Jesper Skibsby: “With WARM you can control the work being done by radio pluggers”

WARM, short for World Airplay Radio Monitor, just won the Slush Music 20 Pitching Competition … for good reasons.

Read our interview with Jesper Skibsby, CEO & Founder of WARM, and learn how the Startup changes the face of radio plugging and radio monitoring.

How does WARM work? How much does it cost?

WARM is setup as a tool everyone should be able to use, therefore the current pricing structure is based on “per song”. Its 5 € pr. Month, or 36 € pr. Year. With the yearly subscription, you are allowed to change the song being monitored, every 30th day.

What was the inspiration that kicked off your endeavor?

Basically it was out of personal frustration. Working as a manager in the music industry – a couple of years ago, I found out that I was not able to track my artists songs on radio. In that sense that I needed a global tool, so I did not have to rely on a report from the different labels I worked with. Which anyhow only covered the large commercial radio stations, if I received a report at all. I needed a tool where I could track different songs from different artist on a global scale.

Does WARM change the way radio plugging is being handled?

I strongly believe so. With WARM you can control the work being done, if you have hired a radio plugger. You basically don’t even need his reporting anymore, unless he too uses WARM. 😉 We definitely see more radio pluggers using WARM f.ex. “Your Army”, “Jukebox Media” and “Infectious PR”. They already now have a massive advantage over their competitors.

Also I think that radio plugging in itself will be more focused around spotting emerging markets, and even micro markets – instead of focusing 100% of your PR spend in one country alone. Without necessarily knowing if this is the best place to start, at least for upcoming artists and bands. On top of that it gives a whole new set of possibilities for the DIY artists and labels/managers.

You could potentially monitor a similar popular song, to the one you are about to be plugging. This could give you a complete overview of radio stations likely to play you rsong. All songs can be monitored by anyone, I really like that transparency. 🙂

How could the future of Radio Plugging ideally look like in 5 years?

In general I think and hope the music industry will have changed so a lot more files, data, and metadata is connected. I think this will affect radio plugging as we know it today, in many ways.

Will streaming kill the radio star? Where do you see the future of traditional radio?

I think at some point it will change to DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting), I do think it will take some time. Norway is the first country to do everything digital, and I think more countries will follow this road. I think radio will continue to be here for many years, and I actually think the way we see streaming services working today, will change much more rapidly than radio will.

There has never been more music data out there, and it’s widely spread. How should musicians deal with this complexity?

Its a very good question. I think it is very different from the size of artist/band or your role in the music industry, how you should handle data, what services you should be using and how you should be using them. There are some very great initiatives of data delivery, but in the end, hopefully more of these will work together. So that the you only have to go to one platform/service to get your data, and not as now, using lots of different services.

From the top of your head – what are 3 important factors every DIY musician should keep in mind, especially when spreading music across platforms?

1. Focus on understanding your fans/audience – what are the parallels, if any ?
2. Be curious on the new services/data providers.
3. Test different markets to find growth potential ground, for new emerging markets.

Is there a myth about current radio airplay that you would like to uncover?¨

I have heard a lot, that if a song does not have airplays on the large commercial stations, there is nothing of relevance, worth monitoring. And the chance of airplays is very small. This is definitely not true. I think that its worth looking at radio plays with two set of eyes: 1. The potential money you can collect, and 2. The promotional value you can use for f.ex optimizing tour booking etc.