Written evidence submitted by Bill Smith

We do have a revolutionary practical solution for streaming that fairly rewards artists and venues and is achievable soon.

LATEST

Latest is the streaming centre in Brighton, and one of four members of the Music Venue Trust Streaming Steering Committee, tasked with reporting to Mark Davyd, CEO MVT, on a solution for fair monetisation for all musicians and venues in the grassroots music industry. Mark Davyd is on the Government task force for our sector. We were appointed to this committee based on our experience of streaming for the last 5 years, pioneering live streaming pre pandemic. This led to many many viewers watching our Midsummer Night Stream from Brighton Palace Pier. In August we streamed 7 gigs of over 35 hours to 171,400 viewers from the Pier. We have gone on to monetise streaming for bands and venues, used to getting nothing and now getting fair rewards. This is a gamechanger!

As background, Latest operates three businesses – Latest Music Bar, an iconic music venue, Latest TV, a 24/7 terrestrial TV station and Latest Brighton, from 1982 publishing the city’s foremost what’s on magazine and website: https://thelatest.co.uk Latest Group CIC was set up to support marginalised & diverse communities, giving them a voice and having access to the resources of Latest TV to achieve this. We offer our disadvantaged schools the same opportunities as afforded to the schools who buy our training.

LATEST MUSIC BAR

On the Latest Music Bar stage we’ve seen Amy Winehouse, Royal Blood, Grace Carter, Mike Rosenberg of Passenger, Ben Howard, Goldie, Michael Eavis, Fatboy Slim. Over decades LMB & its founders have promoted major legendary and historic gigs and events in Brighton like Hugh Masekela with ANC group, Amandla The Blues Brothers in their prime, right up to Kirk Brandon on Brighton Palace Pier today. Currently we are running Blackness The Celebration, an outdoor gallery of Brighton’s black music history, with Cuthbert Williams MBE, AFLO and the Poets & chart-topping Spotify recording artist, Osaro. With Brighton’s Holocaust Education Project, who we have worked with for decades, we are streaming The Memorial Day Commemoration, in January 2021.

Caroline Lucas MP mentioned Latest Music Bar by name positively on 07.08.2020 in the House of Commons and Caroline Dinenage MP, the Minister of State for Digital & Culture added her support.

LATEST TV

Latest TV is well respected in the TV industry and by Ofcom. We also programme on 13 TV stations on Channel 7, have made 84 programmes for the BBC, have produced programmes broadcast on ITV and other global commercial TV stations. We have made popular films on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, royal collections from Buckingham Palace at Brighton Royal Pavilion, a documentary on Peter Tatchell, the human rights activist, filmed the construction and inauguration of The Cambridge Mosque, started Film Pride, the global LGBTQ+ film festival. Bill Smith, founder of Latest TV won a national diversity award in 2018. This year we continued to broadcast safely through the pandemic when all other news organisations in Brighton closed their offices, we created the much admired series of programmes on Covering Covid which we forwarded to you all before. Our film Extraordinary Spring – link here - is just about to be released

https://vimeo.com/479013953

Jeremy Hunt MP has praised our channel, again in the House of Commons and many leading politicians have appeared on our current affairs coverage.

Latest TV has streamed for 5 years, 12 hours a night, before the word streaming was ever really mentioned. Jim Mitcham, The Mill TV, Bradford, our partner set up The Mill TV exactly because he saw the need for a joint venue/TV broadcast/film studio solution for streaming. Again this was pre pandemic. His recent streams with bands has revolutionised monetisation of streaming. WE ARE GRASSROOTS BUT WELL-KNOWN COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS

We are composers and musicians ourselves with 4 million+ plays and views of our opera (lifeanddeath.org) and music across the standard US platforms. However we have had very little remuneration from this. We agree with KT Tunstall and all the musicians who’ve brought this to public attention that we are being exploited & things are getting worse. For music venues who are all over YouTube and Facebook and the like, not one of them has ever received money for being on the platform. For proof check Latest Music Bar on YouTube – we have never received even 1 cent for hundreds of thousands of views.

THE SOLUTION

The solution is simple - in one line – our own platform Streamland UK, the live streaming platform for live gigs that fairly rewards musicians and venues, owned and run by musicians and venues working in the grassroots music industry. There is a major gap in the UK for a streaming platform affordable to audiences but fairly rewarding musicians and venues. And one thing Spotify and You Tube have already proved – it is viable. They make billions. Musicians and venues need to BENEFIT!

The main platforms, largely USA based do not reward artists, rather keeping the lion’s share of revenue raised. A quality-controlled platform featuring all genres of music and musical theatre, at grassroots level is being achieved by us now. Help us make a UK start up big and successful for UK musicians and venues. It only requires limited investment.

With partners at Music Venue Trust - over 800 venues and help from the Dome in Brighton and other large venues to regional opera companies or arts festival organisers, supported by The Arts Council, this platform can be scaled up in a short timescale.

This could be a commercial venture in partnership with The Arts Council or the DCMS, as together we can significantly help The Arts Council achieve their ‘Lets Create ‘ strategy. We would at last have a UK streamer. It was a UK invention so about time.

The Market & the Competition

A total of 91 billion songs were played on Spotify. Apple Music and competitors last year, but a report for the Entertainment Retailers’ Association claims fans are not getting choice and artists not receiving just rewards. ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50472906 ) Live grassroots music and other UK culture is not included. New features could double the value of the market from £829m this year to £1.6bn in 2023 - a clear commercial opportunity.

Currently all major streaming platforms are US based. This is appalling for the UK! Very few who contribute their work, like us, receive just rewards, KT Tunstall’s campaign highlights this.

A combination of venues with cameras and streaming capability which we are currently developing into facilities with high-production values and our own UK music platform, Streamland UK, to collate and market the work of grassroots artists is being developed at low cost. Combined with TV broadcasting, which we can provide across the UK on local TV, this is real innovation & requires little but crucial investment.

Monetising strategies have been added to fairly reward all aspects of the chain. We with Arts Council support have funded to date. We can deliver this extraordinary platform within months. After the initial investment, this will be an extraordinarily viable business! UK based and owned!

Streaming is an essential part of the new TV landscape. If public funding for Royal Opera House on the BBC why cannot same public funds back grassroots streaming be it for Buxton Opera or Arctic Monkeys at The Leadmill in Sheffield or The Mill TV in Bradford. or Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre. The BBC has a monopoly on cultural funding in the UK and needs to share that money. Until recently they chose to largely only cover London and they don’t share their cultural public funds even now. Level up please! The BBC does good things but a national broadcaster should not be in competition with us but join us.

Streamland UK - our platform - is a game-changer for grassroots music in the UK and it will be for TV too – an aggregated home for all UK grassroots music streamed and on terrestrial TV – there is NONE on TV now and we are developing it.

We would therefore like to come before your Select Committee to explain how for very little investment you MASSIVELY can help UK music without years of bureaucratic hold ups. Don’t let our new Tim Berners Lees type inventions go abroad again please! Jim Mitcham, our tech guru, has designed pandemic – proof virtual venues as good as the FIFA games. There are great tech developers here in the UK. He is in Bradford. We can create jobs and enable many to get back to work.

HISTORY OF PROJECT

Latest had completed a successful pilot, Streamland UK, funded by the Arts Council in 2019 and early 2020. Following this, discussions were held with Davina Christmas & Carl Stevens from ACE about the need to build a UK based platform for grassroots music, that fairly rewards venues & performers. Support was received from Rose Lubega, Head of Broadcasting Strategy, DCMS. Discussions have since been held with venues, artists, app & web developers. A survey on streaming was completed by Music Venue Trust & showed 104 venues would collaborate to make this a success. MVT constituted a Streaming Steering Group of 4, to progress this.

These MVTSSG members have the skills to change the ecology of music distribution:

 Bill Smith Musician/Composer. Founded Latest Music Bar/Latest TV. Known for promoting young talent & curating content. Filmed & streamed big names. Streaming 10 hours per night for 5 years, programming for 13 TV channels. Winner of National Diversity Award  Jim Mitcham The Mill TV Bradford, Films & streams great events, high level technical skills & builder of virtual venues. Tour Manager for Black Grapes & Cast, Technical Production Manager for large events (Arena Tours, Glastonbury). Managed technical projects: e.g. Northern Indymedia, a tech based globally syndicated news providing citizen journalism in easy to access format online  Chris Sherrington transformed The Fulford Arms, York into a high-profile music venue with a reputation for nurturing young talent in York and at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge. Key MVT organiser & north regional co-ordinator  Oliver Weindling Vortex Jazz, London, winner of 2013 Parliamentary Jazz Awards, for 25 years serving as a platform for jazz, improvised & experimental music. Works extensively with European venues

o Supported by Bev Whittrick and Mark Davyd of The Music Venue Trust

All with creative teams who will be involved, have run successful venues to budget & have staged socially distanced safe events & streamed events

The idea which we’ve been building long before Zoom, streaming living rooms etc - is a platform to aggregate all genres of UK grassroots music and this means musical or classical like our own opera as well as what is normally thought of as “ grassroots “, This platform rewards artists and venues as opposed to just USA platforms who quite simply exploit our creativity! The way to maximise benefits for UK musicians is obvious...control our own platform.

With the leading platform builders in the world based in UK and small but crucial investment we can deliver a cost-effective platform. I see it as a VACCINATION FOR MUSIC industries.

This initial idea has been developed by The Music Venue Trust Streaming Committee to include UNIQUE audience interaction & successful monetisation, a great solution for venues forced to close, for any reason. Pandemic proof! Jim Mitcham with his associates FreepVRty web developers have started to develop this work using VR/green screen/360 degree technology to create virtual venues. (see video uploaded) Discussions have been held to create the content management system. App developers have costed the front end. Discussions have taken place with developers to enable the plan. Live streamed monetised gigs & streams have been successful. We need the scaled up platform to become a major force in music ecology. We must credit Davina Christmas and ACE for their far sightedness in seeing the future before others.

Following the successful pilot we made a recommendation to set up a site, as we said, that fairly rewards artists & venues & streaming film-makers. DCMS supported with Rose Lubega recognising the impact on the wider sector. She asked us to send recommendations to DCMS Select Committee, which we did in June this year.

Since then we see you have set up a further consultation on The Economics of Music Streaming. In the terms of reference: With streaming currently accounting for more than half of the global business music industry’s revenues, this inquiry will look at the business models operated by platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Google Play, music streaming in the UK brings in more than £1billion in revenue with 114 billion music streams in the last year, however artists can be paid as little as 13% of the income generated

Our project, our solution addresses that! Initial income is doubled and more for musicians. It provides well-paid work for professional creatives, many of whom are self- employed who film & stream, rewards venues, who currently receive nothing from the platforms but are vital for the future of UK music. This could be effected in months. The legacy of this project is a sustainable platform which represents live music grassroots venues, captures the unique vibe & reflects the high quality of the sector in the arts world. And most importantly has the backing of pretty much all MUSICIANS and VENUES.

You will be surprised that for £200k we can have that platform, capable of being scaled up, in 3 months. We, the musicians and venues need investment now. Please look at this with us – we can provide plans and full budgets.