Heated Debate Over the Use of Jukebox Operators:
the Decision Lies in Bar Owners’ Hands
Stemming from our Tuning Up column in the Nov/Dec 2011 Issue regarding independent ownership of jukeboxes and the role of operators, a interesting debate continues between Touch Tunes Vice President of Corporate Marketing Marc Felsen and Barjukebox.com owner Tim Dever.
Initially, Dever described Barjukebox.com as essentially cutting out a middleman that has long gleaned profit from music purchases on-premise. This middleman seems irrelevant to him in this day and age. However, Felsen believes that “operators do provide a critical value both to locations, in the form of service and expertise, and back to us in the form of being our eyes and ears on the ground to help us make a better product.” To add a third side to the dispute, many older bar owners may hesitate to abandon the vendors and operators who, while taking a bulk of the revenue, do provide the mental assurance of service and upkeep when things go wrong.
Dever’s latest response is directed towards all bar owners:
“For a bar owner to allow an operator to supply, manage and maintain a jukebox or other coin operated games at the expense of the bottom line is simply bad business. In this economy a bar owner needs to be responsible and maximize all potential revenue. We know the argument. We hear it all the time. ‘I have been working with my operator for years.’ There is only one reason an operator is involved, that’s to take half our more of the cash from the machines that run on cash! Any bar owner that believes otherwise is fooling themselves and in denial. Many have allowed twenty thousand dollars in cash to literally walk out the front door year after year. This money could be used for expansion, remodeling, marketing or a much overdue vacation. In many cases it amounts to a quarter of a million dollars over the long haul. There went the summer home. If this is not the case then please explain why there is no operator tending to your blender. The answer, the blender is not full of dollar bills. You can bet if it had a dollar bill acceptor mounted on the side of it you would definitely need of an operator to keep it running.”
What are your thoughts on this debate?
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To read the original jukebox article, check out Musical Emancipation? and read Felsen’s full response in the March 2012 Tuning Up column.
