didn’t know if it belonged here in tymshft, in my music blog, or my business blog.

But first I had to figure out the truth behind Dave Schilling’s article in the Guardian on Taylor Swift’s new channel.

Millennials! Don’t sell your TVs just yet. You might be bored silly with the wasteland that is cable programming, but DirecTV’s new cord-cutting over-the-top service, DirecTV Now, will feature a 24-hour channel dedicated exclusively to the work of pop star Taylor Swift….

…the Guardian has obtained the launch day lineup for Taylor Swift Now in a journalistic coup that will surely be criminalized as soon as Donald Trump takes the oath of office in January.

It’s one of these articles that states that the information in the article WON’T BE FOUND ANYWHERE ELSE. Yeah, one of those.

(Excerpts from Schilling’s piece: the 6am show will be called #SquadGoals, and the 11am show will be called Bad Blood.)

So just when I was starting to doubt the whole thing, I ran across Lanre Bakare’s tweet about the article.

So Schilling didn’t make up the entire thing. I subsequently confirmed via MTV that Swift had launched the Taylor Swift Now channel in partnership with AT&T/DirecTv.

Swift is one of the biggest brands in music today, and she is the one who is best equipped to create her own channel. And while she’s still working through intermediaries such as AT&T, the time will eventually come when major musical artists will be able to sell their music directly without any intermediaries. Prince tried to do this, but was ahead of his time (and also past his former commanding stance in the industry).

Swift is making this move at the right time, which should make for some interesting negotiations when her contract with Big Machine expires. Will she opt for her own label partially owned by someone else (a la Madonna’s former label Maverick Records), or will she try going completely independent?

Well, if Swift wants to look for a model, she can look outside of the musical realm. There’s a man who has determinedly avoided the middlemen and roadblocks in his industry, and who is carrying his message directly to his customers.

You know who I’m talking about.

Say what you will about him, Donald Trump has been the most innovative Presidential candidate since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt used the radio to speak directly to the American people. Trump uses Twitter, a service that allows people to send short messages directly to other people. I mean, things like that didn’t exist in the days of Trump’s father Fred Trump – or did they?

Now Twitter, of course, is its own company, so Trump is dependent upon someone else to provide his megaphone. But Twitter is having its own problems as of late, which raises an interesting question – could Trump, in partnership with some other rich people, buy Twitter himself?

Now that would be really interesting.