As part of the Ghana Music Awards festival, an open forum was held on April 1 for stakeholders to discuss efficient ways to utilize new trends in music marketing. The forum which was instituted in 2009, discussed the issue of musicians paying for airtime in the first year and according to Mrs. Diana Hopeson, the President o the Musician Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), plans are far advance to do further negotiations with independent broadcasters on how to reach a fair agreement concerning paying for airplay.

This year, the forum focused on new trends available in marketing music in Ghana and across the world. Although the theme allowed for much broader discussions especially on internet-based marketing, the focus was narrowed to mobile phone downloads and Caller Ring Back tones (CRBTs). Conrad Nyuur, Operations Manager of Media Edge GSM has the opportunity to sell the services that the mobile content provider has to offer, by explaining how CRBTs and mobile downloads of music can help to create revenue for artists in these times of low album sales/purchases. He also had the opportunity to skim through the contracts between artists and the content providers among other issues of copyright.

The P.R.O /Project officer of MUSIGA, Rev Fiifi Agyarkwah Khan also spoke on the frightening statics of low sales; decrease in music marketer/distributors among other things in the past 3 years. The forum was chaired by Mrs. Dorothy K. Gordon, Director-General of Ghana’s Advanced Information Technology Institute (AITI), who bemoaned the unimpressive attendance. There were only few artists present for the forum in spite of MUSIGA sending out invitations to all members. In her closing remarks, Mrs. Gordon urged musicians and labels to explore the new trends in order to rip maximum or improved benefits for their creative works.

By Ameyaw Debrah