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Business News Week In Five
The music business week in five – 1 Jul 2011
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 1 July 2011
So a happy Canada Day to each and every one of you. Well, mainly our Canadian readers I suppose. At least for their main annual holiday Canadians just celebrate how great their country is, and not the day they kicked the British out of their territories. Take note Americans. And see you for Good Riddins Day on Monday. Of course, those of you in London can take part in the Canada Day festivities, though the best bits are actually at the Barbican tomorrow. The arrival of Canada and Independence Day can only mean it’s July already, which is freakin scary for someone who co-publishes the biggest review publication at the Edinburgh Festival each August. Let me go and panic in that corner over there while you read about this week’s five biggest music business stories.
01: MySpace was sold. Who’d have thought it possible? Advertising company Specific Media paid News Corp a reported $35 million to secure ownership of the flagging social media service, seemingly with an interest in capitalising on the company’s database of users and content partnerships. It was quickly announced that Justin Timberlake was being shipped in to help reinvent the business. Which will be interesting. Meanwhile most of the digital company’s remaining workforce will be shipped out as part of the takeover. CMU report | Billboard report
02: HMV released its year-end financials, confirming the struggling entertainment retailer saw its profits fall by 61% to £28.9 million in the last financial year. Take into account tax and non-cash impairments and you end up with a loss of £121.7 million. Gloomy reading but few surprises. HMV stressed that with the sale of its Waterstones and Canadian retail chains (the latter announced this week) and new bank loan arrangements in place, the company is now ready to continue with its recovery strategy. Of that strategy, the bit getting most coverage is the expansion of the techie and gadget departments at many HMV stores. It remains to be seen if that will pay off. CMU report
03: The film industry went to court over Newzbin2, a website that provides links to content on the Usenet network including, the Motion Picture Association said, a bucket load of unlicensed movies. The defendants in the case were actually BT, because the MPA – having won a copyright case against Newzbin last year, but struggling to enforce that ruling since the site relocated to Sweden – wants the courts to issue an injunction forcing the tel co to block access to the offending site. The issuing of such injunctions on copyright grounds hasn’t happened before in the UK and, BT argues, if it does in this case, the flood gates will be open for multiple claims by film and music companies. Newzbin itself is not actually involved in the proceedings, though needless to say its owners criticised the MPA’s actions in an interview with Torrentfreak. CMU reports | Torrentfreak report
04: The MMF and FAC called for more commitment to ‘on air, on sale’, the policy whereby record companies make singles available via iTunes etc the minute they first get played on radio, rather than the traditional record label marketing approach where radio plays new songs for several weeks before they go on sale. The Music Managers Forum and Featured Artists Coalition argue that during the gap between first radio play and a song going on sale web users have an excuse for file-sharing, because they want to own a new track they’ve just heard, but can’t buy it from legitimate stores. At the start of the year Sony and Universal said they’d start operating an ‘on air, on sale’ policy. However, MMF and the FAC this week questioned the wider record industry’s commitment to that strategy, noting some labels were still releasing tracks to radio before digital stores, in a bid to get a better chart position by maximising first week sales after a month of promotion. CMU report
05: We7 extended partnerships, and expanded into Europe. Radio stations owned by GMG Radio, including Smooth, Real and Rock Radio, launched their own playlists on the digital music platform, showcasing each station’s respective music policies. The move extended an existing content partnership between We7 and the Guardian’s radio firm. Meanwhile, following a recent new round of investment, We7 announced it was launching in Belgium this week, the start of a roll out around Europe. CMU report | Media Week report
And that is your lot, people, until we do this ‘week in view’ thing all over again on the CMU Weekly podcast this afternoon. Though on that Andy will also tell you his theory as to exactly what happened to Tricky at Glastonbury. So that’s something to look forward to. Check out all things CMU podcast, including sign up info, at www.completemusicupdate.com/podcast/
Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU
