Watching a DJ at work close-up isn’t always the most riveting viewing experience. Unless you’re learning to DJ yourself, in which case it becomes much more interesting and useful.
That’s one reason why British startup Chew.tv is an intriguing spin on streaming DJ mixes, as seen on sites from Boiler Room to Ministry of Sound, and as heard on services like Mixcloud.
The company has described itself “Twitch for DJs”, doing for dance music what Amazon’s live-streaming subsidiary has done for gaming. DJs use it to broadcast live video of their sets to online audiences, usually with a camera focused on their decks.
In just a few months since launching, Chew has signed up 4,000 registered DJs who’ve created more than 7,000 broadcasts, with more than 13,000 hours of sets watched so far.
The company, founded by Brits Wil Benton and Ben Bowler, recently participated in the Ignite startup accelerator in Newcastle, and is now based in London.
“We’re just closing our first seed round, and some investors we talk to see it as music/tech – the riskiest thing you can do as a startup – but it’s because it is a risky thing that there’s value to it,” Benton tells the Guardian.
“We feel the technology has been there for a long time, but we’re just reaching a point where loads of things are colliding,” adds Bowler.
He’s right: faster internet connections, better video streaming technology and sharp growth in the number of people DJing in their bedrooms or at parties all make this a good time to be exploring this particular area.
In contrast to established sites, Chew isn’t really about clubs. “Once you’re not in a club with bad lighting and sweat dripping off the ceiling, it becomes more interesting from an engagement point of view,” says Benton.
Until now, Chew has been more about people in (usually well-lit and mostly sweat-free) rooms showing off their mixing skills for an online audience, with live conversation accompanying the audiovisual stream.
‘A chance to show how you perform’
Benton cites a blog post by Josh Elman of venture capital firm Greylock Partners about the company’s investment in mobile broadcasting startup Meerkat as evidence of the importance of these social features.
“He talked about ‘spontaneous togetherness’ which is a really nice phrase for explaining what this whole cultural thing is. On a digital level, you can engage with anyone doing any kind of cool stuff, anywhere in the world, at any time,” he says.
“That’s hugely exciting for us, that we can connect that two-way dialogue. That’s where we’re getting to.”
There’s a prominent phrase on Chew’s homepage, “Learn from the best”, which hints at more potential: a site where people don’t just watch and listen to DJ sets, but learn to DJ as well.
“We’ve spent the last three months bringing the bedroom DJs on board, but we’re already at the point where what they’re broadcasting is being used as an educational tool. Once we bring the bigger guys on board, the opportunity to watch how those DJs craft their mixes is powerful from both sides,” says Benton.
“For a top-level DJ it’s a chance to show how you perform: the craft. And for the grassroots it’s a chance to learn how to mix and be a proper DJ, which is something that can be very expensive if you go to a formal DJ school at the moment.”
Chew is already investigating partnerships with those schools, however: it’s already been filming at the School of Sound Recording (SSR) in London, and is thinking about how it might expand into pure tutorials content alongside the regular streaming sets.
How will Chew make money? Bowler says the company is planning to raise money then focus on growing its community for a year or two, before turning its attention to brand partnerships – a strategy that’s also being tried by Mixcloud.
“When we get to the point of having a big, engaged audience, we want to be able to go to brands and pick and choose who we want to work with in terms of collaborating on content,” he says.
Chew is also thinking about “Pro” accounts for DJs who want more features, and are prepared to pay for them. Again, something that Mixcloud has tried, as well as music streaming service SoundCloud.
But back to that “Twitch for DJs” comparison. It’s a great soundbite, but mightn’t it become a millstone when – as is happening right now – the actual Twitch tries to become Twitch for DJs?
Twitch is working with a growing number of DJs and dance musicians, including a recent deal to livestream the high-profile Ultra Music Festival.
“It’s very positive for us: it proves that what we’re doing is of interest. If someone like Twitch who’s the biggest player in live video is looking at doing what we’re doing, it validates us,” says Benton.
“They’re going after the top-end DJ market – they did Ultra – which proves that those DJs are interested in doing this kind of thing. But what’s confusing from our point of view is that Twitch is the livestreaming platform for gamers, so for them to move into other verticals is to risk diluting their brand messaging.”
Bowler agrees. “They’ve led the way, but their strength on the gaming side is they’ve built up personalities and a language in the chat, similar to YouTube personalities. We don’t think that will necessarily translate over to DJs very easily,” he says.
“You’re not going to go to the Twitch homepage and see DJs there. So we think we’re in a good position, especially as we’ve built our structure around lower-level DJs.”
Benton chimes back in. “The power in the global community is with the bedroom DJs. The top DJs may have the fanbases ... but it’s the amateurs in the bedrooms and at the weekends that make up the community.”
Chew’s ambition is to help some DJs on their journey from bedroom amateur to globally-renowned pro. Although to last long enough to see that through, the company will need to successfully navigate the complex world of music licensing.
DJ sets are a particular challenge here, when white-labels and mash-ups cause all kinds of headaches in terms of figuring out who to pay and how – as a famous row between EDM star Kaskade and SoundCloud over copyright removals of his uploads showed in 2014.
‘We want the artists to be paid’
For now, Chew has a “blanket” licence from British collecting society PRS for Music, which will cover the company up until it has more than £200k of annual revenues.
“We went to the main rights holders and collecting societies before we launched, probably quite naively, to find out if we can do this in an organised, logical and structured way,” says Benton.
“But the legal framework that has existed from the copyright side is so archaic, the framework for doing what we do just doesn’t exist yet. We’ve met with three of the big law firms who specialise in music licensing, and had different feedback from all three about what we should do.”
Bowler stresses that Chew wants to pay the musicians whose music is streamed on the service by its DJs, suggesting that the difficulty of solving the problem of how is one of the exciting things at the startup. “We want the artists to be paid,” he says.
Figuring out how to do that is one of the challenges lying ahead. In the near-term, Chew is working hard to help visitors find the DJs and sets that they’d like, while mulling partnerships with other sites and services – for example, internet radio stations who might broadcast their DJs’ sets on Chew.
“This isn’t a winner-takes-all game: it’s an ecosystem. And we’re unique enough that we can play in that ecosystem,” says Bowler, who adds that Chew is thinking hard about how it can promote its DJs on services as varied as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Meerkat and even Vine.
Chew is also hoping to get some big-name DJs on board, with some design changes planned – branded pages for DJs and the ability to take over its homepage, for example – to entice them to give the service a try.
“It’s about six weeks until we start having the first massive shows,” says Bowler. “We’re doing five meetings a day with some really amazing DJs, and they all see the value.”
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