FINALLY THE REVENUE AND VOTING RESULTS PLEASE READ!20 June 2011

The Source Voting Revenue and Allocation

This is the summary of the final voting revenue figures informing all participants in the TV voting how much money was generated and how it is shared.

Firstly let me thank everyone for taking part in The Source series 1.  It was thrilling to see the enthusiasm of many of the artists for the co-operative principles of the show and to see some of the cynicism put aside as we put out a refreshingly different type of music TV.

The Source is an experiment in switching the focus of the music business away from pure commercial pressure to produce what a manipulated market requires, to real creativity appealing to discerning music lovers. As an experiment the series worked well, hundreds of bands registered on our website with a wide range of music in style, quality and creativity, the democratic process put over 70 artists into the TV show and provided national TV exposure through the competition. As a result of the Source, a number of artists moved into a new dimension in their music careers.

The source co-operative is funded by private individuals with a passion for seeing music develop without the manipulation of the big music companies. Development and production of the series cost over £80,000 and none of the investors have as yet seen any return on their investment.  The scale and quality of the series owes a great deal to the work of the Source team, in particular, Ben Martin, Lucy Whitehead and Jason Graham. It was great fun producing series 1 and we are working to develop the show on a bigger and more profitable scale for everyone.

Sharing the Proceeds
In total we received £7,769.38 in revenue from the telephone and text voting. The company supplying the phone lines charged us £2,867.13. The total revenue is £4902.25. The total number of votes was 15099. The amount of money generated per vote after telephone network* and independent voting service charges* are deducted (see below for full details) is therefore 32p.

There were some invalid votes* and artificially inflated traffic* (see below for full details) for which the source received no revenue.

The rules of the source state that 50% of the voting revenue goes to the artists. We had hoped that the cost of the phone company charges would be a much smaller proportion so have decided to pay out 25p per vote rather than 16p per vote. That means we are paying out a total of £3775.

The Breakdown

If you wish to claim your voting revenue please send us an email  to members@bethesource.biz by the 5^th July 2011 (14 days).  We need details of a bank account (name, sort code and account number) into which the proceeds can be paid by bank transfer. All unclaimed revenues will be used for further development of The Source.

We didn’t make as much money as we would have liked for everyone, and as you can see, The Source has made no money from any of the artists that were involved in the TV series.

We charged nothing to enter The Source and hope to recover our current significant losses through future production.

Well done to Urbnri (aka The Ri) who won the first prize of £10,000, 70 hours recording time at The Kasbahn and marketing and business support.

Finally massive thanks to all artists who took part in series 1 of The Source. It was a great success in that we provided national television exposure for over 70 artists. It may not have been quite the success we hoped in terms of voting revenue and business revenue as The Source currently stands at a significant loss from the investment we made into the development, recording and marketing of the series. However we have successfully completed over 20 hours of national broadcast on a relatively tight budget, which has given us the impetus to plan a new series.

The Source succeeded in its goal of providing unsigned artists with a platform to be heard through integrated media.

We will update you with future developments as soon as we can.

Keep writing great music and thanks again to all supporters of series 1 and 2.

Iain May

The Source Series Producer

*Network charges
Each network charges a different amount for text voting and voice calls.  For example with Virgin we might come out with 31p after their network charges, with O2 we might come out with 57p after network charges.

*Independent voting service charges
The Source cannot run the voting system ourselves as we aren’t registered by PhonePay+ so we hired an independent firm, Oxygen8, who supplied the phone lines and SMS numbers for the series. They also monitored the voting figures and gave us the results.

*Invalid Votes
Under PhonePay+ guidelines, Oxygen8 put a £30 limit on text calls. This is to protect viewers from overspending on their mobile phones. If you voted more than 30 times from your mobile then any votes over £30 were not charged for and the votes weren’t counted. These show up on the voting as Invalid votes. They are not included in the final revenue breakdown.

Also anybody who didn’t pay their bill had an impact on revenue. It was possible to run up a huge amount of votes from a landline (as there was no cap on voice voting) and then not pay the bill. Ultimately if the bill didn’t get paid, neither did we.

*Artificially inflated traffic
In some instances it was discovered that people were making extremely large numbers of votes from one number. Where possible these votes were checked by a customer services team who called the number to ensure that the bill payer was aware. In some cases the numbers were business addresses and it was not possible to ascertain awareness.

BT has a bad debt policy and also monitors large volume voting. If it feels that large volume voting is suspicious then it is flagged as AIT (ARTIFICIALLY INFLATED TRAFFIC) and it stops payment.

VOTING CLOSED TECH PROBLEMS FIXED!09 February 2011

Sorry about the technical problems with the site over the last few days. We've reverted back to normal and voting is now closed for series 2.

There's been some interesting developments here at the bunker although we don't have anything concrete to report yet. 

Keep checking back, we'll post news on here and FB as soon as we can.

Series 2 INFORMATION12 January 2011

Hello all,

We're in planning and development for series 2 and we have some big changes to make in order to improve The Source for series 2. With this in mind we are deciding whether to close the voting or keep it open. 

Please keep an eye on our Facebook page (make sure you 'like' it to keep abreast of latest updates) and keep checking back here for further information. 

We may be a bit quiet as we're working furiously on development and planning so please bear with us so we can make series 2 bigger and better than ever.

Thanks 

The Source team

And the winner is19 December 2010

URBNRI!!!

Congratulations to the lads, they win £10,000 and 70 hours of studio recording time at The Kasbahn

Last chance to vote for the winner!15 December 2010

Don't forget that lines close today at 4pm. Please make sure you vote before then or your vote won't count but you may still be charged.

So who's it going to be?

SHMOO
HANKY PARK
URBNRI
RAINBAND
WHITE SWALLOW
MISCUED VEIN

Lucy's Awesome Grand Finale Dress!13 December 2010

http://www.munkispanner.co.uk/

Caroline Baldry is a fresh, new Fashion Designer, the Creative Director of Munkispanner and the Creative Events Director of Xpose Yourself.  After graduating in 2009 and earning her First Class Honours Degree in Clothing Design and Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University; Caroline launched her own Subculture label called Munkispanner.  Munkispanner specialises in one off and limited edition clothing because we believe that everybody should look individual; after all there is nothing worse than going out and seeing somebody in the same dress as you’re wearing!

Munkispanner offers a range of different services from bespoke clothing  (including vintage inspired bridal and occasion wear  to more trend inspired bespoke items), made-to-measure and made-to-order clothing, ready-to-wear, and unusual and original recycled and reinvented eco and vintage clothing (also sold in Affleck’s Palace).

Munkispanner’s British subculture clothing includes Mod, Skinhead, Ska, Northern Soul, Scooterist, Rockabilly, Fashionista, Eco Warrior, Vintage and all things Retro! Everything we sell is either made in Britain (mainly by us), or acquired from an ethical source.  

Struggling to get seen as a new company Caroline created a new project called Xpose Yourself. Xpose Yourself is a non profit project aimed at getting fresh new talent, i.e. students, graduates and new companies; exposure and experience within the creative industries. This is achieved by the collaboration of these creative industries to host events where everybody can showcase their work, be it art, music, performance, photography, beauty and last but not least fashion! 

Facebook Group Search; Munkispanner Presents – Xpose Yourself

Link: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=104903166230807

Grand Finale TONIGHT!11 December 2010

Tonight is the Grand Finale of The Source series 1 and YOUR vote counts more than ever. The finalists are:
SHMOO
HANKY PARK
URBNRI
RAINBAND
WHITE SWALLOW
MISCUED VEIN

Tune in TONIGHT at 9pm SKY 203 or here on the website.

Grand Finale THIS Saturday!07 December 2010

Thanks to everyone who came down to support the 6 finalists, it was an amazing night and we hope you enjoyed it too. 

The footage will be broadcast on Saturday 11th December and the voting will be open from 9pm to 4pm on Wednesday 15th December

The results show will be broadcast at 9pm on Saturday 18th December and you'll find out who won the £10,000 and full weeks recording at The Kasbahn studios.

Deadline extension30 November 2010

In case you are wondering, we've extended the deadline! We are in the midst of various plans for series 2 and as series one has been so hectic we are in dire need of a break to recover and make series 2 even better than series 1. In order to do that we need more time and we're also going to look at the format to make it more entertaining and not quite so long as series 1. This could mean that we start later on than initially planned but it will be a much slicker series.

Thanks for your patience, the last semi-final of series 1 is on Wednesday 1st December, the filming of the Grand Finale is on Sunday 5th December at FAC251 The Factory and the Grand Finale will be broadcast on Saturday 11th December with the results the week after on Saturday 18th December.

Grand Finale latest22 November 2010

Only one spot left in the final now. We can add Rainband to the line up!

Shmoo

Hanky Park

Urbnri

Rainband

Miscued Vein

White Swallow

We need your support!12 November 2010

The Grand Finale is looming and with only 23 days to go we need you to spread the word far and wide. Join our facebook group The Source TV (or search for Be the Source) and join the event The Grand Finale. We're planning a really big party and we need to sell as many tickets at £10 each as we can to make it as phantasmagorical as possible. We're going for a carnivale theme so think burlesque dancers,  freaks and fire breathers

The Finalists so far12 November 2010

So far we have 4 finalists with 2 still to be decided by YOU!

The Finalists are:

SHMOO

HANKY PARK

URBNRI

Sign up for series 2 is free!24 October 2010

We decided that although it costs us a lot of time and resource to administer all the artists who register we just didn't want to put any charges on to you so once again you can register for series 2 for FREE!! 

Those who did pay the initial £10 admin fee have been refunded to make sure it's all fair and square but if you haven't received your refund please call us on 0161 929 0518

Customer Services notice10 October 2010

Due to a technical error unfortunately some votes may have been charged at the rate of £1.50 instead of the advertised £1. We are in the process of contacting those voters who have been overcharged to arrange re-imbursement. If  you have further questions or would prefer to contact us directly please call 01908919040  where our customer service team will be able to assist. Our team is available weekdays between the hours of 8:30 am and 4:30pm.  This error purely concerned the amount charged per vote and has had no effect on the number of votes counted or any results. Please accept our sincere apologies for this error we have made it our priority to  reimburse people as soon as possible and have taken steps to prevent this issue occurring in the future.

Want to play FAC251 The Factory? 23 September 2010

To all artists - if you want to play a gig at the iconic FAC251 The Factory and have a live track broadcast on a special show contact members@bethesource.biz with the subject title I WANNA PLAY AT FAC251 and we'll send you info.

We are now taking new artists for series 2!01 September 2010

As of NOW we are accepting artists for series 2! You can upload up to 3 videos to the site but remember NO covers and you must own ALL the copyright.

Please check the rules on the side of Band sign up and read the terms and conditions carefully before uploading.

It's only ONE song per video so don't upload loads of clips of different songs please or they'll be cut and you'll lose out.

Good luck and may the source be with you...

Voting closing soon30 August 2010

With just 30 minutes til the voting closes we go over 16,000 but nobody will know how safe they are until 5pm tomorrow (1st September) on www.manchesterradioonline.com when we announce the top 120 in reverse order!

Voting closes on 1st September18 August 2010

GET VOTING!!! the chart will be closed on 1st September so if you like a video or if you have a video up make sure you get the votes in now. We'll take the top 120 through to the TV shows which start on the 12th September on SKY 203.

Just to remind you, we've put a countdown clock on the site. 

Want to see your favourite video on telly? VOTE NOW!

You can NOW VOTE for your favourite tracks!!28 July 2010

You can NOW VOTE for your favourite tracks!! Vote for as many songs as you like but only ONCE per song and remember YOU are the judges, nobody else so get voting NOW!!

Great article on The Source here, some of the bands who've already put videos up are getting press coverage27 July 2010

Great article on The Source here, some of the bands who've already put videos up are getting press coverage and there's a load more stories being written so GET YOUR VIDS UP NOW!! Have a look for yourself: http://www.whathappenedlastnight.net/manchester/news/The%20Source%2...

Launch party was a triumph, loads of press26 July 2010

Launch party was a triumph, loads of press, Clint Boon and Terry Christian came down to check it out and have their pictures taken with us. Great performances from SoulFire, Scratters, Six10Repeater and Travesty. We've been recovering and dealing with the follow up from the night. Check out our Facebook for pictures of the launch party. We're also editing the video of the night to put up very soon, keep checking in.

The music press gets hold of the incredible story18 July 2010

The music press gets hold of the incredible story and despite the appearance of loads of other talent shows the NME states that The Source actually holds the promise of a decent music programme with a potentially valuable input to the industry

The press launch takes place at FAC25118 July 2010

The press launch takes place at FAC251 The Factory with live music from Scratters and the funky disco pig, Six10Repeater and Travesty

Iain and Ben meet up with Peter Hook for a quick chat about The Source and to get Hooky's 14 July 2010

FAC251 The Factory confirms their support for The Source and agrees to host the weekly shows and launch party from their prestigious venue30 June 2010

Guardian Media Group agree to give their support to The Source29 June 2010

Guardian Media Group agree to give their support to The Source beginning with a push on Rock Radio and our first of many interviews with Mike Sweeney

We7.com agree to sell all artists downloads on their incredibly popular website11 June 2010

We7.com agree to sell all artists downloads on their incredibly popular website and also pledge to give 50% back to the artists