What is TAXI Dispatch?
Beginning in 1999, TAXI led the shift to using music from independent composers and artists in TV shows, feature films, and commercials. We created our Dispatch service to accommodate the shorter deadlines often mandated by Music Supervisors and the Production Music Libraries that served them.
The Indie-music-in-media trend exploded in the mid-2000s, and more than half of TAXI’s “regular” listings began to focus on music for film and TV. Shorter deadlines became the norm, and it looked like TAXI Dispatch was becoming unnecessary.
As we got ready to discontinue Dispatch, we noticed something unique and unexpected was happening. The majority of TAXI’s Dispatch members were film and TV Instrumental composers who gravitated to requests from Music Libraries.
They were signing more deals from their Dispatch forwards because the companies seemed to respond more quickly. Although their timelines weren’t significantly shorter, the Music Libraries’ response times to our members indicated their needs were more immediate.
In the end, our Dispatch members themselves persuaded us to keep the service alive, albeit with a somewhat different focus.
What do our members think of Dispatch?
Here’s an unedited response to a question about Dispatch on the TAXI Forum:
Re: Dispatch question
Post by VanderBoegh » Thu Aug 25, 2016 12:48 pm
Hey Marcus, I don't know how I've spaced [telling] you about this in our recent emails back and forth, but the Dispatch service has been great to me. I'm at school right now, so I don't have access to my spreadsheets where I track everything, but a BUNCH of the deals that I've made through Taxi have all come from Dispatch forwards. In fact, I'd say it's something like 70% of all my Taxi deals have been from Dispatch rather than regular listings.
The reason, I think, is these companies are under the gun to get music very quickly, and so if Taxi gives them something and the company likes it, they'll reach out asap. Rather than regular listings which might not be time-sensitive to the company which ran the listing, and therefore might languish on a library owner's desk for a while (months or even years) until they reach out to the composers.
So, even though there might be a minimal amount of urban Dispatch listings right now, don't feel like you've made a bad decision. Because if you get forwards there - in my experience - you're much more likely to get a deal.
In fact, there was a stretch a few years ago where it seemed like every Dispatch forward I received resulted in a deal. So much, that when I got the forward email from Taxi, I could almost bet on getting contacted by the library within a week or two.
Plus, it'll prompt you to try some genres you'd never thought of doing before, like alt-country, acapella, spooky, or backwoods redneck. $150 [per year] well worth it, in my opinion!
~~Matt
Matthew C. Vander Boegh
Should You Upgrade to Dispatch?
If you’re a strong Instrumental composer who gets a good deal of “forwards” from TAXI, you could be ready to take advantage of Dispatch! If you’re a brand new TAXI member, we’d recommend waiting a few months until you get a feel for how TAXI works before you upgrade to Dispatch.