We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shawn Pierce. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shawn below.

Shawn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, let’s start with trends – what are some of the largest or more impactful trends you are seeing in the industry?

The industry in which I work both as a creative and as a tech entrepreneur, is certainly experiencing fundamental change. It’s a change that could be compared to the physical media product shift that has taken place over decades on the music side of entertainment. Think the compact disc to Apple itunes or prior, the vinyl LP to 8 track or cassette then cassette to CD. Analog to Digital. Digital physical media to Mp3 then to a downloadable audio file. There is certainly a physical media manufacturing and sales decline in video product, but the comparison I’m making here is traditional cable/satellite/terrestrial television vs. streaming and SVOD. “Cord Cutting” as it’s commonly known today.

This cord cutting trend is popular right now in the US. About 47% of US homes still have traditional cable.  The world as a whole however is still very much engaged in this traditional medium of what we all know as “cable” with worldwide cable subscribers being reported at 1 billion.  The industry as a whole is very thankful for that (and I’ll explain why in a minute) Without the demand for traditional cable, the industry as we currently know it will essentially come to an end. For consumers this cord cutting trend is attractive. Just like buying a song for 0.99 cents is attractive, so is subscribing to one streaming service for $16.00/month vs. a cable package at average $80/per month and upwards (the average cable bill comes in at 217.00/month), plus rentals through your provider and VOD (Video On Demand) fees. With the the average cable consumer paying these higher fees, what does/did that cable consumer get? A lot of channels yes, let’s say about 500 in premium packages, a DVR, live sports and news plus access to VOD. Now for $16.99/month on a streaming service of their choice the consumer can get literally more content than they could ever watch in a lifetime. (Some services with limited Live TV and local news) For $16.99 a month!

For the sake of this comparison let’s talk about the size of a pie. (Yes.. a round baked good I’ll use in my example) Back to our physical Compact Disc from the music industry or even an LP – Those “records” were on average $15.00-20.00. (yr 1995 – 2000 for reference) That’s our pie. That pie was pretty large and creators/labels/rights holders are paid out of that pie. Mechanical royalties were/are a significant part of physical product in music and video. Before streaming and download, it’s where creators and rights holders made a bunch of their money due to a statutory mechanical rate paid on physical units pressed. Fast forward, now you can by a song for 0.99 or a digital download of an album for $9.00-10.00, so let’s say.. half. Our pie just got 50% smaller and in some cases even less. How do creators and rights holders get paid the same or actually even get paid at all when our pie just got smaller? The demand for entertainment has not decreased. It has actually increased. Did it increase due to its affordability and instant availability? Perhaps. So…more people with a demand increases purchases and perhaps it evens out? It doesn’t. Especially for smaller lesser known artists. I’ll digress from music and switch back to cable and streaming. Let’s yes, talk about pies again. We’ve got say a $150.00 cable package pie and the $16.99 streaming pie. Let’s apply the same principle in our music industry example. Big pie vs. small pie. Cable is still a massive revenue source in the entertainment industry, especially when it comes to what we call “back end” or specifically, royalties and residuals. That cable pie is big and big money goes to the rights holders because of it. Not just to the individual creators but to studios and music publishers. The entertainment industry needs this big pie. So where does the money come from besides subscription revenue and subscriber volume? Answer = Advertising. Advertisers still spend more in this cable “legacy” medium than any other. Major networks and other tier cable channels stay in business because of it. That ad revenue contributes to the creators and rights holders back end above and beyond the monthly subscriber fees. Where’s the advertising comparatively in streaming? Virtually non existent, although there is a push by streamers recently to entice consumers to pay a lower subscription price and watch the commercials. Most consumers will still pay the extra few bucks for “No Ads.” Streaming is a small pie and with television content there are a lot of people to pay.

So how it is possible to even get close to paying rights holders with this small pie? It’s simply not. Not possible to pay what the industry has been used to for decades. As stated, and hopefully back on topic, we are already experiencing a fundamental shift. Do we as creators get used to accepting less? Or, do companies increase monthly fees to the consumer? A lot of the streamers just did. Why? Collective bargaining with studios via WGA and SAG-AFTRA? That’s a part of it for sure as but it’s still not enough money to give creators a decent share of these back end rights. Do the ISP’s need to charge more money for internet? Perhaps. The medium in which the streaming is delivered is via internet after all. Would internet subscribers pay more for internet? The “thing” that civilized consumers cannot live without? Perhaps. Or do the rights holders simply accept less money in a changing world, as so many other industries are experiencing? Perhaps. We can all see public financials. The top streamers are profitable. In no way am I slamming them and simply begging for more out of their profit.  I mostly come at all of this with a creative perspective. Does quality suffer? Is it suffering? Yes. We’re drowned in cheaply made content. That’s changing too. History is about to repeat itself in my opinion. The streamers will focus on making quality content and focus their capital on fewer shows. Does that sound like network TV from decades gone by? To me it does and it’s encouraging. Capital put toward exceptional story and intellectual forward moving content with the creators being paid very well.

In closing, with cable being financially vital to the industry as a whole, how do rights holders know that they are being paid accurately through their respective royalty collection organizations or unions for performances on cable? Answer = They don’t know and they aren’t. There is no standardized system for auditing cable broadcast performances and royalty or residual payments. Collection organizations have their own systems in many cases. I think it’s broken, inefficient and since the beginning of back end payments, a huge mystery to the rights holders. That is changing. The opportunity is transparency within a current complex archaic system. Digital solutions to broadcast airings and the global reporting of them is a start. Industrywide adoption of a trusted modern and 100% accurate solution. With entertainment and financial headline news being about music catalogs being valued and sold as long term intellectual property assets or writers and actors bargaining for not only more streaming residuals but actual clarity with respect to residuals, we are, yes, experiencing significant change.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Shawn Pierce is known for his work behind the scenes as a television composer with a career in professional music spanning 30 years. He is a graduate of the Berklee College Of Music in Boston where he attended on scholarship studying film scoring. As a composer, producer or songwriter, his work can be heard on hundreds of recordings and over 80 TV series and films.

Shawn is the co-founder and CEO of WIO LLC. The company behind the world’s only global TV airings tracking platform – wiopro.com. Throughout the development of WIOpro over the last decade, his passion has been to find transparent, accurate, digital reporting solutions for royalty earning creatives and organizations.

10 years ago during a conversation with co-founder, longtime friend and Berklee College roommate Adam Shafron, Shawn simply wanted to know “When’s It On?” promoting our trademarked acronym – WIO. When and where are shows playing on television around the globe? With Shawn being a busy television composer having several series in syndication earning consistent music performance royalties and Adam as a software designer, an idea for WIO was born. Our original idea, testing ground and since discontinued whensiton.com launched to the public in North America as a consumer TV guide.

The original idea and our eventual professional application, wiopro.com, was built in response to what we felt was a significant need in the entertainment industry. A need for information. Information on TV airings was extremely difficult to find. Until wiopro.com, there has never been a platform where a royalty or residual earning creative can access detailed, accurate worldwide broadcast information on content they are a part of. Audio Visual performance music royalties in the traditional cable format are the highest paying to composers. Currently, wiopro primarily focuses on these traditional terrestrial and satellite television airings while working on additional data sources to incorporate streaming and digital. wiopro is a compelling and relevant platform for all rights holders, management companies, and PROs/CMOs in our industry, serving as the single source of truth regarding broadcast airings. It represents a crucial piece of the puzzle, providing the most transparent and accurate data, as well as effective tracking to complement payout solutions within our industry.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

10 years ago when the idea of WIO was conceived, I like to say it’s growth and where it has ended up today sort of happened by accident. Although not entirely true when I really think about it today. I had always hoped that the industry would benefit and see value in a service like this. The initial idea was to build an application that I could use for personal administrative use. Essentially I wanted to know where the shows I was a part of as a composer were playing and when. With that said, it started as a self funded venture by me. Our co-founder, Adam, essentially acted in the same way spending countless hours in unpaid time. With an addition of another longtime friend and Berklee College alum, Dave Pelman, we have been able to make large strides forward. Also a creative, Dave is our COO utilizing his expertise as an industry veteran in the space of music rights management, administration and production music.

As the early months and years went by and we realized we were on the verge of making a much larger and eventual industry tool, the costs were adding up. Enter the Angel seed investment! I went to close friends and family only for seemingly small amounts of money by industry standards. We didn’t want to take on a huge amount and honestly, I, we, didn’t know how to even do that. So the money taken was small but money is money and is all relative, no matter the amount. It was very personal to me. The financial support of the venture and belief in me to realize it was and is a motivator to succeed.

We wanted to take on money as we needed it and spend every penny on the development of the platform. As we did, we sold off small increments of the company. I took one meeting early on with a VC firm. It was enlightening and informative. I learned a lot and as a reminder, I am a TV composer after all! No MBA attached to my name and no experience in the world of finance. VC would not give us any money early on. We had no path to revenue, we had some nice IP that was in development but that was it. VC said “get to revenue and we’ll talk again.” Well how do you get to revenue without investment? How do you get to investment without revenue? Bit of a paradox. It’s like getting a job without a resume. You need a job to build a resume but to get a job one usually needs a resume.

We gave up on VC and opted to scrape, scramble and do what we could with limited means. Again, our limited investment was by design. Another reason why I believe it was difficult to garner interest from larger investment was due to the lack of understanding of the inner workings of the entertainment with respect to what I’m referring to in this interview as “back end money.” Nobody really understands how it works. It’s extremely complex and certainly has not been talked about much in detail.

Because of the dedication to development Adam was willing to show through countless hours, the platform got built. It took a lot longer of course with a staff of essentially one when more money could have lead to a larger team of programmers. As the years went by however, we were able to apply some capital to development with the help of outside coding and support.

Today, wiopro generates revenue. We have reasonable overhead and we’re able to cover costs with that revenue. We have the option of significant investment now. We still have not taken any. That may change but we’re trying to build bigger and get to the next level by way of revenue and with no debt. With most startups, the goal is usually to be acquired by or to partner with a larger entity. That is certainly something that is very much in play for us at WIO.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

Probably our biggest mistake was embarking on an almost 2 year journey to make a mobile application. For a long time, we thought that our service would thrive as a B2C venture. The goal from the start was to give creatives access to their TV airings. The app was an expensive fail. Not only the tech at the time but the concept. Sure, it’s fun to know when and where your shows you’re a part of are playing but then what? It’s the larger entities that collect the royalty and residual payments that can make changes in their collection effort and in turn make it better for the rights holders and creators. Also, these companies know how to interpret the data far better than a busy actor or composer. So, scrap the app! WIO would never be an “on the go” check it daily app.  Let’s pivot to a web based platform and market it to larger companies in royalty and residual collection. Our service is still available and affordable to the individual but our focus is trying to effect change from the top down. WIO is currently expanding into the data interpretation and reconciliation space. Essentially helping creatives and organizations “find the money” through accurate data and auditing of airings.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wiopro.com
• Linkedin: WIOpro.com

Image Credits
Shawn Pierce – Headshot – Credit: Getty Images / Phillip Faraone wiopro.com Platform Graphics – Credit: WIO LLC wiopro.com Billboard – Credit: Michael Cossota / Lamar Of Los Angeles