SFX Announces Major Marketing And Content Partnership With Clear Channel

By
Marijke U.
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What do Beatport, Tomorrowland, Electric Zoo, and Life In Color all have in common? Well the obvious answer is electronic music, however the other major thing is their relationship with SFX Entertainment Inc., which is the largest global producer of electronic music events and entertainment. SFX has been taking the electronic music scene by storm with its recent acquisition of Beatport and its new partnership with international event company, ID&T. For the new year, SFX is announcing another major partnership which will extend the reach of electronic music far and wide. Cue Clear Channel Media and Entertainment the giant media company with the largest reach of all radio and television outlets in the U.S.

According to SFX Entertainment’s CEO, Robert F.X. Sillerman, the partnership with Clear Channel is a strategic move that will bring electronic music to a broader audience and “delivers on what we believe the young music consumer wants today“.  Clear Channel’s President of Entertainment Enterprises, John Sykes, said something to similar effect, stating that with the increasing demand for electronic music across all their platforms, the partnership with SFX will help meet that demand by providing “a deeper selection of music content and live events.”

This new strategic marketing and content partnership between these two media giants has produced big plans for electronic music in 2014 with three key initiatives: a national DJ/Producer contest in partnership with Beatport; a weekly Beatport Countdown show; and an original live event series.

Here are the stated details on the aforementioned initiatives:

·  The creation of a national DJ talent contest airing live on select Clear Channel stations nationwide, as well as on Evolution, iHeartRadio’s dance music hub, with parts of the competition taking place at iHeartRadio Theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The winner will appear at Mysteryland, SFX’s newest U.S. festival taking place on Memorial Day 2014 weekend on the hallowed grounds of Woodstock in New York, and also receive a recording contract with Beatport and a major record label.
· The creation of a weekly Top 20 Countdown from Beatport, to air on Clear Channel stations nationwide.  With almost 40 million unique users per year, Beatport has become the premier on-line destination for dance music downloads, mixes, live DJ performances and news. Top Clear Channel stations airing the Countdown include Z100/WHTZ FM in New York; KIIS-FM in Los Angeles; 103.5 KISS-FM/WKSC in Chicago; WILD 94.9 FM/KYLD in San Francisco; 106.1 KISS-FM/KHKS in Dallas-Ft. Worth; Hot 99.5/WIHT-FM in Washington D.C.; Q102 Philly/WIOQ-FM in Philadelphia; Power 96.1/WWPW-FM in Atlanta; Evolution 101.7 Boston/WEDX-FM; Channel 95.5/WKQI-FM in Detroit; and Y100/WHYI-FM in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood, among others.
· The original live event series provides a framework for event creation in the electronic music space, specifically a national EMC event program focused around Halloween 2014.
At first glance these initiatives seem like a major attempt to cash in and commercialize electronic music with no regards for the culture, but lets withhold judgment until everything plays out as these ideas could in fact be used as an avenue for undiscovered  up and coming talent to step onto the scene. It’ll be interesting to see how all this develops over the year, stay tuned for further details.

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