CRS In Action: Garth Brooks And Amazon’s Steve Boom Keynote

Garth Brooks

After giving an intimate performance exclusively for COUNTRY RADIO SEMINAR (CRS) attendees on WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13th, GARTH BROOKS made a return visit to the seminar today (2/14) for a Q&A he shared with AMAZON MUSIC VP STEVE BOOM, with whom he has had an exclusive streaming and downloading relationship for two years. The session, moderated by BILLBOARD’S MELINDA NEWMAN, focused, in part, on AMAZON’s virtual assistant products, ALEXA and ECHO, and how they can and are being used to benefit radio. Because of ALEXA, BOOM said, “Radio is back in the home where it ought to be.”

BROOKS indicated that he’d like to see AMAZON find a way to monetize radio for the important role it plays in music discovery. He said, “86% of discovery is radio, but radio doesn’t get any of those retail dollars” when consumers buy what they hear. While BOOM was surprised by BROOKS’ idea, which they had never previously discussed, he said it could be possible with the right software, or a SHAZAM-like feature on the ALEXA platform.

As he did during a prior CRS keynote, BROOKS had encouraging words for broadcasters, saying, “Terrestrial radio is an 800 lb. gorilla. It ain’t going nowhere. What you have that nobody else has is discovery … Any time you can say ‘ALEXA, next’ [and skip songs] that’s not discovery.” BOOM added that among the new features his team is working on at AMAZON are ways to make music discovery a part of the experience. Another innovation in the works is making the way users give ALEXA commands closer to how they would speak naturally.

BROOKS urged radio broadcasters not to spend their time fearing threats from new technology, but rather, using that time to make themselves “identifiable.” He later said, “This isn’t an either/or thing. Streaming is becoming a family to terrestrial radio, and terrestrial radio is family to streaming.”

BOOM made one revelation when he was asked about the fact that AMAZON MUSIC has always kept its consumption data proprietary. Said the executive, “In terms of how music is being consumed, we know we need to offer that info [to the industry] and we will." Brooks, meanwhile, revealed that he has re-upped his deal with AMAZON.

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