We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michael Matthews a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Michael, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today undefined
For me the most innovative thing I’ve done in my career is revolutionize the way radio is monitored. For many years it’s been monitored and tracked using a fingerprinting encoding technology. At DigitalRadioTracker we are monitoring station’s data streams NOT songs, therefore we are able to collect more data than other monitoring companies. There are thousands to tens of thousands of songs that simply are not fingerprinted in other monitoring companies’ databases therefore songs often go undetected. By monitoring the stations and logging every song they play, it doesn’t matter whether the song is fingerprinted or not. At DigitalRadioTracker we have also created the first industry certified plaque that uses Augmented Reality (AR) Technology which allows the artist’s video to be embedded into the plaques design and can be viewed from any smart phone or tablet. This will allow not just the song to be commemorated with a plaque but utilizing technology which will allow generations to come to experience the visual art as well.
Michael, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I was born in Newburgh, NY and I currently reside in Houston, TX. I started off in the music industry as an artist manager. I did professional artist management for 25 years. During that time, I built a lot of relationships and decided to launch a marketing company called Dominion Global Marketing. After retiring from artist management, I focused on radio promotion for a while. As I saw technology changing the music industry, I went on to create the internet radio campaign taking the same model from Commercial FM promotion. A couple years later I was led to form the music monitoring company, DigitalRadioTracker.com Inc. DigitalRadioTracker.com Inc. is a leading global internet radio monitoring company which tracks radio airplay of songs played on over 5000+ radio stations around the globe. These stations (major to independent) are comprised of an array of FM Terrestrial, Satellite and College as well as thousands of digital streaming radio stations. DigitalRadioTracker.com Inc. has customized a technology that monitors radio airplay detections of songs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I remember back in the early 2000’s, as I have been marketing songs for years on the radio, I discovered many of the songs were starting to breakout online. These songs were starting to receive airplay on internet radio and podcast but there was no way of tracking them. I wanted to better serve my clients, so I decided to work with a developer on creating a software for my company to track the airplay so I can produce reports for my clients. Once it was created I starting getting calls from many of my associates in the industry asking for reports on songs they were promoting. That’s when DigitalRadioTracker was born. Over the years, many people in the music industry told me I should shut down, that no one is listening to internet radio. The analytics is irrelevant etc. I mean who would of thought the music consumption would change right? We are now consuming music from smart speakers, refrigerators and you can now listen to music streaming on airplanes! Before DigitalRadioTracker there was no focus on tracking songs streamed over online radio stations. Now even Apple is starting to monitor digital streaming radio. DRT has been monitoring digital streaming radio for 14 years. It’s been a long hard battle, but we are still here. We have shown extreme resiliency from as streaming radio has proven to be here to stay and so is DRT.
Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses.
Yes, I have recently purchased a new business. I decided to handle the acquisition process internally and not allow lawyers and accountants get involved. I saw an idea that I really believe in. I feel like with my marketing background I can take the product to another level. What attracted me to the business was that it was music related and simple product that everyone can enjoy. We are currently in the process of launching a new website and incorporating DRT’s AR Visualizer App with the product. That will take it to a whole another level and give us an edge to any competitors! The website is SongPlates.com, this is a simple custom gift idea that you can share with a friend or loved one to commemorates a special song. We are adding the Augmented Reality feature to allow the song plate to have a whole new experience when shared between the parties.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.DigitalRadioTracker.com
- Instagram: @DigitalRadioTracker
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DigitalRadioTracker
- Twitter: @DRTRadioTracker
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/digitalradiotracker
- Other: https://www.Songplates.com
Image Credits
CurtisMatthewsPhotography.com