UMG-EMI Merger: How Much Control Do The Labels Really Have?
On the face of it, Universal's bid to acquire EMI appears to be a move designed to concentrate even more market share in the hands of the world's largest music company. Chief competitor Warner Music Group, consumer groups, and independent music labels have promised to fight it to the end, claiming that the merger will create a monster that would threaten the future of digital media by withholding content from startup companies. The flip side to this argument, however, is the theory that the major record labels already have been weakened by the influence of big retailers and by piracy, both of which purportedly put downward pressure on the price of physical CDs and digital downloads. In fact, Reuters reports that eight antitrust experts interviewed about the issue were split on the chance of the merger's approval, largely because it no longer is clear that any deal that would concentrate 40% of the recorded music industry in one company would be anti-competitive. "Ten years ago, the labels had power," Daniel Sokol, who teaches antitrust issues at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, told the news service. "Today they don't have any power. If they (the U.S. Federal Trade Commission) block it, it's just because they don't understand the market." [Full story: The Republic]
| MP3tunes Files For Bankruptcy But EMI Continues Legal Fight Digital music entrepreneur Michael Robertson [left] appears to have lost another one. The long-time thorn in the side of many record labels confirmed this week that his MP3tunes.com has filed for bankruptcy protection due in large part to the ongoing expense of defending the company against record label lawsuits. At the heart of Robertson's legal and financial woes is a suit filed by EMI in 2007, alleging that MP3tunes needed a license because the company's locker service allowed users to upload their MP3s to a remote server and then re-download or stream them to other internet-connected devices. Robertson prevailed in the first round of hearings last year, but EMI appealed that decision and a new round of court hearings is due to begin this month. "Four and a half years of legal costs and we're not even out of trial," Robertson said in a CNET interview. "MP3tunes has no choice but to file [for bankruptcy]. This is what they do...the labels engage in multi-year legal battles and put small companies through hell. EMI went to other companies and demanded that they not work with us. They went to retailers, as one example, and forbid those guys to work with us." [Full story: CMU Website] |
| Triton To Measure Pandora Audience With "Radio-Like" Metrics Pandora this week indicated it was serious about competing with terrestrial radio and signed a pact with Triton Digital to measure its audience size and reach nationally and in local markets. Since Triton now translates its audience data into traditional radio metrics such as Average Quarter Hour (AQH) and cumulative audience (cume) at both the national and local level, the data will make it easier for radio buyers to quantify the size and scale of the internet radio company. For example, the national results for March 2012 show that among adults 18-49, Pandora has a weekly cume of 23,874,175, which is equivalent to a cume rating of 17.8 and, when compared to radio networks in Arbitron's March 2012 RADAR 112 report, makes Pandora the largest adult 18-49 radio network in the U.S. "Agencies and marketers have been clamoring for an accurate, consistent view of the audio landscape," commented Mike Agovino, co-founder and COO of Triton Digital. "We have provided just that, without relying on estimates, panels, or extrapolations. Our solution measures every listener and provides an exact count, expressed in familiar terms. These new metrics give agencies a sound basis for decision-making for more effective cross-media planning." [Full story: PR Newswire] |
| Survey: 76% Of Pandora Listeners Say It's Better Than FM If perception is indeed reality (and the jury is still out on that one), Pandora offers listeners much more choice and control than FM radio. That's the word from a new study conducted by veteran researcher Mark Kassof, who surveyed 1,177 Pandora listeners age 18-64 and found that almost one-third (31%) believed FM didn't give them as much choice as Pandora, and one out of four (26%) said FM played more/too many commercials. "Pandora listeners think [the service] gives them more choices, more control over what they hear than FM does," Kassof observes. "Not only is choice the #1 response; many of the other comments reflect the same idea - [that] with FM you can't select genre, can't choose artists, can't skip songs, etc." Regardless of the age group, most of FM's differences are clearly negative for Pandora listeners, he says, noting that 11% of them said FM radio was better to listen to than Pandora, while 76% said it was worse to listen to. [Full story: All Access] |
Ovation Tower Signs Deals For On-Site Sales Of Concert CDs The Ovation Tower, a live digital media distribution kiosk and HD digital advertising platform, this week signed deals with a number of major music partners to provide on-site distribution of live concerts immediately following a performance. By working with such companies as Nederlander Concerts, MediaNet, Abbey Road Live, SeePoint Technology, Aderra Media Technologies and YCD Multimedia, Ovation Tower captures a live performance on-site and produces a studio-quality live album available for purchase immediately after the show. "There is nothing comparable to the experience of a live show," observes Ian Murray, president of Migratory Music, which owns the Ovation Tower platform. "However, few artists issue live recordings and when they do, it's generally many months after the concert has taken place. As a music fan and frequent attendee of live events, I found even the best concert experiences broken. With technology a passion of mine, I set out to develop a platform which would broaden the live experience for music fans and provide benefits to artists and multiple facets of the music industry." [Full story: Business Wire] |
| Deezer, Merlin Sign Global Licensing Pact Not to be outdone by Spotify or Pandora, subscription-based streaming service Deezer this week signed a global licensing deal with independent rights agency Merlin. The pact brings the company a music library from such labels and distributors as Warp, Yep Roc/Redeye, Epitaph, Phonofile, Tommy Boy, One Little Indian, Kontor New Media, !K7, and Merge. Founded in France in 2007, Deezer is available in more than 50 countries, and currently has 20 million users - 1.5 million of them paying customers. "Deezer has been very successful in France and, given that success, we are keen to see how they execute their global expansion," Charles Caldas, CEO of Merlin, told Billboard. "We are sure that the global nature of the Merlin repertoire and its proven success in local and international markets will be a vital factor in Deezer attracting the global audience it is seeking." Deezer, which claims it has a catalog of 18 million tracks (see "Opinion" story, below), last November announced plans to expand into 50 more countries, although it has no plans to launch in North America due to the high operational costs and complex rights negotiation involved. [Full story: Billboard.biz] |
| CD vs. Download "Tipping Point" May Be Closer Than It Appears Many music industry analysts are predicting a "tipping point" in the shift from physical CD sales to digital downloads, but few have actually pinpointed a moment when that transition will occur. The fact is, an analysis of IFPI data conducted by PaidContent suggests that shift already may be happening in some countries, with the U.K. possibly emerging as the most competitive digital music market, based on the overall number of licensed digital services (it has more than 70 of them). Meanwhile, 73% of all music sales in China are digital downloads, largely because CD piracy remains a serious - and un-monetized - problem throughout much of Asia. By contrast, several Latin American countries have almost no digital music services, which means Apple's iTunes is free to dominate those markets. Interestingly, the U.S. is #1 in digital music sales, with $2.2 billion of revenue coming from downloads, while several European countries still register high CD sales because of the popularity of classical music, most of which is still sold in a physical format. [Full story: io9] |
| Opinion: Online Digital Libraries Are Filled With Junk Major digital music services are quick to tout the size of their music libraries - 18 million tracks at one online company, 16 million at another - but how much does size really matter when the quality of that collection is highly dubious? That's the question posed recently by Mark Mulligan who, writing in Music Industry Blog, postulated that "digital catalogs are so much bigger now because of filling and fluffing from covers, tributes, and karaoke tracks." In fact, he says, covers and tributes make up 90% of digital music service catalogs, a statistic he tested by looking at the available tracks on iTunes for ten randomly selected, top-tier artists. "The startling key takeaway is that on average just 10% of the tracks listed for an artist are actually music by that artist," he says. "And bear in mind that many of those tracks are duplicates. The average U2 song, for example, is listed multiple times, ranging from original albums, remastered albums, EPs, greatest hits, compilations, and so forth. It's time for music services to stand up and be 'down-counted.' [Those] 16.4 million songs means nothing if the vast majority is useless filler." [Full story: Music Industry Blog] |
Al Bell Presents American Soul Music ... And American Soul TV
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