Karaoke Forums

Seems to me that karaoke is dead, or dying.

First, a little background on me: I wrote MP3+G Toolz back in 2000-2001. I also wrote KJ hosting software. As I contemplated making new karaoke hosting software over the last few years, I did some research on the state of the industry. It's dead, or at least on it's last legs.

Sunfly=Alive (Mostly UK stuff)
Pop Hits Monthly=Alive
Sound Choice=Dying
Chartbuster=Dying
DK Karaoke=Dead (for America, at least)
Pioneer=Dead (for America, at least)
Backstage=Dead
Dangerous=Dead
Just Tracks=?
JVC=Dead
Music Maestro=Dead
Party Tyme-SyberSound=Dead
Star Disc=Dead
Top Hits=Dead
Top Tunes=Dead
Sweet Georgia Brown=Dead
Zoom=?
Others=?

Some of the manufacturers in the list were actually "Above Board", meaning they actually "tried" to license music from the artists/songwriters. Some allegedly didn't, like Helluvadisc/Dangerous/Backstage/Doctor Music etc., that would just change their names when they got caught. Both SC and CB have allegedly been guilty of releasing discs before the licensing gets approved, e.g. the famed Eagles disc. With competitors releasing discs without getting proper licensing, and MP3+G piracy taking hold, I can understand how SC/CB could no longer compete with other manus, and make a profit.

At the time I wrote MP3+G Toolz, there was nothing out there that ripped discs and converted to MP3+G automatically. There was a few scripts that did things, but they were like batch files, and had to be customized for each rip. It worked with GoldenHawk CDRWin software, which would actually rip the discs, and the Toolz which would convert to MP3+G. Later, I included a way to rip automatically in one step instead of two. I actually feel a bit guilty about this; being as I wrote one of the de-facto tools used to rip karaoke discs to your hard drive, which enabled people to copy them easily. I wrote it, because I wanted to use a computer to run shows, and not discs. I'm fairly certain it at least accelerated the piracy in the karaoke industry.

Manufacturers actually have a hand in their demise too. Ten years later they offer a KJ Solution like GEM. Ten years! And mostly to scare KJs into being legit. They relied on their core KJ customers, and looked the other way (as far as public performance) for years, and then changed their tune. They did not embrace the digital second coming of karaoke, and got lost in the shuffle, much like the rest of the music/movie industry. They tried to shift to DVDs, but they should have switched to a digital solution. Prices for hosting shows went down too; from $300 to sometimes near $100 or less a show. When I quit doing shows, it was 5 years ago, and I was making $150-175 a show. Water sippers and over-saturation of karaoke didn't help either.

Both Sound Choice and Chartbusters have done streaming solutions, and other things to revive their karaoke business, and I applaud them for that. But most of their focus has been on consumers for stuff like that, and the solutions they have for karaoke hosts are severely lacking. The GEM product is TOO expensive, at around $0.83 a song. Chartbuster's KJ Media Pro HD solution requires you to purchase credits, and locks you into the compuhost software. Microsoft has a Xbox Music/Zune subscription service where if I pay monthly for the subscription, I have access to play their full library. I can download as many tracks as I can, and can play them on up to 5 devices. As long as I continue to pay the subscription fee, I have those songs at my disposal. I would gladly pay $50 to $100 a month for DRM karaoke that I can get in "all you can eat" style, as long as I could use it in multiple software products and computers, plus the ability to play them offline. It wouldn't be hard for them to setup a microsoft wma+g or wmv product line.

Sound Choice and Chartbusters have recently changed their business model from producing music, to licensing their existing catalog, or litigation. They were the top 2 manufacturers in the business in the USA. With them gone (for all intensive purposes) and widespread piracy, plus, too much pirate competition doing shows for cheap, I declare karaoke dead. It sucks too! Just as we are coming into the age of smart-phones and tablets for signing up or browsing books, and lower-priced hosting computers in a variety of form factors, the CD+G production industry is drying up.

Your thoughts?

Sincerely,

Big_Gun

(Of course, this is all just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.)

Well Said !!!!

Behave! The karaoke producers that are no more in down to the fact they are tosh / didn't promote their product well enough. Advertising is everything. As for the drop in pay, that's down the the proliferation of KJ's. Easy money for enjoying yourself.

First, I've been watching for the completion of your latest toolz gadgets and SDK. Like you, I wrote my own hosting software and I have used some of your conversion toolz. I'm currently in the process of converting to .net and I'm putting my new features list together and putting my blocks together at this time. I finished the concept for my new display engine this weekend. Kudos to you for doing it for the love of karaoke.

It's hard for me to argue with most of your conclusions but the final one. I'll add that in my opinion, the gray area that is karaoke is still very gray. The music industry hasn't helped much at all along the way. At issue as well for SC and CB is they've done all the A songs. KJs many times already have those 4,5,6 times. With the advent of downloads, we don't have to buy a CD that, yet again, has a song on it we have six times already. For SC, that is a product of fighting vs embracing online\file sourcing and I agree that it has contributed probably as much or more to their demise as the pirates.

As to the final point, I think karaoke, as we know it, may die off but I don't think so. I think it is morphing and it really depends on how things like Digitrax works out. I currently have several issues with it. Price, vendor selection (I refuse to contribute to the litigation suppliers), Price, delivery method (I'm not a PJDJ fan), lack of competition, price, lack of detailed information online and price. KJs have a real worry that the Digitrax concept will provide an avenue where the traditional KJ is no longer needed and it may very well be a valid one. The first time I ever did karaoke was in a traditional karaoke bar in Japan. There was no KJ. Only a remote you punched your song into. They had a screen that showed the song que and when your song came up, they passed the mic over to you. It was different, and it was still fun.

The karaoke RETAIL industry is in complete and utter chaos, but the local karaoke show is still very much alive and well, and as long as that market exists, some one will eventually come along and make a better widget for it (and it's not DigiTrax). This is a time of oppertunity.

I still play Saturday night karaoke shows to a crowd of 125-150 pretty average people in a pretty average bar in a pretty average city. I'm one of easily 100+ (maybe pushing 200) karaoke shows in my county of about 900,000 residents. You can't go 1/2 mile in any direction where there's any sort of commercial activity without running into a karaoke venue.

I'll let you know when karaoke is dead.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Zoom appears to be very much alive. Maybe not as prolific with new releases as the likes of Sunfly/SBI/Abraxa, but they were very on the ball with releasing the new Adele song, along with SBI and Karaoke-Version.

i applaud you on your MP3GTOOLZ!

i've used it since the early 2000's and you've also incorporated a few suggestions i submitted (i'm sure i wasn't the only one with the same idea.)

I started using computer karaoke shortly after i found your mp3gtoolz. and was the only host in the area that had made this drastic of a move, and was digital for several years before anyone else made the change.

I hate to ask, not really, but can you fix the windows 7 issue, i right click select mp3gtoolz and do my converting, then yada yada, click finish, come back later to use it again and it's gone from the right click menu and have to do a re-install to get it back. and add the l.a.m.e. encoder as it seems to be the choice mp3 encoder.

that's ok if you can't or won't. just had to ask...
thanks for the great program.

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It's all good!

Karaoke is not dead. With consumers, it is as popular as ever - and with shows like American Idol, The Voice, and The X-Factor, it may be more popular than ever. Piracy has had a hand in it, too - it has increased the number of individuals/companies offering karaoke services, thus driving down the price. In other words, more bars feel that they can now afford it. And, thanks to technology, many more bars are offering their own karaoke.

The licensing aspect of the industry is obviously changing as well. We've read about how PHM has had trouble licensing the music they wish to produce. It is my opinion that, the record companies or the artists are now doing their own karaoke. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Since recordings are basically pieced together (instrument by instrument, vocalist by vocalist) - it seems smart that they would offer their own karaoke renditions because they simply have to exclude the lead vocals from their recordings. I can't say that this is what is happening, but "something is up" - for instance, take a look at CB's Carrie Underwood. At the end of those songs, I think the producer is listed as "Carrie-Oke" - which seems to indicate her "empire" played a role in the production. Taylor Swift is another (in fact, she sued a KJ for playing a karaoke version of her song that was not licensed).

Like I said, I'm not saying that the above is happening, but it does seem that the right to produce karaoke tracks, once reserved and licensed to manus like CB & SC, is now being handled internally by more and more artists as they seek to increase revenues, having been adversely affected by piracy as well.

As far as professional litigants goes, I suspect that the manus know they are on their last legs. They are having licensing problems, and they know that their revenue stream will only come from the music they have produced in the past. This stream is dependent upon trademark infringement. We have already seen one innovation (by CAVS), which removes trademarks. The next one is right around the corner. I foresee that karaoke will move from "CDG" to "LRC", or a VERY similar format.

LRC depends upon ID3v2 music tags. The lyrics and timing information are contained right in the ID3v2 synchronized lyrics tag. So much more simpler than CDG, and so much easier to make changes, and so many more opportunities to use additional technologies, too. I find it ironic that none of my karaoke MP3 files that I have purchased as recently as this week don't have ID3v2 tags - instead they have the old ID3v1 tags - despite the fact that version 2 has been available for a long time now.

I am working on a CDG to LRC convertor. When finished, any CDG file can be converted to LRC, but only the text. It will ignore trademarks - not because I am trying to stick it to anyone, but because I don't have the ability to turn it into text.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

Karaoke isn't dead. Games are coming out that are purely based around karaoke and social gaming. It certainly has gone down hill but this is because people have started to sit in on their larry more and more rather than get out and socialize! But pictionary was also out-dated... who brought it back? The Draw Something application. It is all being re-generated in different ways. People are looking for ways of doing things inside rather than having to move out the house. The Wii also has karaoke on it and i am of the opinion that guitar hero is just a development of Karaoke. Wouldn't you agree?

In conclusion

- Karaoke is going into social gaming
- Karaoke is being developed and manipulated

Obviously you are talking more about the systems that are being used etc. I have to agree with you on this that most of the systems are becoming more and more out-dated and useless but over here in the UK they are still used in Pubs as entertainment. You can't even walk into a pub without seeing a paper advertisement of "Karaoke this friday" hung up on the pillar next to the bar!



Ash
Sing me something team.

You can create a shortcut on your desktop to the tools then drag folders onto the shortcut...

sweet thanks!

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It's all good!

Well roughly two years ago I made this same determination as part of my business plan. In my due diligence phase, I looked at the entertainment options available in my market and decided against trying to grow my mobile entertainment business with karaoke.

Multiple reasons, first, the 1 to 1 requirement of the karaoke manufacturers and enforced by lawsuits. I did not have the required capital to purchase multiple systems, nor is that the way I wanted to spend the available funds I did have. So the very nature of this direction limited my growth.

After months of planning, I chose to purchase affiliate rights to DJ Trivia, a live-hosted trivia game that runs on-screen in the venue. Was it cheap, no. Roughly $5000 upfront to purchase my primary market and the ability to run unlimited games and unlimited venues, for an additional $249 per month. I did make the investment in carts, laptops, speakers and other equipment to run the shows.

So now, 18 months after we started, we run 23 shows per week and I have 12 DJ/hosts that work for me. Additionally, I created a new game, DJ Bingo, which now runs 12 shows per week. So I look at the most successful karaoke business in my market, after 22 years in the business, he has 8 shows per week,and he does 6 of them.

I'm no genius, I am aggressive and I work hard, but if I'd taken the direction of trying to build my business with karaoke, I'd be working at Walmart.

By the way, we charge between $100 and $150 per night for a 1 hour 45 minute show. No dealing with drunks, no late night hours. So in my situation, declaring karaoke dead was the right call, and I think it's the right one. I still do private karaoke, just did a school party Saturday and charged $525 for 4 hours, so I will still offer that for the random request.

Rick,
Those are incredible numbers ($) Man! Congratulations on your success!!!

How are YOU able to get restaurants to pay THAT MUCH money for such a short (less than 2 hour) trivia show?? How do they recoup or make
their money to justify that expense?

-just asking, because it's hard to get ANY restaurant in my area to pay over $150 for ANY entertainment (djs, karaoke, even bands!) for a 4 hour gig!

For corporate gigs and the occasional private one, i can see your pricing manifesting with all the gear and talent you bring, but most restaurants are POOR or CHEAP, arent' they??

Once again, CONGRATULATIONS on your obvious success!!!!

Sure karaoke is dead, and were winning the war on drugs also... As long as they serve alcohol, karaoke will be alive and well...

Jon

John, thanks for your kind words. Only 12 of my 23 trivia shows are the top rate, the larger venues, others are $125 and a few at $100. My largest show, I have 90-135 trivia players every week, eating and buying alcohol, my second largest show averages about 80 players per week. All my DJ Bingo shows are $100 for roughly two hours. Now this is just a guess, since I don't actually run any karaoke shows, but I'm guessing that the trivia players spend as much money in 2 hours as karaoke singers do in 4. Once again, I have nothing to base that on other than opinion. But both the larger shows I just mentioned, I have been in those locations for more than a year. I guarantee that I would not still be in there if I wasn't making them money.

My best information from talking with the guys I know who do karaoke, is that the rates continue to fall and it's increasingly harder to keep a venue. I agree with that, believe me, I've lost my share of locations when my shows weren't bringing in enough revenue. Also, bad trivia hosts and shows are just as much a problem for me as bad KJs and bad karaoke are to the karaoke guys. It's difficult to come into a location that somebody has done a poor job and convince them that you'll be different.

My larger point is, I would not have financially or physically been able to grow my mobile entertainment business like I have with karaoke, too many factors and conditions working against it. I will say one thing, I don't have to worry about lawsuits for me or my venues, or worry about the legality of my content. That seems to be a huge part of the karaoke business. Guys that do it and make it work, God bless 'em. Don't think I could.

I think that as long as there is a demand for karaoke.....which there is......someone will be around to fill that demand.

We may see the landscape change to fewer, more consolidated venues as well as fewer content producers, but it will never go away entirely. There are too many people who love karaoke as their outlet and even if all the commercial content producers went the way of the dodo, someone would create a start-up in their garage creating content to meet demand....

Steve.....happy to have NEVER been a KJ.....

Karaoke isn't dead. Just changing.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Changing for the better, I hope! And not overshadowed by "dark clouds" looming on the horizon.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

"dark" clouds? Wow, that was mean!

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

I have waffled back and forth on dead or alive over the last year. A few months ago I landed on alive and made a choice to expand. I recently purchased about $5000 in equipment and now have 4 full rigs that I can run. I am actively looking for another host to work for me, and I am going to start working more weddings and private parties.

I also asked one of my venues for a raise last week and they said yes. It starts Nov 1st.

The manufacturers may be dead or dying, but the way I see it, many of them were never alive in the first place. They didn't license properly, flooded the market with low cost/low quality karaoke and contributed to the piracy problem by *NOT* caring about piracy at all.

Karaoke as a form ofg entertainment in a bar or venue is alive and well. You will know when it is dying when you no one requests "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for two weeks in a row.....

-Chris

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-Chris