Forbes.com
By Paul Glader
While some people worry classical music is struggling to maintain an audience, frenchman Hervé Boissière is trying to make money by running what the New York Times describe as "the closest thing to a classical Netflix."
He founded medici.tv in 2008, turning it into a leading digital platform for classical music worldwide. It airs more than 150 concerts, operas, ballets and master classes live each year and has an archive of more than 2,000 videos on demand from more than 3,000 musical works.
The platform averages 60,000 unique visitors in the U.S. alone each month who tune into events such as concerts at Carnegie Hall, Staatskapelle Berlin, the Salzburg Festival and the Bolshoi Ballet. The platform boasts 6.6 million video views per year with Europe being the largest market followed by North America, Asia and Russia. The company uses a Freemium model, where some content is free online and a premium subscription of $19.90 per month offers an unlimited subscription to the medici content.
Before medici.tv, Hervé Boissière was Managing Director of the French indie label naïve (he created naïve classique with Patrick Zelnik in 1998). In the 90’s, he worked as an executive at Warner Music France and Warner Classics. He has produced more than 500 audio and visual recordings, including winners of many international awards. We found a quiet corner in the lobby of the boisterous boutique Hudson Hotel in midtown Manhattan recently to talk with Boissière about the first 10 years of medici.tv. (Note: The interview has been edited for brevity.)
Glader: What led you to start this company?
Boissière: Yeah, the idea is very simple and it was just to continue my work and my job...after I created my own label, which was an independent structure, more flexible, smarter, faster. But it was also difficult to fight against the big revolution of the digital/new world. ... If you were to continue to connect artists and public and audience, the only way to do it is to change the format but not change the mission... In 2007 we did our test, you know, with the first classical music festival ever live streamed. ...It was a first experience in Verbier in Switzerland. Based on the results, which were extremely encouraging, we opened the company, that's why we celebrated our 10th anniversary.
Glader: What was your background? Did you like all music or did you have a particular interest in classical music?
Boissière: I'm not a musician myself....I really discovered classical music through the radio, the radio I was listening at home, because nobody was practicing an instrument and we were either going to a concert hall or there was no offer, but to receive the beauty and the power of using at home, a radio, a machine, was extremely important... Decades after and I'm still completely involved in that transmission, in that sharing, in that democratization and worldwide of course, which is extremely important for classical music because we always say it's a niche business or it's a small business. Then when you connect and when you aggregate all the legion communities all over the world and the end of the day, it's many, many people and it's a great, great community.
Glader: How did you find and develop the audience as you were starting out? You had that first test, you said at the music festival and then how did you know that this audience was going to be there?
Boissière: The first time, we didn't know…. We immediately reached the key people being online at that time and they rapidly shared that with their friends... The magic of viral marketing... The real digital natives and millennials born in the 80s, 90s, they are just discovering classical music now. That shows that surely there is a huge potential.
Glader: So tell me has Medici TV turned the corner in terms of profitability?
Boissière: Now we just break even. So after years of investment, it's already good to see that we found a business model... We've developed a second platform, especially designed for education to universities and it's extremely successful and we have over 200 universities in the U.S., with all the big names like Columbia, Stanford, UCLA, Julliard School here in New York...
Glader: In terms of measuring success, what for you are the most important measures?
Boissière: I think sometimes the number of views is extremely important because that shows to the world that classical music can become very popular. For example, when we did the Tchaikovsky competition three years ago, and we will do it again in 2019, in the end we reached over 12 million views, you know, so for, classical music even, that's a lot.
Glader: So the first 10 years of Medici what would have been the most important leadership insights or lessons that you've learned running this company?
Boissière: I think to prove that watching classical music...could work... So I've been the very first one to say, OK, let's do it. Let's make sure that the quality of the program will attract a lot of people, is a great achievement for us. And second, the satisfaction we have is to see how the artists are supported. We created a very artist- friendly relationship because they understood that the promotion, the visibility, the exposure was something quite unique... So Medici has been since the very first day completely international. We chose a name, a brand, which is global...because classical music by definition is global.