Daltrey you muppet! At least Pete gets it.
Just when I thought I was safe. Roger Daltrey appears to be living on another planet when he says he cant see how the internet will affect their careers. This is as preposterous as one of my ex Sheffield Hallam university colleagues insiting the internet was not relevant to an MBA's education (I left shortly afterwards). So what has he done? Pulled the plug and taken his mic home. Here's my take on how the internet is affecting their careers. There's the revenue stream from the live webcasts (granted, not much money to be made here); there is the publicity of being a band that does something as a 'first' (lets face it The Who isn't exactly subject to a media frenzy these days especially since Pete stopped doing his research); this creates a knock-on effect of more ticket sales and finally a more financially rewarding career for Roger. Then of course there's the viral nature of this innovation, people like me talking about it. I give up. Roger probably still believes people buy his music on vinyl.
29th July update:
The Times has reported the apparent real reason why Daltry is off of the internet – charity of all things. It gets worse, Townsend wanted to donate proceeds of the streaming concerts to charity and Mr Daltrey didn't think this was fair. ie there was no money in it for him (the reason behind the reunion tour). A spectacular own goal if you ask me and one indicative of shallow thinking as a businessman, not to mention mean spirited.
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That’s probably just Roger pointing out the fact that he’s old. No doubt the internet will affect his career long after he’s dead and gone.
PS – do you read anything other than the BBC site? Or is that the only citable reference online due to the fact that it is British?
It is not all about revenues. You get your systems in place. Its about getting a new fan base simply because you are on a particular medium.
but then its better than surfing for child porn.
That’s surprising…he had a website way back in 1997. A Daltrey-obsessed friend of mine spent bizarre amounts of time in the chat room…
You’d think by now he’d have figured out what he can do with the internet.
Well, Metallica have also threatened to finally wake up and smell the coffee. Several years too late with fans simply stealing their music in the absence of a legitimate alternative. Market led and market driven, its what its all about. Supposedly…
taken from another blog:
‘On his website, Townshend criticized Daltrey for not supporting the Who’s webcasts of their recent live shows. But now Townshend says that he was just trying to distract people from the fact that the webcasts – which cost $10 a pop, to benefit charity – didn’t make much money. “When I went to talk to Roger about it we agreed that the best thing to do is to distract attention from the whole thing by having a public row,” said Townshend on his video webcast, “So we’re having a public row.” ‘
That’s an interesting statement by Pete if true Abz, in which case, neither of them seem to get it – and have just made pad publicity worse. So what if they don’t make much money, its the publicity (now adverse publicity) that costs the money. They would have had every techno wielding columnist extolling the virtues of their forward thinking and in doing so raising the profile of their tour. Now they’ll have charities biting at their ankles for not bothering at all – I just don’t get it. So that now makes three of us.
WOW…just…wow. So they get that they can generate buzz (of a sort) by staging a public argument, but not that they can do the same by just emailing the right bloggers about the webcasts-for-charity thing…
Totally off topic, but right after reading the Metallica post I saw James Hetfield in an interview clip on tv…he’s bearing a striking resemblance to Will Ferrell these days. Very strange…