Zimbalam Artist Page

One of our premier free tools, the Zimbalam Artist Page, allows our musicians to create simple websites, centralise their content, sell their music and even run promotional campaigns. It also lets artists, or labels, keep all your content on one page, that can be fully customized.Artist Pages are easy to create and require no HTML knowledge to customize, embed videos & upload your artwork. Simply choose a unique address for your page (e.g. myband.zimbalam.com) and follow the easy-to-follow steps. Use your page as a hub for all your music/news/videos and more and build lasting relationships with your fans by using the free track tool, you get their email address in exchange Links that lead directly to where your music is being sold online are on your page automatically, which optimizes the potential for you to sell your music. With the Artists Website you also have access to clear statistics, so you can analyze the success of your promotional and marketing campaigns.

Exportable Player

Our embeddable player is compatible with all your online media, including MySpace and Facebook. You can customize the content and appearance of the Zimbalam Player by altering your biography; photos; videos; news, and you can also change the Players background image, and its colour. There is also direct-buy links on the Player to the stores that sell your music, which helps to optimize sales. The email grabber function also allows you to collect the email addresses of your fans.

Pro Space

Pro Space is a free tool which allows you to easily share media with selected partners from the comfort of your bandt page. The set up is easy, while configuring you artist page simply select the Pro Space option and set up a campaign. This is where you create a login and password which you then give out to the necessary people who you want to be able to download or play the package you have added.  You can upload media to pro space in the following formats: pdf, mp3, or zip.

Zimbalam Fan Connect

The Fan Connect option gives you access to tool that are designed to improve the relationship you have with your fans; import all your old contacts and collect new ones with features like the email grabber. Keep you database of contacts updated, and send them personalized email, or newsletters with our newsletter tool.

This feature also allows you to see data and statistics about your contact with the fans, which aids with building a communications strategy and a stronger, longer-lasting relationship.

Clear and Accurate Statistics

From each of these tools, you can get in-depth statistics that help you accurately assess how well your marketing and promoting campaigns are doing.
For example, you can monitor the number of people clicking on your direct-buy links, along with the number of contacts you collect through the email grabber. You can also see how many people are opening your newsletter and in what area, too, plus lots of other data.
All of these tools help you with marketing and publicity strategies, and maximize the amount of music you sell online.

Position: Digital Marketing Intern
Company: Zimbalam/ Believe Digital
Location: London SW6

About Zimbalam
Zimbalam is a digital aggregation and distribution service which offers independent artists & labels a platform to sell their music around the world in all major digital stores and streaming services. Zimbalam offers a range of free promotional tools to help build and engage an artist or labels fan-base and sell their music in a crowded digital marketplace.

Job Description
Zimbalam is looking for an intern with a keen interest in Digital Marketing to join its UK team. Experience in Digital Marketing would be a plus; being interested in music and wanting to learn more about the industry is a necessity.

The new intern will report directly to the UK Manager. They will be responsible for assisting in all aspects of a digital marketing campaign, including Google Adwords, Facebook advertising and social networking campaigns to name a few. This is a great opportunity to gain experience in the music industry.

The ideal candidate will be friendly, a fast learner and have knowledge of marketing and social media.

YOU MUST HAVE/BE THE FOLLOWING

• Excellent knowledge of social media platforms, notably Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook
• A keen interest in digital technologies and digital marketing opportunities
• The ability to identify and to confidently deal with organising meetings with potential partners
• Friendly nature and great telephone and interpersonal skills
• Intermediate knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• A passionate, diligent self starter
• The ability to multi task and prioritise
• A love of music

To apply, please email CV and cover letter to:
intern@believedigital.com

Due to the nature of our business we will only reply to those candidates who we feel have the relevant experience for this role.

Last Sunday (12^th February) saw the annual Grammy Awards take place, with a huge social media surge surrounding the event. Facebook and Twitter were amassed with 13 million comments generated by users in the US in the 3 hours before and after, as well as during, the telecast. A new social TV record was also achieved by the awards ceremony, beating the hugely popular Super Bowl event last week.

Independent labels triumphed this year by winning 34 trophies in categories including Best New Artist, Best Album and Best Country Song. According to A2IM (American Association of Independent Music), Bon Ivor won awards for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Album, and label winners included Concord Music Group, Rounder Records and Big Machine.

2011 was also the second consecutive year that the independent labels and artists dominated industry nominations, accountable for 194 of the 387 possible nominations.

Sony’s price-hike following Whitney Houston’s death

Legendary singer Whitney Houston passed away on Saturday 11^th February, at the age of 48. Stars paid tribute to Houston following her sudden death, with the Grammy Awards honouring the six-time Grammy winner and Jennifer Hudson performing “I Will Always Love You” at the ceremony.

Following the hours after her death, it was found that the price of Houston’s two hits compilations on iTunes had been increased by £2-3 by Sony’s UK division, according to CMU. Sony later apologised for the temporary price increase, and the prices were restored back to the original price on Sunday. In a statement issued to Billboard, Sony said:

“Whitney Houston product was mistakenly mispriced on the UK iTunes store on Sunday. When discovered, the mistake was immediately corrected. We apologise for any offence caused.”

According to the NME, it is thought that five of Whitney Houston’s tracks will be entering the UK Top 40 when the chart is announced this Sunday, and 27 of her tracks will feature in the Top 200 overall.

rnbxclusive.com is the next site to go down…

Continuing the on-going online piracy saga, the latest addition to the news is that website rnbxclusive.com has been taken down by SOCA, the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency. SOCA has stated that the site has given access to hundreds of files of stolen music, and posting these on the site may have damaged artists’ careers. According to the CMU, they have subsequently arrested its owner this week, charging him with conspiracy to defraud. It is said that the music site has cost “legitimate businesses and artists” around £15 million every year, as reported by Stop-Law.

SOCA also issued a warning on the rnbxclusive website, informing users that if they have downloaded unlicensed music from this site, they could be faced with a ten year jail sentence and unlimited fine – however this message, which wasn’t strictly true, was taken down after 3 days. It has been replaced with a short message, bearing the words “SOCA has taken control of this domain name”, and a link to the SOCA website.

This has sparked action in three other similar websites, seeing one site voluntarily taking itself offline, one considering going offline and one claiming to only deal with music files that are legal.

Which leads us on to…

IFPI and RIAA’s potential lawsuit against Google?

An internal IFPI document has been leaked, stating that the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) are considering a lawsuit against search giant Google. According, to Digital Trends, this is due to the organisation’s beliefs that Google not prioritising sites with legal music content over piracy sites such as The Pirate Bay, sending traffic to the latter instead.

However, German publication “Handelszeitung” suggests that the leaked report may have fizzled out last Summer, with a statement in the previously unpublished report dating back to July 2011 – however since this date the lawsuit hasn’t yet emerged.

Artistdata

http://www.artistdata.com

Artistdata is a great website, enabling to update all your band profiles at once as well as send details of your upcoming gigs to top online concert databases – this way, you can ensure that your social media websites and gig listing websites are updated with the latest information. It’s a free service, and here are some of the features that they offer:

• Update your status on your social network accounts at once, including MySpace, Facebook and Twitter
• Upload your gig details – date, time, show type, name, venue, ticket price, age limit, poster etc.
• Artistdata will submit your concert dates to top online concert databases for you (including BandsInTown and SongKick), saving you lots of time
• Create your own ArtistData profile which displays all the content you’ve uploaded to Artistdata, as well as ticket links, recent Twitter posts and a customisable banner

The website is powered by Sonicbids, which is another useful site for musicians to help them find gigs – the services they offer require a monthly fee, but you can try their services for free for the first two weeks. Some of the features they offer include building your EPK, finding gigs through their site, checking statistics for your Twitter, Last.fm and Google blogs, and promoting your gigs.

Getagig

http://getagig.info

Getagig helps you to get in touch with promoters and music venues, acting as a directory as well as a messenger between you and the promoters. You can search the towns you want to gig in, and the directory will pull up a list of promoters in that area – you can then click the “Get a gig” button, fill in a form with your details and send it off to them. Easy!

RADAR

http://www.radarmusicvideos.com

Do you ever find yourself stuck on ideas for your music videos, or want to find someone to collaborate with who will have a fresh take on your music? That’s where Radar comes in – it’s an online database which hooks independent musicians and labels together with music video directors, making sure that they are the best people for your job yet still fitting within your budget. Here are the services that they can offer you for free:

• Post one music video to your Radar profile – selected videos get free promotion on Radar
• Use the Radar directory to find music promotion and support services all over the world, including content partners, music blogs, PR, promotion and plugging
• Recently added “Crew Contacts” directory tab, enabling you to look for a DP, Editor or Producer etc.
• Access to the Radar blog, which offer useful suggestions and tips for promoting your music video
• Receive “29 Ways To Promote Your Music Video”, the most comprehensive music video promotion guide online, for free

The lovely people at Radar have written us a guest blog with some key tips from their promotion guide – you can check it out here.

Remember, Zimbalam have a partnership with Radar – you can sign up for a free Radar account here to check out the amazing opportunities available, and quote Zimbalam upon signing up and you’ll also receive a 10% discount on your next release with us!

This week saw the closure of iLike, once the most popular Facebook music application peaking with 60 million registered members. As reported by Music Week, the online music sharing and download service was snapped up in 2009 by Myspace after its launch, but only three years later their official website redirects you to their Myspace page, bearing the words “We welcome you to Myspace, home of the largest catalog of FREE steaming music on the web!” on its banner.

In the wake of the closure, iLike co-founder Hadi Partovi spoke in an interview with Geek Wire, blaming “radical changes in the Facebook platform” as well as Rupert Murdoch’s failure to take advantage of available tech assets for Facebook under his management. However, the iLike team are still on full form as Partovi has hinted on the new startups they are involved with in Seattle, namely ThinkFuse, Familiar and PaperKarma.

Paul McCartney’s music pulled from all streaming services

Universal Music Group Distribution have requested both Paul McCartney’s solo and “Wings” content to be taken down from “all streaming services” on behalf of Concord (and Hear Music), much to Rhapsody’s dismay. According to Digital Music News, Rhapsody were ‘shocked’ over the removal request after over four years of streaming his music. Spotify responded by saying the content requested for removal had already been taken down from their catalog in 2010, and any Paul McCartney tracks remaining on their service were licensed through other compilations. It was reported that Rdio was also expected to be removing McCartney’s content.

The removal of McCartney’s tracks comes at the same time as the announcement of his exclusive live-stream performance on the iTunes Store and over Apple TV on February 9th. The performance featured songs from his new album, “Kisses on the Bottom”, which was released three days prior to the stream on February 6^th.

Independent Music Publishers hit out at VEVO

It was announced last week that VEVO has generated $150 million in revenue, just two years after its launch. The video service run by Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Abu Dhabi Media Group (with EMI licensed content) offers videos from three of the four major labels, as well as distributing music videos online for several labels. However, Songs Music Publishing founder Matt Pincus has hit back at VEVO saying that independent music publishers are entitled to a share of this money, seeing as they have not yet been paid a penny.

Videos from Songs Music Publishing’s roster of writers appear on VEVO, including Brooklyn’s noise-pop duo, Sleigh Bells. The issue here is that the labels are being paid advertising revenue from VEVO, but not passing on the publisher’s share, according to Billboard. President of Downtown Music Publishing Justin Kalifowitz supported Pincus’s argument, suggesting that “labels have felt they can speak on behalf of publishing rights they don’t control”.

In more recent news, VEVO have further landed themselves in hot water after streaming a pirated NFL playoff game during a company-sponsored event – they were caught out when a buffering message appeared on screen at their SunDance PowerStation venue in Utah…

M.I.A.’s middle finger salute

Following the annual Super Bowl show held in Indianapolis last Sunday, MIA angered masses of viewers and stormed the headlines when she stuck up her middle finger during her half time show performance with Madonna and Nicki Minaj. Madonna was not best pleased at MIA’s gesture either during the biggest TV game of the year, claiming that she had ruined the positive atmosphere of the show. The broadcast is said to have been watched by some 110 million viewers on NBC.

Unfortunately for MIA, she may have an expensive price to pay for her mistake, as according to the NME the contract that she signed meant she agreed to compensate NFL of any fines incurred if the Federal Communications Commissions backed complaints made about the broadcasted show.

This post was written by Zimbalam blogger, Hinako Omori

Here are some of the free tools available online which will help you to keep a track on fan analytics.

bitly (http://bitly.com/)

As well as a means for shortening links to fit into tweets, this website also includes a very useful analysis tool. You can create a free account with bitly, add the links that you want to post, and keep track of the statistics of each link.

By accessing the “Analyze” tab at the top of your bitly page, you can see the number of clicks on a daily basis for all the links in your account. You will also be able to see the percentage of referrals from each site, for example your Facebook or Twitter, which will enable you to see which of these has had the most clicks from the links you’ve posted. The Analyze tab also tells you which countries your fans are based.

By entering your bit.ly link followed by a “+” in the address bar of your internet browser (http://bit.ly/xxxx+), or adding “/info/” in the middle of your link (http://bit.ly/info/xxxx) you can also bring up the statistics as above for that particular link too, which is super handy! The “Conversations” statistics also shows you how many tweets and Facebook shares, likes and comments this link has had – another very useful feature.

More information on how to analyse your links on bitly can be found here.

Crowd Booster (http://crowdbooster.com/)

Crowd Booster enables you to manage both your Facebook and Twitter accounts in one place. They offer lots of little gems of knowledge with your own personalised “Target Recommendations”, which talk you through the best strategies to reach out to your fans and audience. The Dashboard feature will show you graphs and figures on your total reach, impressions, influential followers and more.

Logging in with your Twitter account will easily allow you to analyse, for example, how many people you reached for individual tweets. You can also track how your fan base has grown over a period of time, and audience insights show you your most interactive fans.

Klout (http://klout.com/)

Klout analyses data on your social media sites and your overall online presence to measure your influence on others. Log in using your Twitter or Facebook account, and you will be given a Klout score (measured on a scale of 1 to 100) based on your ability to drive action in social networks.

Some of the websites Clout uses to measure your score include Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. The team at Klout are currently working on incorporating Facebook Pages, YouTube, Tumblr and Last.fm among others.

Similarly to Crowd Booster, Klout very nicely compiles together some graphs to show your True Reach (i.e. the number of people you influence), your Amplification (how much you influence them) and the influence of your Network. It also tells you what topics you are influential about, e.g. Music, which are calculated by the content (blogs/posts etc.) you produce and the responses you receive from your audience.

Zimbalam Free Tools (www.zimbalam.co.uk)

As we mentioned in our previous blog (Promote You And Your Music With Our Free Tools) we also offer a number of tools that can help you. As well as the Zimbalam Artist page, embeddable music player, Pro Space and Fan Connect option, we offer statistical tools that will give you clear and accurate statistics on many aspects of your page.

If you’ve uploaded your music to Zimbalam Backstage, you can log in and view your statistics for your releases under the Promotions tab. This will allow you to see individual statistics for your players posted on Myspace, Facebook, the standalone Zimbalam player and also on your Zimbalam Artist Website.

The Promotions tab will tell you how many views and connections your player has had, as well as the countries your listeners are based in.

Have you also noticed the analytical tools within Facebook and YouTube?

Facebook (www.facebook.com)

You can check out your Facebook page insights on the “Insight” tab, on the left-hand side menu of your page. Here, you can see a graph showing your posts, how many people are talking about your page, and your weekly total reach, as well as statistics for each individual post.
You can also see which age groups and gender your Facebook page appeals to, as well as the countries and cities your fans are based in.

YouTube (www.youtube.com)

If you have your own channel, you can go into the Analytics tab at the top of the page in the Video Manager, which will show you a general overview of the channel. Using the tabs to the left will show you specific breakdowns in easy to understand graphs and tables for Views, Demographics (information on your audience), Playback Locations (where your video has been accessed from), Traffic sources (where your audience has been directed from). The Engagement reports cover statistics on Subscribers, Likes and Dislikes, Favourites, Comments and Sharing. You can also check out the stats for individual videos, by clicking on the Analytics tab at the top of the particular video’s page. Furthermore, you can also track an individual video’s audience retention (i.e. rewinding or rewatching a video will result in a higher graph) within this tab.

Another useful little tool can be found by clicking on the small graph icon to the bottom right of the video (next to the number of views). Here you can see a list of dates of significant discoveries (e.g. referrals and inbound links, such as the first embedding of your video on a website), information on your most popular audience (gender and age) and where your audience are based, as well as general statistics for the video.

We hope this helps as a starting point to make the most of the free analytical tools available online – it would be interesting to check out audience demographics and find out where your fans are based, so you can target specific areas and regions for gigs and tour dates. Then, you can develop personal marketing and publicity strategies with the information you’ve discovered, to create a better engagement with your fans and optimise your fan base growth.

This post was written by Zimbalam blogger, Hinako Omori

Last week, TuneCore announced on their blog that Amazon had removed all of their content from their MP3 stores in the UK and European Union. Ditto Music has offered free distribution to Amazon UK and Europe for affected TuneCore customers, but here at Zimbalam we are doing one better. Restart all your distribution through us for free to all stores and territories until 17^th February.

Come over to Zimbalam where you will get:

Free UPC & ISCRC codes

No add-on fees to access Zimbalam’s leading suite of digital promo tools:

Real time sales reporting, a streaming media player, artist websites, contact management & newsletter tools, promotional stats & an iPhone app.

Zimbalam provides all the tools artists need for an effective release campaign, including the ability to give fans free tracks in exchange for their email address and to provide selected users, such as media contacts, access to exclusive content.

Zimbalam also guarantee that every release will be listened to by Believe Digital’s A&R team. They look for the most promising emerging artists to upgrade onto a premium distribution deal with Believe, where they will receive access to expert advice and additional services.

Subscription to Zimbalam is free – sign up here to test the system. Existing Zimbalam customers can also take advantage of this deal.

Simply type in the code welcome in the promotional code box on the payment page to upload your releases for free.

Code valid until 17^th February 2012.

Zimbalam is currently unavailable in the US.

This week saw MIDEM, the annual music industry conference take place in Cannes, France. Among the many announcements made during the four day event, Webdoc.com announced integrations with SoundCloud, Songkick and Topspin, promising to “provide fans and pro users with a range of new opportunities for self expression, sharing and community engagement”, as reported by Music Week. A strategic partnership between Spotify and Coke was also hinted at.

One of the highlights included Hack Day, in which around 30 developers participated in creating new apps to enable fans to discover new music, and to have a deeper involvement with the music by their favourite artists. Hypebot has compiled together a full list of creations from Hack Day, which you can check out here.

Google +’s fast user increase over Facebook, and how it can benefit musicians

Could Google+ be the new dominant social network? A graph posted on Business Insider shows that the rise in users increased at a much faster rate than the early Facebook – whilst it took almost a year for Facebook to reach 1 million users, Google+ has reached 10 million users in two weeks. Furthermore, it’s taken Google+ less than one year to reach 100 million since the site launched, whereas it’s taken Facebook four years.

One free tool that has gained attraction within the first weeks of the Google + launch is Google hangouts, with musicians making use of it by hosting virtual concerts and reaching to fans worldwide, as well as gaining new listeners. According to a blog on Midem, US singer-songwriter Daria Musk played the first “G+ hangout concert” to just a small number of people in her circle, but word spread fast and within minutes she was playing to hundreds of people over the world. On her second G+ concert, she had reached 9,000 viewers across 100 countries.

Music Think Tank highlight why Google+ is beneficial for musicians here – click for an interesting read.

iTunes Match automatically censors explicit music?

Apple came up with iTunes Match, a service which automatically downloads the music you purchase on the iTunes Store on all your Apple devices using the Cloud. This seems like a genius idea, saving you time endlessly syncing your devices together, but Cult of Mac have discovered a glitch – iTunes Match automatically replaces any songs with explicit lyrics to the clean versions in a mass obscenity filter! Apple has acknowledged the glitch, and is already working on a fix.

James Vincent McMorrow – Special Edition of “Early In The Morning”

James Vincent McMorrow is going from strength to strength. His debut album “Early In the Morning” has earned him an extensive fan-base and significant critical plaudits since its release in March 2010. The record has since gone Gold, been nominated for the Choice Music Prize and the Irish Mercury, and has seen James spend the last two years touring the US and Europe extensively (stopping off at Glastonbury, Latitude and ‘Later…With Jools Holland’ along the way).

Following the success of his new single, a cover of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” featured in LOVEFiLM’s TV ad campaign through November, December and January and the single’s top 20 success in the charts, James will release a special edition of his acclaimed debut album on February 5^th through Believe Digital, before embarking on a tour around the UK this month. His 7 date tour will end with a sold out show at London’s Royal Festival Hall on February 15^th.

The Special Edition album is available to pre order here, featuring 4 bonus tracks including his stunning version of Higher Love.

IMPALA, the Independent Music Companies Association is in strong opposition of the move by Universal Music for their proposed £1.2billion takeover of one of the music giants, EMI’s recorded music division. As reported by City A.M, IMPALA, who has over 4000 members across Europe in its trade body, are concerned that Universal’s bid for EMI would disregard competition interests.

In a statement published on IMPALA’s website on 26^th January, Helen Smith (Executive Chair) said “Neither the USA nor Europe wants to see the music sector become a two-horse race, devoid of competition from any other companies.” As reported by CMU, if EMI are to be taken over by Universal, the sheer size of both Universal/EMI and Sony will overpower that of Warner and will effectively leave just two major labels as the big players in the industry.

The statement also brings to light the fact that independent artists contribute to only 6% of the Top 100 for both airplay and downloads across Europe, despite accounting for 80% of all new releases. Universal, EMI and Sony would also account for 76% of the Top 200, according to a new report by EMO and Eurosonic/Nooderslag. IMPALA also stated that in 2011 an astonishing 94% of airplay and 95% of the top 100 downloads in Europe were releases by the major labels, with Universal and Sony the leaders of the competition by a long way.

If the deal goes ahead, it will mean that artists such as The Beatles, Coldplay and Kylie Minogue, as well as the label’s subsidiaries including Parlophone and Virgin, will be under Universal’s control.

Napster relaunch in the UK and Europe set to battle Spotify?

Napster has been reborn from its original illegal file-sharing service status into a legal streaming service, with its recent relaunch in Europe and the UK.  According to the Telegraph, US digital music service Rhapsody, who bought the US version of Napster in 2011, decided to fold the service into their own operations in the US.  However, they announced yesterday that they have now acquired Napster’s international operations, keeping the service’s original name for rebranding in UK and Europe and kicking off a battle with Spotify in its first venture away from the US.

As reported by Digital Spy, Rhapsody president Jon Irwin commented “Consumer demand for subscription music has never been greater, and our partners are eager to bring music to the masses in new and creative ways. There is a lot of room for growth in this market and I firmly believe that 2012 is going to be our biggest year yet.”

Napster will offer two services to their customers – unlimited music streaming with access to over 15 million tracks on a home computer for a monthly fee of £5, and a mobile device option for £10.

Yesterday also marked the launch of Pure Music, another competitor, which will allow its users to stream over 15 million songs each month for £4.99. The new cloud-based music service has secured deals with all of the major labels.

The SOPA war continues…

According to Tech Crunch, an alliance of Pirate Party organisations are planning to sue the FBI in retaliation of recent events. Their argument is that the abrupt take-down of MegaUpload caused huge damages, both personally and economically, to many lawful users of the site. MegaUpload’s attorney Ira Rothken commented that the move was “offensive to the rights of Megaupload but also to the rights of millions of consumers worldwide”, as reported by ARS Technica. As well as this, hacker collective Anonymous announced a Facebook shutdown to take place on 28^th January in a video uploaded to YouTube. They have since then claimed that the video is fake.

The shutdown of MegaUpload has prompted other websites using file-sharing to do the same voluntarily, according to RT.

There has also been speculation that the announcement of MegaBox is the reason behind why FBI, DOJ and MPAA, all US-based agencies, called a halt to the overseas website so abruptly. As reported by Digital Music News, MegaBox was a platform at beta-stage for emerging independent artists offering a combination locker and a download store.  Offering artists to keep 90% of their earnings as well as paying them for free downloads, they posed as a huge threat to record labels. According to Tech Crunch, MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom described MegaBox as a competitor to iTunes, and the service was due to be available to the public this year. Dotcom had also announced plans of launching a new site as a platform to offer free premium movies under the title Megamovie, which meant that MegaUpload would evolve from just a digital locker site to a digital content player.

Have you got the Decks Factor?

In other news, Simon Cowell has announced plans of a new talent contest to “find the world’s greatest DJ”. According to Music Week, the yet unnamed show has been in development for over a year with a format already penned down, and will be co-produced  by Cowell’s Syco Entertainment and Will and Jada Pinkett Smiths’ production company, Overbrook, in partnership with Sony Pictures Television. Cowell tweeted on Wednesday:

Mixmag have hinted at the suggestion of the show being named “Decks Factor” – will this be a successful new venture, or a record flop? Let us know your thoughts.

This post was written by Zimbalam blogger, Hinako Omori