Radu Baron: "In the music business, happiness is constant"

• Interview with Radu Baron, general manager, RBA Records

Reporter: How many players are currently active in the music industry?

Radu Baron: There are about 50 labels, including the very small ones - which are only active on a specific segment or musical style.

Reporter: Have there been any labels that closed their doors in this period of economic crisis?

Radu Baron: Yes, some labels closed their doors lately, but I don't know if this was necessarily the result of the economic crisis.

Reporter: How much revenue does RBA Records make in one year?

Radu Baron: First of all, it has to be understood that artists and those that work with them don't make it their goal to grow old on a pile of money. We make a lot, we spend a lot, but our biggest profit is the beautiful life we lead.

You could very well be a label that makes 1 million Euros in sales, but the CDs in question are made in another country for foreign artists, in which case you get a commission of about 5-10%; or you can get 200,000 Euros in sales, in products made by your own label, and the profit stays with you. We sell the artists that we manage and produce, and as a result, the turnover and the profit are not that much different from one another. In response to what you asked, every year the turnover is about 1 million lei.

Reporter: How many employees do you have?

Radu Baron: We work a lot using partnerships, meaning that we have contracts with the artists, who get paid a percentage of the earnings. The permanent "team" comprises about 15 people.

Reporter: How would you describe a profitable artist?

Radu Baron: A profitable artist is one that sings over his own instrumental tracks, without a band, who doesn't share the money with the band. You can have a band that makes 10,000 Euros, but has 15 members, and every one of them gets a very small amount, and the artist gets about 3,000 for a concert. Moreover, for a band that big, it is very hard to play more than two gigs in a day; whereas an artist that plays a live gig using his instrumentals can travel very quickly and makes more in the end.

Reporter: Where does profit come from in the music industry - from the quality of the artist or from the number of concerts they hold?

Radu Baron: Profit also comes from the quality of the product. But it has always been people who sold a lot of cheap products who made the money, rather than those who sold a few products at very high prices.

Reporter: How many artists are currently still recording at RBA Records?

Radu Baron: We have our own studio where we only record for our own artists. We have about 15 bands under management including Haiducii, Hora, Moroşanii, Etnic, Româncuţe, Senzual. Almost everything these bands put out is recorded at RBA. The songs are acquired from various authors, some of which work exclusively with our label. We also work with other artists such as Felipe, with whom we just finished recording a song together with Senzual. We have also worked with Adi Cristescu, with Marius Moga, and with many established composers.

Reporter: Was there a drop in the number of artists, over the last few years?

Radu Baron: Speaking of profits again, good times mean good profits, not necessarily more products. You can have a very good product and do better than someone else who has 1,000 products. Right now, we have both quality and quantity, things are going OK, but they could be better, Heaven forbid we do any worse!

Reporter: Were the crisis years difficult?

Radu Baron: In the beginning, the crisis has created a shockwave, and some of the players in the industry have disappeared.

Reporter: Did the crisis start making its effects felt in 2008, like in most other economic sectors?

Radu Baron: Sometime around that moment, yes. But we at RBA Records, we had an advantage. We have many bands under management which play ethnic Romanian music, folklore artists who also play at weddings. The moment the crisis began, the number of weddings didn't drop, because people usually raise money for the wedding far in advance, and hence, even though people no longer had money, and there were no concerts being held, cities would no longer celebrate their anniversaries and companies would no longer host parties for their employees - we withstood this period quite easily because weddings were still happening.

We have artists in every segment, an it all worked out - Senzual and Velvet, which are house-dance bands, included some of the old Romanian songs in their repertoire, and what they play at private parties is a lot different than what you see on TV, using live instrumentals. Therefore, we have overcome the crisis period pretty easily, because we have been active on the wedding market which kept working, even though the weddings were smaller.

Reporter: Did the artists' earnings drop during the crisis period?

Radu Baron: They didn't, artists that play live had no problems, their earnings did not drop, in some cases they actually increased, there have been no differences. A good, notorious artist, makes about 1,000 Euros per gig, a "good" wedding starts off at about 5,000 Euros for the band alone and we have had weddings with budgets of several thousand Euros.

The good weddings set aside a budget ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 Euros for the band, but one can make a good wedding with about 1,500 Euros.

Reporter: How much does an artist make on one gig?

Radu Baron: Concerts last about 40-45 minutes, and after subtracting the VAT, and the taxes, most artists still make approximately 1,000 Euros. Those who make less than 1,000 Euros are artists that aren't doing so well, they are not successful, they don't draw the crowds. Out of that money, the artist gets about 30% of the total receipts, after paying his team and taxes.

Reporter: You previously mentioned corporate parties. How did this segment go?

Radu Baron: This market is doing very well. When it comes to corporate parties, we are actually seeing a good evolution over the last 5-6 years, companies have grown, the multinationals came here and brought this trend with them. Whereas in the beginning, they would invite their customers over to a restaurant, demands have begun to increase, and companies that could afford it started looking for more: exclusively reserved locations and an included gig.

Reporter: What artists do companies hire for these parties? Do they choose foreign artists over Romanian ones?

Radu Baron: Competition makes the market grow. If a company hires an artist, then another one will bring in another, more famous artist. Eventually, when they can't find any domestic artist that is famous enough, they resort to foreign artists, even though most of the foreign artists they bring in are "cold products" - they go cheap, about 3-4,000 Euros. Our artists are also called to sing abroad - no man is an emperor in his own country. It's natural for people to want to hear something new.

Reporter: Did you get involved in the organization of concerts as well?

Radu Baron: We also hold events, but for those where tickets are involved, we didn't get involved that much, because it's a more uncertain market - there is the situation where you go for top artists, but you can easily get screwed - you could lose hundreds of thousands of Euros from one day to the next, just like you could win a lot more than that over the same time. Since it's a riskier market, we have opted to sell our own product. I come from Transylvania and I am a nationalist, and as a result I want to sell my products and that is how we went abroad with Romanian artists - to Europe, Asia and Africa. I am not very happy to see foreign artists take our money.

Reporter: I have asked you that question because there are some concerts which are sometimes not as good as the audience expected them to be...

Radu Baron: Advertising is key, in cases like those. If there many people turning up for a concert like, that they are the only ones who stand to lose.

Reporter: What are the drawbacks of this business?

Radu Baron: We like what we do. If you are not having fun, you can't entertain others. There are no drawbacks, it is a beautiful life.

Reporter: I've noticed that many artists went the entrepreneur route, by starting their own record companies.

Radu Baron: Yes, it is far more profitable. Nowadays, labels have a somewhat different structure, I could very well compare them with supermarkets, which feature several brands of products. The artist brings his own label, and grants the record company the right to exploit to a certain degree and on a certain territory his product. Many artists followed this model, by creating a purely theoretical label.

Reporter: Are you considering or do you think you will ever be tempted to give up this business?

Radu Baron: Give up now, when it's doing so well? No, I haven't thought about it because I have invested. There are some investments behind it, assets, there is no way I would do that.

Reporter: What will the future look like for this industry?

Radu Baron: The Romanian music industry is currently working because of appearance of Atomic TV a few years ago. At the time of the launch I talked to the owner of the station and advised him to only play Romanian music. For a few years, they only played Romanian music, it is that station which allowed Romanian music to exist. This is how videoclip firms appeared, you could call them Romanian movie studios, which now make videos for major foreign artists.

The moment they no longer wanted to broadcast Romanian music, which the public had begun to like, they started broadcasting music in various languages - English, Portuguese, and this has spurred our artists, who also entered the foreign music markets. I said two years ago, that music sung in Romanian would be back, and now the radios are broadcasting a lot of Romanian music. It's the pendulum effect.

The market is very varied, in the future radio (studio) artists will also be very successful. There is also the trend of artists playing with bands - right now live concerts, as well as concerts where "covers" are played are very well received, and on the radio and international broadcasting house-dance is doing well.

Reporter: What would you compare this business to?

Radu Baron: In terms of beauty, I would compare it with tourism. Our work is perpetual fun. The satisfaction you get when you create something is great - regardless of what creative industry you work in. Throughout my life, I have had the pleasure of making several businesses and each time when I was successful, I was happy. But in the music business, happiness is constant.