LAUNCHing bands on USA Network

Music supervisors for the networks and advertising agencies have been fishing in the indie tank for some time now; some shows (e.g., "The O.C.") have even traded on their ability to discover unknown bands. Meanwhile, plenty of digital-music companies and entrepreneurs have been shopping their lesser-known fare to Hollywood. So if anything, Yahoo is coming late to the party. Nevertheless, it has something the other folks don't: a really big audience. Specifically, 3 million listeners per week, according to Jay Frank, the head label-relations guy at Yahoo! Music.

And when Yahoo gets behind an unknown artist, it can move the needle. Witness the case of emo troubadour Secondhand Serenade (the stage name for singer/strummer John Vesely), who had only a self-released EP when Yahoo started adding one of his unreleased tracks to selected LAUNCHcast stations last summer. By fall, Frank said, the track was in the site's Top 40. He's now signed to Glassnote, an indie label with ties to Warner Music Group.

To me, this is yet another sign of how the industry's A&R functions are drifting away from labels, just as the ability to break bands is spreading from over-the-air radio broadcasters to a variety of other media, online and off. It's also worth noting the timing of the initiative, which may just be coincidental -- Yahoo and other webcasters are in the midst of a pitched battle with labels and artists over royalty rates for songs played online. Unlike small commercial webcasters, Yahoo generates enough from advertisers to absorb the shock of the pending increase. Still, the more it demonstrates its ability to promote acts, the better the case it can make for lower royalty rates.