Music Essay; Pittman Clarification

I have an essay about music business models in the newest Portfolio, and I started it off with part of a conversation I'd had with MTV founder Bob Pittman in his office a few months ago.

Bob Pittman made music videos free for consumers when he found??ed MTV 27 years ago. And now he's pretty sure music in all formats should be free. No more $15.98 CDs. No 99-cent iTunes. Instead, he says, artists should use recordings to build a brand so that they can make money on concerts and T-shirts. Sitting in his New York office, a foot-tall MTV astronaut statue behind him, he says, "Maybe get a sponsor to pay a million dollars and just give the album away."

Pittman has nailed the future of music.

It's funny, the subtleties that a writer thinks he puts in but certain readers zoom past. I thought I was careful to use terms like "pretty sure" and "maybe." It's my voice, not Bob's, saying, "Pittman has nailed the future of music."

But I got a call from Pittman today saying he's getting toasted in some circles for declaring that all music must be free. And that's not what he said -- or, I thought, what I said he said. "The point is that there are a lot of things you could do," Pittman said on the phone today. "Music will always have to be paid for, it's just a matter of how -- whether it's advertising, sponsorships or something else."

He said in our original conversation that music might be better off if it's free to consumers, and suggested the sponsorship idea. "Suddenly other models are more attractive" than the current models of charging consumers for CDs and downloads, he said then.

And -- this is me talking -- he is absolutely right.

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