Artists will be relieved to learn that, despite last year’s unwelcome blast of publicity, Fanfare is sticking to its hardy old business model.
The US-based classical record magazine, widely cited by many artists in their publicity sheets, offers a straightforward deal. You buy an ad, they review your record. Buy a bigger one, they interview you.
As an editorial proposition, this is on the outer margins of media ethics. But there’s is nothing underhand or illegal about it. The editor makes the deal perfectly plain. You pay, he plays you up. Here’s a recent solicitation that one of our readers has asked to be published:
Dear Mr. Endres:
Would you like your new Oehms Gershwin CD to be reviewed in Fanfare?
And would you also like to be interviewed by America ‘s premier
classical CD review magazine (including exposure for four months in
the magazine and at our Web site)? Read on!
As you may already know, Fanfare, The Magazine for Serious Record
Collectors, now in its 36th year, is regarded by many as the world’s
finest and most respected publication devoted to coverage of new
classical releases. (Skeptical? Just go to www.fanfaremag.com and read
any of the sample reviews from the latest edition.) Each issue is
about 500 pages long and contains reviews of 400 – 500 CDs, SACDs, and
DVDs. If you’re interested, I’ll mail you a complimentary copy of a
recent issue and/or give you temporary access to our on-line edition,
including the Fanfare Archive, which contains all of the reviews and
interviews from the current issue as well as all of the articles from
dozens of previous issues.
Here are display-ad rates for your consideration (ad specs can be
found below this message):
Inside front cover or inside back cover $1500 (net)
Full page color $1000
1/2 page color $700
1/4 page color $500
If you promote your new release in Fanfare, your CD will be reviewed,
and your ad will appear not only in the magazine but also free of
charge on our Web site at www.fanfaremag.com. Please take some time to
explore “Our Advertisers” at the top of the home page and “Fanfare
Advertisers” at the bottom, which provide links to the advertisers’
sites. And then click any review on the home page, and you’ll find the
rest of the review on the next page plus an ad from the current issue.
The bottom lines: Our Web site is friendly to our advertisers, and
note the number of performers and composers participating with links
to their sites.
Why else should you advertise? Because, as our subtitle suggests, we
cater to a very specialized clientele of extremely sophisticated
collectors. These music lovers don’t buy a few CDs every month, they
buy thousands – and I’m sure that you’d like yours to be among them.
We can help you reach these collectors.
Never advertised before? We can also help you with that by
recommending an excellent graphics company that’s also very
reasonable.
But we can do more. If you advertise at one of the four levels listed
below, I’ll assign you to an interviewer, carefully chosen to match
your interests, for a feature story. Our interviewers go far beyond
the puff pieces common today; our typical interview runs about 2,500
words. How many times have you had the opportunity to talk about what
you do with someone who truly understands your problems and issues?
And, best of all, you’ll be able to use the interview and review
almost as soon as they’ve been submitted and edited – you can quote as
much as you like, even before they appear!
Here are the four options for advertising if you’d like to be
interviewed (and have your CD
reviewed):
1) Inside front cover ad or inside back cover ad in two consecutive
issues (total cost $3000). (The Sept/Oct and Nov/Dec 2012 inside front
covers have been reserved.)
2) Inside front cover ad or inside back cover ad and full page color
ad in two consecutive issues (total cost $2500). (The Sept/Oct and
Nov/Dec inside front covers have been reserved.)
3) Full page color ad in two consecutive issues, or a two-page spread
in a single issue (total cost $2000).
4) Full page color ad and 1/2 page color ad in two consecutive issues
(total cost $1700).*
When you’re interviewed, the review of your CD will be attached to
your feature in the front of the edition instead of being published in
the regular classical CD review section of the issue.
The editorial deadline for the Nov/Dec issue is Aug. 1. Advertising
for that issue should be reserved by Sept. 1 with graphics due Sept.
8. The editorial deadline for the Jan/Feb issue is Oct. 1. Advertising
for that issue should be reserved by Nov. 1 with graphics due Nov. 8.
If you decide to accept the proposal, I won’t proceed with any aspect
of it unless I find a critic who’s receptive to your CD. Please let me
know if you’d like to make your artistry known to a special audience.
Sincerely,
Joel Flegler
Editor
Fanfare
P.O.Box 17, or
17 Lancaster Rd.
Tenafly, NJ 07670
US
Web www.fanfaremag.com
Phone 201 567-3908
*Ask about the various payment options for installment plans. Fanfare
also has low charges for premium positions from pp. 1- 25: $300 extra
for pp. 1 – 9 and $150 extra for pp. 10 – 25.
Advertising – Mechanical Requirements
It’s hard not to welcome the transparency of this approach.
Norman, I got a similar letter/e-mail from them. I have almost 6,000,000 hits on YouTube, all for free, with a link to CD Baby where punters can buy a CD, I don’t need their puny little distribution numbers!!!
YouTube is the way to go. Artists should become their own record label and learn about recording/engineering/production technology, they will probably do a better job marketing it themselves via their own YouiTube Channel and WebSite.. Derek
“If you decide to accept the proposal, I won’t proceed with any aspect of it unless I find a critic who’s receptive to your CD.”
Caught redhanded, like a puppy next to a pile of poo (which nicely sums up what I think of Fanfare, too).
I find Mr Gleeson’s comments a little along the lines of “the pot calling the kettle black.” Derek Gleeson doesn’t exactly have a clean record when it comes to being upfront with his audience. As the NYtimes and other publications have pointed out, his touring ensemble The Dublin Philharmonic is a marketing wonder. That youTube has better and less expensive potential for reaching audiences is a given fact. . However a shoddy interview or review in Fanfare is an easy way to buy credibility for those that don’t have the audacious marketing skills of Mr Gleeson.
Re: Flash Montaya comment,
Didn’t your Mother ever tell you not to believe everything you read in the papers!!
The all Irish (bar two players) Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra toured China in 2010 opening the Beijing Summer Festival “Roam about the Classics” at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). Broadcast two concerts from that venue on TV, Radio and Internet and reached approx 400 million people. I hope you come and attend a concert on one of our forthcoming tours. I’ll even get you a back stage pass
Derek
BTW: We live in the European Union and are free to employ any musician from whatever member state we wish. Thats the law. Check out our publicity, it clearly states: “The Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra brings together the finest of Irish and European orchestral musicians, with Irish and International soloists, conductors and composers…” Couldn’t be more upfront with our audiences. They know exactly what they are getting and we got 45 standing ovations from our audiences out of a 49 city tour of the USA in 2009. I know, I was there!!
Hi Norman,
Glad you brought this up.
The old fashioned system has major problems as well.
Normally, a record company would employ a PR representative, as you well know.
This person would be paid to lobby journalists to write about their records.
They would also buy (exorbitantly expensive) ads to, /cough/, encourage the editors to be interested.
It the journalist writes an article, CDs sell, everybody’s happy.
That was back when CDs were still selling, and earning money for:
#1 the distributors
#2 to a lesser extent, the record label
#3 to a MUCH lesser extent, the artist
Now in-house PR is disappearing, the work is going to free-lancers.
The money in CD sales is leaving…so the middle men are being cut out.
As a bi-product, all of those people between you, the journalist, and the artists are losing their jobs.
So is it a conflict of interest if you, say, know the artist directly (Valentina L)?
I don’t think so, I think it’s kind of cool. But others may disagree.
Another questions: is it a conflict of interest if, in the context of a website or publication, someone makes it clear that paying (via, say ads) = coverage?
Codaex Germany (a distributor) has a blog that is written by someone paid to review CDs, including their own.
He writes critically, and trashes just as many as he likes.
Is that ethical? Or a gray area? I don’t know.
The answers to these questions are not as clear cut as one might think, because Cash is King…and the money’s disappearing.
What I’m getting at is that Fanfare’s example is not purely unethical.
It’s a way to keep Fanfare alive, which arguably is a good thing.
After all, how many American CD review magazines are there left in the US?
Does American Record Review still exist? That’s the only other one that comes to mind.
In London ALONE you have at least 3 times as many…
===
At any rate, I hope you write more about this topic and invite serious debate from your journalist colleagues.
Discussing the way the paradigm works, civilly and critically, is a lot more interesting than reading…a CD review.
YouTube has made most CD reviews useless as far as evaluating music making but provided a very convenient way to assess the level of bias and peddling of the reviewer.
I wondered if a magazine like Fanfare needs more revenue ( which they obviously do ) why not send out an appeal for support ? In an anonymous donation process ( via paypal for example ) and involving a voluntary amount I am sure quite a few people ( including artists ) would have come up with some help as indeed there are hardly magazines left who provide in depth reviews any more.But if the artist himself can buy his/her review than the whole process of reviewing naturally becomes a charade and subsequently devalues all reviews.
The glitzy dumbing down approach of many other magazines should not be the alternative to Fanfare’s more serious and detailed reviews. I hope that Fanfare resorts to a different approach in raising their revenues in the future.We still need in depth reviewing for the serious collectors.
I have subscribed to Fanfare for many years, and I am grateful for all I have learned from their writers, many of whom have a great deal of knowledge of music and recording history. These contributors work for little compensation and have directed my attention to many fine recordings. I thank Mr. Flegler for making this possible, but I feel that he crosses the line when he offers to select a “receptive” reviewer.
I do not object to the policy of reviewing the recordings of advertisers, and of interviewing the heavy advertisers. As I reader, I’m interested in the artists who advertise, and the interviews provide their own valuable insights. Fanfare is enormous, one barely has time to read it before the next issue appears, but it cannot review every published recording. However, Fanfare damages its credibility when it guarantees advertisers a receptive review.