LiveXLive Wants to Make the ‘SportsCenter’ of Live Music

By Janko Roettgers

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Live entertainment company LiveXLive wants to make streams of big concerts about a lot more than just the gigs: The Santa Monica-based company is getting ready to unveil a new show format dubbed “LiveZone” at the upcoming Rolling Loud Festival in Los Angeles later this month that will include artist interviews, music news, commentary and more.

Sounds a bit like something you might expect for the TV broadcast of a ballgame? That’s no accident. “We took the playbook from ESPN to apply it to music,” explained chairman and CEO Rob Ellin during a recent interview with Variety, likening the format to a “‘SportsCenter’ for Music.”

Ellin said that the company had been working for around 4 years on building a social live music platform. And a year ago, LiveXLive acquired the struggling music streaming platform Slacker, which has since grown to 600,000 paying subscribers, and over 1.2 million monthly active users.

The company is now working on combining live events with the on-demand programming Slacker is offering. In its fiscal 2019, LiveXLive plans to stream 27 concerts to audiences around the globe. And in addition to those live streams, the company also plans to produce original live- and on-demand programming, including “LiveZone.”

The first episode of “Livezone” will be streamed from the Rolling Loud Festival in Los Angeles on December 14, and mix on-stage with backstage footage as well as a dedicated newsroom and in-crowd coverage. “You’re gonna have that olympic experience,” Ellin said. “It’s gonna be a unique proposition.”

LiveXLive is a publicly traded subsidiary ofLiveXLive Media, Inc.. It currently has a market capitalization of $285 million, and generated just $8 million in revenue during its most recent fiscal quarter, with a net loss of $10.3 million.