Have you ever wondered how many times a day a new Drake banger gets spinned on the radio? Or maybe you are an up-and-coming Drake yourself and want to know where and how often your songs are being aired? Luckily, a new service called WARM - World Airplay Radio Monitor - will tell you exactly when and where a song is being played on radio stations around the world. In anticipation of WARM‘s launch on April 18, we chatted with Jesper Skibsby, founder & CEO of WARM about his brainchild & what it can offer to the music industry.

Left to right: Jesper Skibsby, Kristoffer Stensgaard Jensen (founders of WARM)

NBN: Why did you create WARM and what inspired you?

Jesper: While I was working in the music industry, in 2013 I found myself discussing how to track data and insights around songs with existing platforms like Spotify, Soundcloud, etc. Immediately, I realized that no systems were available to obtain and deliver insights on radio airplays directly to the artists themselves. Why wasn’t it there? I started investigating and found a company that had developed the technology needed to build the WARM platform and app. An opportunity was there so we got in touch, and asked them to collaborate. It happened and we created this unique tool together with a great back-end team (Bach Technologies) and some very nice and patient front-end developers in Norway (Rocketfarm).

NBN: What is unique about WARM and why should I join?

Jesper: If you are an artist, a songwriter, producer, manager or agent, and work with music on a daily basis, it’s important to have as many insights as possible around a song. This activity on the data is able to give you a direction on whether you are doing the right thing or not. We are strongly in favor of information-sharing. The more you know, the better you can optimize. For this purpose, WARM provides you with global insights on any song, on radio stations. WARM delivers real-time data via an intuitive platform - that gives you a great overview of your actual radio airplays. We wanted to make it as flexible and cheap as possible, so everyone can have the opportunity to monitor their songs performance or others.

NBN: In what way will WARM effect or even change the music business?

Jesper: We see the music industry transforming more and more towards a “DIY world” where independent thinking is key. We imagine more and more companies will cater for this segment, focused primarily on giving the people the right tools. A lot of artists want to be in control nowadays, with everything around them, whether its tour booking, social media or in general insights on song performance. Now it’s time for the Tech companies to serve this independent environment as added value. We hope WARM will be able to help everyone in the music industry to gain easy access to radio play insights.

NBN: Where would you like to see WARM in 5 years?

Jesper: I expect us to have made multiple new features on the platform, and established a healthy business, that can help a lot of musicians around the world. We have a lot of exciting product development ideas, so I would definitely hope we get these implemented over the next couple of years. Also, we hope our office will be located somewhere more WARM ;).

NBN: How would you describe your life in Copenhagen? What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Jesper: Meetings, often. My life pretty much spins around WARM and my 3-year-old daughter, and that’s the way it should be. We are lucky this city welcomes and supports startups and people with great ideas (plus the music scene is on fire too).