Play Meter

speaker s. This had been done
successfully in England, where the
video juke was becoming an integral
part of pub entertain ment equipme nt.
2. I would restructu re the tradi-
tional commission split. Here was a
valid reason for an operator to break
the traditional 50-50 comman dment. I
was able to negotiate deals for 70-30
my way. Operato r minimums could be
asked for and readily agreed to by
location owners. There were endless
attainable possibilities. (A 100-0 split,
operator take-all, isn't to be laughed
at.)
3. Rowe would produce three
tapes each month-r egular (rock),
urban contemp orary (a fancy name
for black-ori ented music), and coun-
try.
4. I would buy Rowe's regular R-89
at cost (it has much better graphic
capabilities than the R-88) and lease
the video part for two years at $50 a
month. After two years I would own
the video portion. A $160 tape-royalty
fee also would have to be paid as I got
new tapes.
The proposal sounded very good,
and Joel and Jerry offered support.
Joel wrote letters to my clients
explaining that a video juke was an
expensiv e commitm ent for an opera-
tor and a 70-30 split was "recom-
mended." Thank you. Joel Friedman .
(Wow!- a manufac turer and an oper-
ator working together .)
Why other operator s didn't take
advantag e of this I'll never know. I
heard that Peter Betti of Betson
Pacific saw how good this deal was
and passed it along to several of his
progressive operator s on the West
Coast. Peter knows a good deal.
So I ordered four more video jukes
and placed them in college cafeterias,
lounges, and snack bars. The results
showed steady revenues that aver-
aged $125 to $175 a week, and the
programming was improving. At the
time, colleges were setting up MTV
rooms where students could sit and
watch music videos for free all day
long. Students also like to buy their
own VCRs and rent or tape their
favorite video clips. Still, the video
jukes held their own.
At the AMOA Show in Novemb er
1985, John Nelson of Nelson/ Aved
Technologies offered me two of the
company 's laser-disc video jukeboxe s
to work with. Each laser disc can be
changed just like a record, so video
selections can be easily changed, and
Pl.A Y METER. April 1, 1986
each box can be program med for a
location's needs. I've tested them for
the past several months and found
them to be operationally sound, but
lacking because they don't allow the
playing of regular 45-RPM records. As
mentione d earlier, audio-rec ord play
accounts for almost half of the Rowe
box's revenues . Nelson/ Aved also has
develope d a kit that converts a regular
jukebox to a laser-video jukebox while
keeping the regular jukebox intact.
This idea definitely has merit. I hope
John Nelson refines the product and
can reduce its cost of approximately
$3,000 for the laser-disc conversion
(not including the $800 cost of an RGB
high-resolution monitor).
In February this year Joel Fried-
man came to me with an even better
deal. After telling me the lease deal
was over, he asked, "What if an opera-
tor could purchase a video jukebox for
under $5,000 and have available a
single-player 20-selection tape for only
$85 a month?" Though this deal
sounds good, it will take longer for the
tape player to search for a selection ,
and 20 selections can get boring after
just a few days. I agreed anyway. (Joel
can be persuasive.)
Rowe is going to make the system
flexible enough so that if a high-
volume location requires a two-player,
40-selection tape, it can be adapted
easily. A new regular jukebox costs
about $3,000, so this offer looks very
good indeed. Rowe also has signed
Bruce Springst een (the most request-
ed artist), taking an importan t step
toward signing the performe rs needed
for the company 's program to be
successful.
Rowe currently has about 500
video jukes in operation througho ut
the country. Starting a few months
ago, Rowe began featuring in its
monthly tapes a few clips from a popu-
lar group or artist. Last month's spot-
light was Hall & Oates. "Out Of
Touch," "One On One," "Maneat er,"
and "Family Man" appeared on all
three of the tapes that Rowe shipped
to its custome rs.
Music videos cost about $100,000
to produce, and it has been difficult to
recoup the cost, as the clips are used
primarily as promotional tools. As a
result , video-ju kebox royalties are
becomin g evermor e importan t for
artists as more video jukes are put in
operation .
A few months ago I wrote that
advertise rs are looking to coin-op
PLA Y MET ER
TIME LY
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