Joel Klaiman, Universal Republic, EVP of Promotion & Artist Development

Joel Klaiman arrived at Universal Republic in 2006 when he was named SVP Promotion/Artist Development fresh from nine years in the Sony Building. While at Sony, Klaiman held various promotion executive positions at Epic Records and 550/WORK Group, culminating with EVP/Promotion at Epic. Five years later, and after breaking many artists at Uni Republic, EVP Klaiman finds himself in a vastly different music business with a new set of radio rules and a new set of consumer standards.

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Music industry trends regarding digital subscription models, the proliferation of music among many digital consumer destinations and social networking platforms have been very encouraging for a business that’s in such dramatic transition. However, one trend that continues to haunt the industry as of late has been the series of downsizing label moves leading to several job losses. The first label merger/absorption this year was Universal Republic and Uni Motown. Joel Klaiman and his staff have been diligently adapting ever since.

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Music industry trends regarding digital subscription models, the proliferation of music among many digital consumer destinations and social networking platforms have been very encouraging for a business that’s in such dramatic transition. However, one trend that continues to haunt the industry as of late has been the series of downsizing label moves leading to several job losses. The first label merger/absorption this year was Universal Republic and Uni Motown. Joel Klaiman and his staff have been diligently adapting ever since.

In June of this year UR absorbed more Rhythmic and Pop repertoire as a result of the UMG consolidation. What were the most pressing issues you encountered when you inherited the UM priorities overnight?
The first and foremost issue was could we serve our artists. Do we have the manpower to physically work all of the projects? We’re still kind of learning as we go, but we wanted to make sure that we were fully equipped to handle the new work load. Taking on the Cash Money repertoire was an exciting prospect. We had worked with Cash Money before on some specific projects like Jay Sean and Kevin Rudolph, but with the volume of the incredible artists they have at Rhythm and Urban we wanted to make sure that we were not going to be shorthanded. Certainly with Gary Spangler, Davey Dee (whom I hired from Motown) and Alisa Applegate leading the charge at Rhythm, along with our field staff and myself, I feel like we can absolutely handle the volume of releases. Effectively serving all of our artists is of the utmost importance to us.

How much of a dramatic impact has this had on the strategies you put forth with your staff?
You have to be as organized as you can. It places more pressure on me in terms of effectively making sure all of the fundamentals are covered. Does the staff have the music and the tools? Is there proper artwork in line? Do we have enough time for setup? Did we have the most basic of tools for all of these records that were going out? Was everything tightened up? It also puts pressure on the coordinators of the departments, particularly Nikki Nolletti, who is in the middle of all of this making sure everything is lined up.
Beyond the basic level, for me it’s always been about leading by example. I’ve always tried to be a player/coach. Just making sure on the projects we had to move fast on that I could lead by example at the major markets with some of the stations I deal with on a weekly basis.

Does it also take the managing of multiple priorities in a given cycle of records to a whole new level?
Absolutely! You try to give every artist and every project the same amount of time and care. After all, this is an artist’s work and you really want to give it a chance, but you find sometimes that the ones that are the hardest become the most rewarding and pay the biggest dividends. The ones that fly don’t need as much time from the staff. It becomes a function of managing the staffs’ efforts to make sure you give the projects you have a hunch on the proper treatment and ample opportunity to break through.
The mantra, which I created when I started here, is “We Break New Artists,” and that’s what we’re trying to live up to each day. It’s not that we don’t want to continue to foster the careers of established artists which will always be a priority. But you have to love a project like The Band Perry where people thought we were crazy taking a down-tempo Country song to Pop radio, but look at the results!
As the music industry continues to downsize, what is the one thing you have to constantly remind yourself (and your staff) of with respect to the future of the promotion business?
To make sure that we’re always doing something that is effectively building on our projects: something new, something creative. There’s not a lot of opportunity in this business as a whole, but there is plenty of opportunity to succeed within this company. I like to use a line from John Wooden, “Don’t confuse activity with achievement!” A lot of times we get caught up in making ourselves busy, but are we really being effective? I challenge our staff sometimes. If we were true salespeople selling any basic product and we came up empty in any given week, would you make your paycheck? We’re always trying to move the needle. We’re always pushing the envelope for exposure on our artists, not just with airplay. We need to make sure we are adding to the marketing process of our records. That’s what separates “great” staffs from the “good” staffs. We try to really be aggressive about what we’re doing once a record goes on the air…Once it’s on what are we doing next?

Since the Universal merger there have been two other major label mergers (Jive/RCA and Warner/Reprise). It’s apparent that the economies of scale to operate multiple labels within music groups have become prohibitive. What is your assessment of what the music industry has experienced this year in this area?
It is just a question of economics. Labels struggle to be profitable all the time given the diminished sales volume in the marketplace. Now Universal Republic has a chance to make our numbers, which is really exciting, because over the course of time we haven’t had that chance for various reasons. We’re selling enough and managing our costs more efficiently so we now have an opportunity to truly add profit.
The bottom line is consolidation is a necessary evil in our business today. I’m sure other music groups have experienced the same financial issues we have. Hopefully labels trim and make cuts and then build back up in areas that might make more sense to the business model and consumer model of the day. At our label I love the fact that we’re really stepping up and growing the A&R staff. At our label, I love the fact that Monte Lipman is really stepping up and growing the A&R staff. Obviously I grew my staff by a few people during the merger, but the A&R department is growing significantly which is great.

The merging of labels begets the merging of artist rosters which leads to an increase of priorities for field reps. How has this dynamic affected the relationship between your promo reps and radio?
You can actually have a more productive relationship with radio because you’re coming to them with more music. Radio has come to expect Universal Republic to come with something that was always a little bit different or left field at the start (Amy Winehouse, Florence and the Machine, Owl City, The Band Perry, Taylor Swift, etc) and now overnight, we’re in the Rhythm/Urban business big-time. Given our full-time relationship with Cash Money I feel like we lead the league with the biggest and the best Rhythmic/Urban artists and projects in the business. It creates many more opportunities for us with radio.
The reps are now in a better position with radio because of the increased flow, the increased quality and the variety of music we’re offering. Your communication is at an all time high when you have multiple projects with every station at every format of radio. Collectively, we are literally talking to stations several times a day with updates on artist activity, phoners, and marketing opportunities. You’re in a better flow with radio than a label that has one project at a time. We’re there consistently. I realize you’re not going to get all your records and some of them are harder to break. I give Brenda Romano and her Interscope team a lot of credit. I’ve watched how they’ve done it over the years, being consistent in every format and still breaking artists at the same time. That’s the way we’re built now and it’s the way we’re currently operating.

Resonating clearly in label promotion these days is relationships with radio from the SVP chair down the chain of command to the field. How important is it for SVP’s to routinely get involved in the promotion process directly with radio?
It’s very important for me to make the time to talk to programmers on a regular business. It may be on the ride in to work or going home, in between meetings, or dedicating certain days purely for talking to radio. I do isolate myself in my office away from distractions and do nothing but talk to radio at certain times. I try to make sure I’m totally focused on what I have to accomplish that week. I maintain my own specific target lists for each format and my own “to do” list weekly. I set my goals pretty high and try to achieve them each week. For what we do, there’s nothing more important than constant contact with programmers.

Are senior level relationships between label promo execs and radio personnel more important than ever today?
I’ll talk to any programmer about my music, but I do make it a point to communicate with the group programming heads/PCP/heads of programming like John Ivey, Alex Tear, Kid Kelly, Jan Jeffries, Jon Zellner, Dom Theodore or Kevin Weatherly, etc, but I also still talk to everyone at the station level as well. As a team we make sure we do that from top to bottom. If someone’s in the process of looking at our music and evaluating it, we’re making sure we’re having a dialogue. It’s important for programmers at all levels to understand your project plans and how they may relate to their stations/market or groups of stations. It’s all about the give and take idea and the energy that comes with that. You never know who’s going to come up with a great idea to break an artist.

What is currently the biggest obstacle to overcome in the promotion process to radio?
M-Score can be a tough hurdle to jump particularly when a programmer is making a decision based on a score when’s it’s very early in the life of a song. There might be other factors contributing to the success of that single like great sales or a strong national profile with good early research stories, but in their specific market they’re citing a poor M-Score. I’ve actually challenged and asked that there should be a minimum quantity of spins (at least 150 spins) before an M-Score is even weighted in a decision. There are many other senior promo execs that agree. There are also some smart programmers who agree and won’t use M-Score without a certain number of spins.

Do you think programmer bias on a project factors into this thinking at all?
It comes down to this. When a PD or MD wants something to succeed, you find reasons and ways to make it succeed. If you want something to fail, you can make it fail. Testing records too early just adds to it. By the way, I know one senior promo executive who calls M-score the “murder-score!”

Does the PPM mentality contribute to the desire for instant results as well?
PPM mentality has definitely help perpetuate this quick thinking on programming decisions in general. Programmers want immediate gratification and (in some ways) it comes down to this: the most simplistic repetitive song with the most simplistic hook and chorus wins, though that may not be the most compelling of music. But that’s what starts to happen. The most simplistic benign track with a repetitive chorus is the best PPM/M-Score song. It makes it more difficult for unique sounding records that can be great projects to break through.
Artists with great offerings like Adele, The Band Perry, Christina Perri or even Foster The People deserve ample opportunity to break. Fortunately they all have, but there are many others that fall short because they’re not given the right opportunity. Each of these was very different at the start. It can’t be purely about simple Pop music.
PPM and M-Score prove people like what they know (familiarity). So when you hear a brand name artist’s song that’s extremely catchy, it’s so obvious that when you hear it once you know the song already. People stay with what they know (and kind of like) for the most part as opposed to trying and listening to something that’s more eclectic and a bit different. Yet, once those eclectic and different records connect, they’re typically the biggest and most memorable songs of the year. To underscore my point, these special records need more time to develop and shouldn’t be graded or judged by a random M-Score after minimal airplay.

Are programmers open to discussion on this topic?
Some are and some aren’t. Some have their own criteria and parameters and are pretty inflexible, while others love the debate and welcome it and know that sometimes you’re going to see some exceptions. Especially with us and the type of music we have. We’re happy that it’s not cookie-cutter made in the studio type of projects all the time. A lot of our music is really creative, different, niche-breaking and hopefully special.

Do these issues come up internally when you’re having meetings with your senior personnel at the label?
No, not really. If you asked the average senior executive at any label, outside of promotion, if they understand M-Score or PPM, unless we’re breaking it down for them, I don’t think they get it, and how difficult our hurdle is. I really don’t bring it up in our meetings either. They’ve all heard about callout research, but to the extent of where it is at now and the amount of landmines a record has to overcome, I don’t think that most non-promotion senior executives are fully aware.

Do you feel any obligation to educate them on the issue?
I do to an extent, but we’re moving so fast right now that I really don’t have the time. I’d also rather the A&R staff concern themselves with the artists and the music and not even think about M-Score or callout research. Typically they’re the next step to the artist and they should be more concerned about whether this is the best possible music for the artist, not how a record is going to fare in M-Score.

Do you feel radio in general is too chart sensitive regarding reads on records and overreacting to the slightest of chart quirks on a given record?
I don’t feel the chart makes much of a difference. I only feel it on the upside, when a record say picks up 1,000 spins in a week and it creates great momentum. I don’t think it’s so much an issue on the slow side though. If your record’s slow you have to communicate, explain and work with radio to have them understand that a project may be early in its life, and bring up all the other building points. You have to walk before you run and that’s the discussion that needs to be had with radio.

How do you deal with the “spin police” issue that programmers are never too fond of?
Sorry, but we are the spin police; we have to watch our records really close. We try to make sure we’re communicating with radio throughout the stages. In the early stages when we just have a handful of markets playing the song, we may not be able to have big gains, but as a record develops and grows and you start to expect a record to pop, you need the quantifiable growth. We watch day parts very closely also.

Given national and syndicated programming, what is your assessment of the Top 40 chart controversy that’s surfaced this year regarding too much weight being placed on centralized radio programming?
The truth is that through consolidation, decisions are being made by fewer people and it’s not going to go away and change all that much. So we do the best we can. You really can’t control the way a radio group decides to program, so you have to do the best you can with the hand you’re dealt. I think we do pretty well in this area and benefit in some ways within these systems to the point where it really helps our records.
I really don’t feel there’s a need to adjust the chart methodology. I’m fine with the way it is right now. It might limit some non-Rhythmic records from going all the way. However, I’m a believer that the more stations that are on a panel right now, the more a promotion staff is needed. Whereas if there’s a smaller panel of stations it makes your options to get more records played limited. I like to cast a wider net to get our music out there. I don’t care where it is. We can break a record from markets of all sizes. We like it better when it’s from the top down, but we’ve had many that break from the bottom up.

How would you rate radio’s adaptive approach to digital areas in further engaging its audience?
The last couple of years, radio has made a concerted effort whether it’s a new music platform like iHeart Radio or other digital initiatives. Radio now knows that there are many alternate outlets and by making their websites better and driving listeners there via online contesting or online music awareness, they’ve done a much better job of not just improving the sound of their stations but also how the station integrates socially with each listener (online performances, streaming albums, social media, etc).

How has the music industry fared in staying in step with the digital music marketplace?
It’s certainly been better as of late. Music is really healthy right now and has been for quite some time. Music is being used in so many different ways in cross mediums these days. It really demonstrates a passion and desire for what we do. Getting revenue from the sources is a different story. Between Spotify and Rhapsody and with what’s going on with Facebook lately, there exists so much potential. So if the record companies are scaled back, as we talked about earlier and there’s a need for great music, great artists and hit songs, by harnessing this “wild west” of a digital music marketplace, the industry really stands to gain from it and hopefully revert back to growth mode. There are certainly enough outlets to recapture much of the lost revenue from the physical side through multiple revenue streams (digital sales, streaming, licensing, ringback/ringtone, etc).

What do perceive to be the optimal digital revenue model?
I think everyone wants it to be subscription based, but it’s going to be multi-tiered. I don’t think it’s ever going to be just one model ever again, i.e. the CD. There are just too many ways to attain music these days. Revenue will come from multiple digital sources, from licensing, from streaming and of course downloads. The optimization of the cell phone and klout services should only enhance revenue.

With consumers downloading everything to SmartPhones the music listening experience is more of a streaming issue rather than an ownership one. Is it detrimental to the music industry that the consumer is drifting away from music ownership and into the rental arena?
It’s vastly different than it was a generation ago and I do think it’s too bad that consumers aren’t all that interested in the “album or CD” package concept anymore to the point where they have to own it. It’s all about convenience and getting the music immediately, and streaming happens to be one of the most pervasive ways of accomplishing that. You can’t stop the tidal wave now. You have to go with the flow and ride the wave and find ways to stay on top of it as opposed to getting knocked over by it. It’s not ideal nor necessarily what we want. What you want is for the consumer to really embrace your artist under the current terms of acceptance. If the artist is good enough and the music is compelling enough they will. There’s a reason why certain bands can still break through and sell full albums, even though it may not happen as frequently as we’d like it to happen. They’re not all Adele where everybody has to own the album, but there are multiple stories of artists selling 200,000–300,000 albums and that’s a success. The Band Perry is a good example where a string of hit songs and constant touring is your artist development. And there are your platinum album sales.

You work with two of the most respected and compelling top label execs in the business in Monte and Avery Lipman. What impresses you the most about the two top execs?
Monte and Avery are each one of a kind. Complete opposites in many ways but share the same vision at the same time and very successful in their own right. Avery in some ways is the analyst yet also a very savvy A&R guy and Monte is the fearless leader who hates to lose and really thrives on winning. What I learned most from Monte that really sticks with me is that a record can break from anywhere. When a record leaves the studio it’s either “a hit” or it isn’t. You really can’t make it “a hit.” You can get it exposed but it’s already predetermined. “A hit” can reveal itself anywhere once it leaves our building. You can spend a lot of money on a particular artist but it might be another record that just pops out of nowhere and wasn’t all that expensive to make or market. You just don’t know where it’s going to come from. It can’t just be what you think; it could be something that’s completely unexpected, and you have to be ready for that. When it happens, just go break it!

[eQB Content by Fred Deane]