Having previously worked for a major music label it has often baffled me that music labels and artist representation companies do not do a better job of leveraging the exposure an artist gets when they are featured on a daily talk show.

I am not talking about the songs that get used within a television show or a movie (you can certainly go out and purchase the CD or iTunes version of a movie soundtrack and television shows have long been releasing compilations of the music that is weaved into programming). What I am talking about is the live performance that usually ends a late night talk show or one that hits in the middle of Ellen or another day timer.

In the age of digital music, where buying (I won’t even address stealing music) a single song is not only plausible but actually more likely than purchasing an album, I do not understand why marketers have not done a better job at ensuring there is a connection between hearing a song and buying that song.

Live Music Daily & Nightly

Every single night in prime time (and practically every day on the Today Show etc…) Letterman, Leno, Kimmel and Conan all have a musical guest and each time they perform a song live that should logically be for sale on iTunes at the time of airing or at the very least the next day. I understand that sometimes performers do not like to release live material, but for many of them exposure on Letterman is larger than any billboard they could purchase.  For many watching it may be their first real exposure to that musical artist and expecting (the next time they sit down at their computer) that viewer will remember who the artist was and what they sang is a bit far fetched.

These shows are taped in the afternoon and therefore there is really no reason that the live song from the musical guest could not easily appear in iTunes that day or the next. It would be so simple to have a page in the iTunes store where you could purchase the live performances from the previous night’s late night talk shows. Why these artists would not work with their music label and Apple to ensure that their live track (and a link to their other albums and artist page) was available for purchase is beyond me.

What I envision is simple, I hear a live performance on Letterman (I have found more than a few artists this way) and when I log into iTunes I simply go to the Letterman Live Performance page. On that page would be the dates of the show, who the artist was and the song they sang with of course a link to buy. If you wanted to give even more bang for the buck, whey not sell these singles at $1.99 and include the video portion of their performance on late night?

It is certainly not my contention that selling a live single will make any one artist fly up the charts, but it is another avenue of exposure and purchasing one song when combined with Apple’s Genius feature can lead to an entirely new set of artists and music being introduced to one’s personal repertoire.

Finally, as a lawyer I know there are many rights, royalties and copyright that need to be dealt with, but lets be honest if there is money to be made everyone will figure out how to make it work.


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