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Business News Labels & Publishers Retail
No Buble for Tesco as Warner falls out with supermarket giant
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 18 October 2010
Warner are reportedly refusing to supply any new releases to Tesco in a dispute over trading terms.
The dispute is already affecting the repackaged version of Michael Buble’s album ‘Crazy Love’, and could result in new long players from James Blunt, Cee-Lo Green and Katherine Jenkins not being stocked by the superdupermarket. Perhaps they could use the spare shelf space to stock more coffee. Why is the Shoreditch branch of Tesco always running out of coffee?
Warner UK boss Christian Tattersfield has confirmed the dispute to Music Week saying “They came to us wanting to renegotiate the terms and conditions and these were not economically viable for Warner Music”. Though Tesco’s entertainments man Rob Salter said he wasn’t aware talks had actually broken down until he was called by Music Week for a quote and that, as far as he was concerned, the major label and retailer were not “that far apart” in negotiations.
It’s not the first time Warner and Tesco have fallen out, with the major previously refusing to supply its albums to the retailer after a dispute over new trading terms four years ago. Though with so few physical shops now selling CDs, Tesco arguably has a stronger negotiating position, and Warner won’t want to see its releases off the supermarket’s shelves for too long.
