New Frontiers: Launch Media Launches Trio Of Deals

Launch Media announced a trio of deals in the past week, starting with its nonexclusive pact with Warner Music Group that grants the digital media company Internet video licensing rights to the WMG catalog and new-release music videos. The Launch.com site features on-demand and pre-programmed music channels. The company has already signed deals with Sony and EMI.
Launch has also purchased National Video Subscriptions, which produces and licenses music video programming for retailers, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, theme parks, and airlines. NVS services those outlets with video compilations, culled from its library of more than 24,000 music videos. Genres include top 40, modern rock, R&B, hip-hop, jazz, blues, country, pop, dance, and Latin music. Launch foresees re-branding these video compilations and driving offline consumers to its Web site.
And Launch has also acquired Tourdates.com, an online guide to local and national concert information. The deal, made up primarily of stock and valued at roughly $11.6 million, will give Launch a database of live music information tracking 10,000 bands, concert agencies, and promoters and will be used to help Launch create geographically targeted tour information in its weekly E-mails to members of its Web site. Tourdates.com also brings a Critic's Corner section, where members post concert reviews, and Ticketboard, where users can buy, sell, and trade tickets. Bands can submit tour schedules through the Band Services section of the Tourdates.com site.
FTM UPS KENDRICK
Radio Web site builder FTM (Feed the Monster) Media has upped senior VP of sales, marketing, and affiliate relations David Kendrick to president/CEO, while former RCA Records and Sony TriStar Music Group president Bob Buziak joins FTM's board of directors. Also, FTM GM of operations Vickie Ocheltree-Collier exits.
Citadel has signed an agreement with Firstlook.com, a music Web site that allows artists and labels to showcase new music, to include a link to Firstlook on Citadel station sites. Specific formats involved in the deal are modern rock, R&B, top 40, and country. Firstlook.com features more than 600 songs in its 12 genres and, since its September launch, has linked with 2,000 sites.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd becomes the latest recording artist to get his own Radio SonicNet channel. That doesn't mean an all-Shepherd station but a station filled with his musical selections, including Ozzy Osbourne, Santana, B.B. King, and Led Zeppelin.

Frank Saxe contributed to this column.