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Ringtones: Dialing for Dollars
"Daddy, what's a horn section? And how many telephones to make one?"
That question isn't as far-fetched as it sounds as a new generation of teens is now buying versions of their favorite music in the form of cell phone ringtones. Sales of ringtones have now passed record single sales in the U.K. and the ringtone fad is on the fast-track in the U.S., jumping 40 percent over the past year. Those tinny little tunes now ring up $3.5 billion annually in worldwide sales.
While many fogies don't understand the rampant and even annoying craze of mini rap or rock tunes blaring whenever a mobile phone rings, the teens themselves have a simple answer. "They're cool," says one Los Angeles aficionado, whose cell rings with OutKast's hit track "Hey Ya!" When pressed, he looks at the questioner like he's from Mars and says, "OutKast is cool."
In other words, the tones are a public statement, like T-shirts or caps with a group's logo. A rebellious flip-off and a digital mating call to attract attention from others who like the same music. The boom-box syndrome on a pocket-sized scale.
Separate ringtones can even announce various callers. The OutKast fan says that each of his girlfriends is programmed with a song signifying their ranking, and his mother is introduced with Elton John's "The Bitch Is Back."
Perhaps more important to the music industry is that cash registers are ringing again as kids and adults alike are actually paying for the tunes, available about $2 a pop from phone-service providers and licensed Websites. The sales are an ironic life-preserver for a business that has lost $10 billion in sales in recent years, mainly to digital piracy. Young people seem to understand that all mobile phone services have a price tag--even though they may perceive music from the Internet as largely free.
Major label groups like Universal are hastily setting up mobile music divisions and entrepreneurs are trolling even baby bands for ringtone rights. Yet the music world is mixed over the phenomenon.
At the recent MIDEM international music conference in Cannes, the gathered musicians complained that after months spent in a studio to create just the right sound, their work was being heard as just a series of beeps. Yet there they were, at packed mobile music panels, trying to figure out how to make a telephone keypad dial up dollars.
Hope was offered them not by their labels, but by companies like T-Mobile and Nokia, who promised not only better sound but much bigger royalty checks. America will start rolling out "true" or "master" ringtones this year, whose near CD-quality sound may well kick the fad into mainstream mania.
And for entertainment-mad youth short on pocket room and attention span, their cell phone will soon feature more elements of their iPod, MP3 player, Gameboy, Palm Pilot, Walkman, digital camera, Internet browser and mini TV. Gee-whiz memory chips now being integrated into yet another generation of cell phones and will up the ante on all the memory-munching entertainment applications.
It remains to be seen whether ringtones will go the way of the 45-rpm single or develop into a form of music intrinsic to modern lifestyles. But that will have to wait. My phone is ringing with "Yakkity Yak," and I know who that is?
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