About this episode
Kurt Oleson discusses the importance of music licensing and the role of human curation in hospitality music solutions.
Kurt Oleson is the Chief Operating Officer and co-owner of Custom Channels, a Denver-based company delivering fully licensed, human-curated music solutions for hotels and restaurants. A classically trained pianist turned music technologist, he helped build early music-recommendation algorithms before joining his company. Susan and Kurt talk about licensing landmines and algorithmic ethics. What You'll Learn: • Why playing Spotify in your restaurant could cost you $10,000 per song • How performance and composition licenses protect artists • How following "passion-adjacent opportunities" can shape an unexpected career • The upside and ethical gray areas of algorithm-driven music discovery • Why human-curated playlists still outperform AI in hospitality settings • How tempo, energy, and traffic patterns should shape your daily music flow • How many songs you actually need to avoid repetition • Why commoditizing music undermines its impact on your brand *** Our Top Three Takeaways Music isn't background noise—it's a business tool. When aligned with traffic patterns, brand identity, and desired guest behavior, audio can increase dwell time, improve turnover, and even become a profit…
People in this episode
Host: Susan Barry
Guest: Kurt Oleson
Topics covered
- music licensing
- algorithmic ethics
- hospitality
- human-curated playlists
- music discovery
- business strategy
Keywords
- music licensing
- algorithm ethics
- hospitality music
- human curation
- Spotify risks
- music discovery
- business tool
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Custom Channels
Places: Denver
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