GAPI, Phonofile to boost online sales for Ghanaian music

The Ghana Association of Phonographic Industries (GAPI) is working together with Norwegian-based international digital music distributor, Phonofile to educate Ghanaian music label and right owners on how to maximize digital sales.

The clinic, slated for Tuesday, March 26, 2013, forms part of a grand plan to provide online presence and online promotion for Ghanaian music, and also create a sustainable market for Ghanaian music in the Nordic region through collaborations with musicians from that area.

Projects Coordinator at GAPI, Francis Mensah Twum told Adom News the collaboration with Phonofile started in 2007 and through that have already loaded some 5,000 Ghanaians songs online, which is generating a meager $10,000 every month for the musicians and right owners of those songs.

He said the revenue streams for Ghanaian music online are very slow compared to what musicians and right owners from other countries are generating online and this is because we do not make any effort to promote our music online.”

Twum said Phonofile is therefore coming in to help do aggressive promotion of Ghanaian music online, and also create opportunities for collaboration between Ghanaian musicians and musicians from the Northern Europe so Ghanaian musicians could leverage on the strengths of their counterparts in that region.

The training, he said, would focus on selected musicians/right owners as a pilot, and would be expanded to benefit others over time, adding that some attention would also be given revamping some old popular tunes, by getting some of the young musicians to redo them or collaborate with the original makers of those songs.

“Locally we are working with MUSIGA, some local music producers and publishers organizations, and the Independent Artistes Managers Forum, who are very hot because they manage big artistes who already have stuff online so they are bringing all that onboard,” he said.

The Phonofile factor

Phonofile is an international digital distributor for music from independent labels, and has developed a program for educating labels and rights owners to maximize sales by getting their music into digital stores and reaching larger audience online, both locally and internationally.

Trond Tornes is the Marketing Manager of Phonofile, and he noted that even though digital distribution of music started generating huge moneys for producers, musicians and label owners around the world since 2004, Ghanaian musicians have not maximized gains on that platform yet.

“Phonofile have had the pleasure of working with music from Ghanaian rights holders for several years and we know Ghanaians make great music, which has the quality to make impact on the international market so we want to contribute to the process to achieve that,” he said.

Tornes said Phonofile has established a highly sophisticated online tool that facilitates transparency and allows individual musicians, as well as label and right owners to access, and manage their catalogue, monitor daily updated sales reports and easily add new content online.

“This enables the musician/producer/label or right owner to know exactly how many people are downloading his or her music and therefore how much money is due him/her,” he said.

Phonofile is the largest aggregator for indie music in the Nordic region, and one of the most experienced players in the digital music marketplace today.

Tornes is assuring Ghanaian musicians that Phonofile would use its strong foothold in the Nordic region to provide the opportunity for Ghanaian music to break into that market.

The company was founded in 1999 by FONO (Association for Norwegian Independent Record Companies), and it has since established a dynamic online music distribution platform, called Artspages, and Klicktrack (SE) in 2010.

It has now opened offices in Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen, and has presence in Finland and a subsidiary in Beijing.

Even though Phonofile;s strongest foothold is in the Nordic region, it also works with labels in US, UK, South Africa and recently Ghana, and has digital stores all over the world, to provide the opportunity for its clients to reach larger markets.

Phonofile currently represents music from more than 800 labels and a catalogue of more than 250,000 tracks within a wide variety of music styles and genres.

Ghana|Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona|Adom News