Frank oversees CMT’s Music and Talent division, and all of the network’s on-air and digital music initiatives across multiple platforms, including CMT’s vast range of properties such as films, games, touring and other program enterprise businesses. Frank came to CMT from Yahoo! Music where he was Vice President of Music Programming and Label Relations. Prior to Yahoo, Frank was senior music director at The Box Music Network, managing all daily music activity on the music video network and coordinating programming efforts that resulted in the network's first Emmy award. Other resume credits include marketing and A&R for Ignition Records, managing a live music venue, programming for broadcast radio stations and creating two local music video shows. Frank holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY.

 

Q: What got you into the music business?
A: I always loved music from day one.  I started collecting 45s when I was 6 or 7 and quickly amassed a huge collection of LPs and singles.  Before long I was DJ-ing and it always seemed to be a fait accompli that I’d be working with music.

 

Q: What are your main responsibilities at  CMT ?
A: I am overseeing the music strategy for all of the areas that the CMT banner flies under.  This includes music videos, original music programming, online streaming, mobile, video on demand, and any other technologies that come our way.  With that, I’m looking to have all the platforms unified so we can move the needle on artists and songs in a way that has more impact than the channel has done in the past.

 

Q: What do you consider your most significant accomplishments at CMT to date ?
A: It’s only been a month since I got here, but we quickly put together a huge promotion for the debut of Carrie Underwood’s video where we played the video for 6 hours straight.  We got a big lift on our website, a lot of press and a lot of online chatter in blogs and message boards.  Some people liked it, some didn’t, but it did serve as a great reminder to the industry that people watch a lot of videos on CMT and care about the videos they see.

 

Q: Under your leadership, what new programming (film, game shows, etc…) do you plan to launch ?
A: We’re still in the early planning stages of what our new slate will look like.  We are looking towards ideas where music videos are presented in a unique, different fashion.  I think the live music TV show can also be reinvented.  Amongst all that, all of the programming will have a much deeper tie into all of CMT’s platforms, including dot com, mobile, VOD and more.

 

Q: What demographic audience is CMT trying to reach?
A: The country format naturally leans towards a female audience.  Outside of that, we’re looking at the active and potentially active country fan.  This encompasses both the hardcore older fan to the younger new diverse audience that is being brought in from the success of artists like Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift.

 

Q: How is CMT utilizing the internet in their marketing strategies ?
A: To me, the internet is not a marketing strategy.  It is another direct interaction with CMT.  The amount of people we get to watch videos is not just judged from Nielsen ratings anymore.  The views online continue to grow as more of our audience adapts to online video viewing.  With that growth, CMT will continue to lead country music on any screen our viewer wishes to experience us on.

 

Q: Will CMT be dedicating more or less airtime to the playing of music videos in the future ?
A: CMT has been increasing video airtime in the past few years, just not in the traditional sense.  Every month, CMT.com, mobile and VOD usage continues to grow and expand our ability to get country music to the fans.  As for the traditional TV outlet, we are expecting that more time will be devoted to videos as we gauge the success of our reinvention of the music video presentation.

 

Q: What criteria is used to determine whether a music video will be played on CMT ?
A: The choice is made based on how well we feel the music will react with our audience.  There’s no one set thing that makes a successful video.  But it has to react, whether that’s ratings, sales, online usage or hopefully all of the above.  All videos do get their start on CMT.com and that proves to be a good testing ground to gauge audience reaction before it makes its way to the channel.

 

Q: What makes CMT decide to increase rotation on a music video ( from light to medium to heavy ) ?
A: It’s following that audience reaction.  Having a video on the air that causes no consumer response doesn’t help CMT and it doesn’t help the label.  That reaction does not have to be some big huge spike, but it has to be noticeable and consistently grow.

 

Q: Does an independent artist without a record label have a chance to have their music video played on CMT, and if they do, what is the submission process. ?
A: We welcome videos from any source.  All country videos submitted will be placed on CMT.com where we can see what the viewer thinks.  One never knows where the next big star will be coming from so we need to always be open as we look for new stars.

 

Q: How do viewers request airplay for their favorite music video ?
A: Our Power Picks show remains a very popular show in which the viewer can vote on which video they want to see on air.  Viewers also get airplay instantly on CMT.com and on our VOD service, which provides the instant gratification the audience desires.  Through that, we can better program our playlists during our TV video hours.

 

Q: Is there anything you would like the records labels to do differently that would help make your job or that of your staff at CMT easier ?
A: Make more videos.  The music video audience, whether online or on TV, is not the radio audience.  The cycle for a radio single is twice as long as that of an effective hit video.  Video reacts much more like singles reacted in the 70s and 80s.  Having videos made based on the radio cycle severely damages any opportunity video has to grow the country music business.  Having more videos for non-radio singles will result in additional sales and more familiar catalog for artists.  It’s a win-win situation.

 

Q: What in your opinion is causing the present declining country album sales ?
A: The biggest reason for less record sales is less record stores, plain and simple.  By having fewer outlets in which one can purchase a record, you eliminate many impulse purchases that drove the mega sales in recent years.  I think we all presumed most sales were coming from driven music fans, but the reality is that most of those sales came from a snap decision in the moment.  If there’s less shelf space and fewer stores to sell, the impulse purchase goes away.  A decade ago, there was 2 or 3 music stores in every shopping mall.  Now you’d be hard-pressed to find one.  That says it all.

 

Q: What challenges does the industry face to increase country music’s popularity ?
A: The challenge is not increasing Country’s popularity.  The natural growth opportunity in the format was one of my deciding factors in moving from Yahoo! to CMT.  The challenge is in monetizing the popularity.  Country’s songs don’t lend themselves as easily to alternate revenue such as ringtones and digital sales are just now starting to show significant signs of life.  The monetization is probably being realized first with increasing ticket and merchandise sales.  The challenge is effectively bundling in recorded music into that popularity increase so it too can be financially recognized of its importance.

 

Q: Do you see the major label record consolidations as a good or bad thing for the future of country music ?
A: Consolidation is rarely a good thing in any business.  It results in less competition which makes it harder for everyone to strive for their best.  It also results in overworked employees who are being asked to handle an unsustainable workload.  But that being said, the success that several country independents have had in the last few years suggest that more indies will be rising up and will in essence become majors.

 

Q: Do you see the recent surge of new independent labels as a good or bad thing for country music ?
A: It’s a fantastic thing!  It provides competition and diversity.  It allows brings more new music into the format, which is desperately needed.

 

Q: What advice do you have for someone wanting to get into the TV music business ?
A: Work hard.  Then work harder.  This is not a business where you can clock in from 9 to 5 and think you’ll be able to move ahead.  Take on a lot of tasks, keep bringing up ideas for potential growth, and never get discouraged.

 

Q: What Are Some of Your Passions / Hobbies ?
A: Music, both recorded and live.  Just about any genre, as long as the musicianship is there.  I’m also a big poker player and love quirky hard-to-find foreign cult films.

 

Q: What is most important to you in life ?
A: My family and friends ultimately take top importance, but music is such a close second it sometimes feels like a photo finish that I can’t control.

 

Q: If someone want to contact you, how would they ?
A: Email is always the best at jay.frank@cmt.com, though please don’t be discouraged if it takes a minute to get a response.
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