How, then, do you set about enhancing your business with music? What opportunities does new technology offer, both in bottom-line gains and in softer benefits like customer satisfaction and retention?

To answer these questions, Euroslot assembled a virtual round table consisting of Henry Paulinski, marketing manager for NSM Music; Stephanie Norbury, former editor of this magazine, representing Soundnet and Sound Leisure; and Richard Elsy, marketing director of JayBox.

Euroslot: What do you think are the main reasons for leisure venues to invest in music-related products and services? What are their principal benefits?

Henry Paulinski: Like most coin-slot machines, jukeboxes are designed to be money-makers. Whether they are purchased outright or supplied on a profit-split basis, jukeboxes are there to make money for site owners or operators. The more value-added features in the box, such as the YouTube add-on in the NSM Music Icon range, the bigger the coin drop.

Stephanie Norbury: Music is an essential ingredient in creating the right atmosphere – just as much as the décor, or the food and drink on offer. When a venue gets the music offering right it will help to extend a customer’s visit. It can encourage them to spend more at the bar and ensure that they will return. Customers do not move on as quickly to different venues if they are comfortable.

The advantage to a Sound Leisure pay-per-play digital system is that the machine can be profiled to ensure that the correct type of music is being played at specific times of the day, thus ensuring that the correct ambience is achieved.

A well-profiled jukebox that is constantly updated with fresh tracks provides a good revenue stream. It will attract the right kind of clientele, often a younger crowd who enjoy music and socialising. These people are the types who will have more disposable income to spend in pubs and bars.

A digital juke is a great long-term investment for operators – it is just as relevant to the venue and customers after four or five years as it was when it was installed, unlike many other types of coin-op machine.

Richard Elsy: A great music offer will attract customers – and get them to stay longer in the venue and come back again, time after time. The benefits to the venue are therefore two-fold – increased repeat business and good income from the jukebox coin box.

Euroslot: And what are the main obstacles to adoption?

Henry Paulinski: Cost is always a consideration, but a recession brings with it attractive prices and finance deals, with NSM Music entry prices as low as £1795, subject to terms.

Stephanie Norbury: There can be a lack of understanding as to what the right kind of music can bring to a venue in terms of customer loyalty and cash box. There can be different priorities at play, particularly in some of the larger pub chains. For example, where there is venue with a strong emphasis on food, there can be a tendency to only play profiled easy-listening music. From a machine manager’s perspective, this is not a good opportunity to make money from the jukebox.

We have found a compromise is possible, even in these situations. For example, the jukebox can be opened up to offer a much wider selection of music on those evenings when the restaurant is less busy, or perhaps later in the evening when the bar area is busier and the family diners have left. This way the jukebox will take more money. And with our profiling feature, it is really easy to get the right kind of music at the right time.

Richard Elsy: All obstacles can be overcome with the right music offer and JayBox can be profiled and optimised to suit any venue. Broadband is now widely available and continues to increase distribution.

Euroslot: To what extent does music play a part in consumers’ choice of leisure venue?

Henry Paulinski: There is a link in some parts of Britain between choice of venue and local culture. Genres such as Asian music are well to the fore in the NSM Music library. Hence the attractiveness of the Icon jukebox in areas such as Birmingham and Leicester, where there are many pubs frequented by customers who are fans of bhangra, desi and other traditional Asian music.

Stephanie Norbury: Certainly, music is essential in consumers’ choice of leisure venue. An older clientele in a country pub is going to be put off by loud rock music and a younger crowd wouldn’t be seen in a bar playing classical music on an evening out. There are many venues who take their music profiling very seriously indeed because they have a clientele who are extremely discerning when it comes to music. A good example of this is student bars.

Sound Leisure’s music-supply partner Soundnet has a background in the music industry and is constantly in touch with the major record labels to ensure that our jukeboxes have the latest tracks even before they are available in the shops. Soundnet will create special playlists around events such as the major summer music festivals – featuring tracks from the performing artists. This kind of in-depth profiling can make a huge difference to cash box.

Richard Elsy: Most consumers will expect to see a music offer in a venue and if they can actually select the music of their choice from a range covering six decades and over 8000 artists and albums, they will find what they want and spread the word.

Euroslot: What effect has the development of digital distribution had on the supply of music to the leisure industry?

Henry Paulinski: The development of digital downloads for jukeboxes pioneered by NSM Music has led to the massive expansion of music capacity in modern boxes. Hard drives are able to store tens of thousands of audio and video tracks and online connections allow users to download the latest releases from remote sites. Additional features, such as karaoke, bingo and local and national advertising possibilities, will become another source of revenue for operators and site owners.

Stephanie Norbury: It already feels strange to remember how only a few years ago, operators had to purchase CDs from companies such as Telstar, which were then sent off from huge distribution centres. Labels needed to be typed, CDs fitted into the jukeboxes (ensuring they were all the right way round and the correct CD had been sent in the first place). There were so many things that could go wrong and it was very labour-intensive. It is no surprise that most operators stuck to buying compilation CDs and kept them on the boxes as long as possible!

Now many jukeboxes are updated with carefully-profiled music plus cover artwork and track information without the operator even having to visit the venue. Of course, there are a lot of operators who still update their digital jukeboxes weekly with an update disk when they are on site to collect from the pool table, quiz machine and AWP. But this situation is slowly changing, as operators realise that the benefit of receiving the latest charts on a weekly basis far outweighs the cost of a broadband connection.

Richard Elsy: Digital distribution – and more importantly, online delivery of music – has made a massive change to the offer and the expectations of the market. Customers are used to having instant access to a huge range of music and this is key to the JayBox proposition to operators. With over 87,000 tracks and updates delivered weekly online with all the new chart music as well as customer requests, JayBox leads the way in giving customers what they want today.

Euroslot: How do you think the music industry regards the leisure sector as a user of music? Is the sector taken seriously and treated fairly?

Henry Paulinski: Jukebox manufacturers provide artistes with wider exposure for their music: in certain markets, such as the U.S., there are exclusive previews of new releases via digital jukebox networks.

Stephanie Norbury: The jukebox sector is still a very small fish in a big pond as far as the overall music industry is concerned but I believe that we are being taken increasingly seriously. There is a greater understanding of how digital jukeboxes can give a unique perspective on customer music choices – pay-per-play as opposed to pay-to-own. And our products promote the latest music to the right customer demographic often before that music is even available to buy or download.

In recent months, there have been a number of court cases and prison sentences handed out to suppliers of illegal jukeboxes featuring unlicensed music. These cases are the result of years of evidence-gathering by music industry bodies and I think it proves that they certainly take our sector very seriously indeed.

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