When Geoffrey Grotz looked at the music licensing industry, he saw a low-tech exchange of hard drives mailed back and forth between buyers and sellers – with a lot of time and money wasted in the process.
So in 2010 he co-founded SourceAudio in Culver City to move the process online, developing a cloud software platform that can be used by both music sellers, such as record labels, and buyers, such as production companies and movie trailer houses.
The company’s platform has become a marketplace for about 5 million tracks available for licensing, so Grotz is pitching larger companies such as ad agencies to become customers. With that in mind, SourceAudio announced this month that it raised $1.2 million in a seed funding round led by Emerson Investment Group of Los Angeles to expand its sales and marketing efforts.
“We’re hoping to use the seed money to expand to larger enterprises,” Grotz said.
Labels and publishers use SourceAudio as a platform to build their own searchable licensing stores for their music. Many are independent labels and smaller publishers that do not have the resources to build in-house licensing stores. SourceAudio, which has seven employees, charges music labels and other publishers a monthly fee that ranges from $29 on the low end to $599 for a company that has a library of 100,000 tracks.
Clients include Van Nuys’ Big Planet Music, which holds licensing rights to 3,000 tracks. Some have been used in TV shows such as MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”
On the buyer side, clients pay a monthly charge to access libraries of music, with the fee varying by industry. Trailer houses, for example, pay about $19 a month. Clients include Trailer Park in Hollywood.
One feature, Sonic Search, allows buyers to play a song they like and find a similar-sounding tune using audio recognition technology. The search results provide tracks that sound close enough but might be cheaper to license.
Licensing deals are negotiated between buyer and seller; SourceAudio does not take a cut.
In pitching ad agencies and other large customers, SourceAudio is beginning to offer set rates for tracks to remove the hassle of negotiations. The company will take a fee from those licensing deals.
“We can help facilitate deals for fixed and preferred rates so their staff can be more efficient,” Grotz said.
Branded TV
When Pasadena production company Rigler Creative got a job more than three years ago to produce Web clips encouraging people to walk 30 minutes a day, nobody knew the campaign – made for Kaiser Permanente’s Every Body Walk initiative – would turn into something of a TV franchise.
But that’s what happened after a pro-walking video produced by Rigler, featuring Martin Sheen and others from the “West Wing” cast, went viral last year on FunnyorDie.com.
Some months later, Rigler pitched the idea of a walking-themed TV series and Burbank public broadcaster KCETLink decided to pick up the show, called “City Walk.”
The show profiles the walkability of cities from Los Angeles to Washington and has interviews with walking advocates. It’s now nearing the end of its eight-episode first season.
Thomas Rigler, the firm’s founder, said the jump from a branded Web campaign to public TV program shows what’s possible with a good story.
“It is extremely rare that you take a branded-content project with a non-profit angle into the mainstream, without having attached a star to it,” Rigler said. “We’re happy that was possible. It shows how viable and effective storytelling can be.”
The sixth episode of the show will air Thursday on KCETLink’s local station, KCET (Channel 28). It will air a week later on the station’s national satellite channel, which is available on DirecTV and Dish Network.
The show highlights KCETLink’s strategy to build up programming with both local and national appeal that can air on the broadcast station and satellite network. The show was also picked up by Hulu in July.
Many of the early episodes featured footage initially shot for the Web, while the company has more recently focused on storylines made specifically for TV. The firm has a staff of about eight and hires as needed for specific projects.
Rigler said KCETLink has been happy with the program and is bringing the show back for a second season next year.
Comings and Goings
Cinedigm of Century City has promoted Vincent Scordino to senior vice president of theatrical releasing. … CBS Entertainment has promoted Margot Wain to vice president of daytime programs. … Discovery Channel has promoted Denise Contis to executive vice president of production and development, West Coast.
Staff reporter Jonathan Polakoff can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 226.
