Universal joins growing list of online A&R talent spotters.

The days of A&R offices cluttered with demo CDs look set to become a thing of the past, in the wake of the third major to adopt new submission policy

by Stuart Clarke

Universal Classics & Jazz has become the latest record company to turn over its search for new talent to the internet by launching an online demo submission platform that will be rolled out across the rest of Universal later this year.

Following similar moves by Sony BMG and Parlophone, UCJ is now trialling the Demo Management platform, which allows artists to submit music, biography information and images to the label via UCJ website, www.classicsandjazz.co.uk, rather than having to send in physical demos.

The platform rolled out last week as Sony BMG put into action its own system and waved goodbye to the demo CD for good. With immediate effect, the major is refusing to accept any more physical demos and instead is transferring the whole submission process online. In a bold move, its RCA and Columbia divisions have teamed up with blogging platform Vox.com to form community networks where acts can make their presence known via one of two web addresses, www.columbia.emos.co.uk and www.rcad.mos.co.uk. Once there, artists can establish their own profile on the Vox.com network, incorporating biographical information, images and music, which can in turn be viewed and reviewed by the record company's A&R team.

Sony BMG UK chairman and CEO Ged Doherty says, "In this day and age, we should be doing it differently; it seems so antiquated, when everything else is online - banking, travel arrangements - that you still have to wait for a physical CD to come through the post."

The major has been trialling the system for the past six weeks and, while it has existed largely off the radar of the wider music community, Doherty says bands are already discovering the sites. "I think it will very quickly snowball," he adds.