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Burnham tells Nash: This year is key
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 26 March 2009
Culture Minister Andy Burnham, who’s schmoozing with the music business last year has led to a partial government policy shift on the recording copyright extension, but few developments in forcing internet service providers to crack down on piracy, has told Kate Nash that this year is key for putting the music business on a “sustainable footing”.
It’s certainly key as far as he’s concerned. With a tough General Election battle due in 2010 there’ll be little time in political circles for doing anything other than pandering to a broke tetchy electorate, and after that Burhham almost certainly won’t be in the culture minister job, even if his party do get to form the next government, which is far from a foregone conclusion as far as I can see.
Anyway, Nash joined UK Music boss Feargal Sharkey at a recent meeting with Burnham, she being on the steering group for the much previously reported Feature Artists Coalition. And according to Music Week, he told the musical duo: “Rather than government saying ‘oh it’s all got to be like that’ or the industry saying ‘it’s all got to be like this’, we’re going to have to find a way of making ideas come together that stick”, an insightful statement which I think is just a definition of the political process, isn’t it?
Anyway, he apparently continued: “So we really have to get ideas that really work, and put the music business on a sustainable footing because if we don’t – if this year goes by and we [just] carry on as we’ve done for the last five years – then I really worry what will be left of our music industry in four or five years time”. He added that part of that process was encouraging young people to opt for legal online music services over the illegal ones, a process which, he reckons, probably rightly, needs to likes of Nash’s involvement to work. He concludes: “[Young consumers won’t] listen to a boss of a record label standing up and saying it anymore than they would listen to me standing up and saying it – that is why Kate’s voice is really important in this”.
Nash also reportedly told Burnham that she thinks there needs to be “more space” for up and coming artists on TV and radio, which is probably true, though to be honest the TV and radio industry is currently in an even bigger mess than the music industry – there’s a sector that really does need to do something this year to ensure it’s still functioning in five year’s time – so I suspect persuading any commercial broadcaster that now is the time to be putting minority-interest new music shows into primetime aint going to go down well.
