Browsing all posts in October, 2008.
EMI’s Decrescendo
EMI, one of the big 4 record labels, continues to struggle. Last year, they controlled 10% of the recorded music market, and that is now down to 9.5% this year. They also just released numbers showing a loss of US$1.2 Billion for year ending March 31. At least they were blunt about the cause – [...]
Indaba Music
Indaba Music has some exciting things going on with their website. First of all, there is a re-mix contest with the Roots band. The contest consists of 2 rounds. The first round is judged by Indaba users and the second round by judges. You re-mix one of their songs. If you are the top winner, [...]
Apple & Microsoft Sales
Both Apple & Microsoft released some sales numbers recently that show some shifts occurring in the music & technology industries. First is Apple’s robust sales of 6.9 million iPhone units in the first quarter of the product’s availability. That is more units sold than the first generation iPhone, and that is just in the first [...]
Classical 360
We have recently started seeing the introduction of deals with musicians that are referred to as 360 deals. Instead of the record label just selling cds of the artist, labels and other companies are getting into more aspects of the artist’s career and making money from a variety of revenue streams. We have seen this [...]
SongVest Ownership
Here is an interesting concept. SongVest allows you to bid on popular songs in order to become a partial owner of the song and share in the royalties. So now, instead of purchasing Garth Brook’s guitar, you can purchase a part of one of his songs and then continue to make a little change each [...]
MySpace Ads
MySpace keeps making it easier & easier for small bands to get their names out there. MySpace has now launched a MyAds program that will allow bands to advertise to specific MySpace users based upon location and demographics. Bands will create banner ads and basically compete monetarily against other bands to obtain coveted spots. Another [...]
Major Labels
Over this past weekend, I had a conversation with a friend of mine about the music industry. I was talking about the way that some of the big name artists were moving away from the major labels to companies like Live Nation that offered ’360 deals’ and touring venues throughout the world. I described how [...]
Universal’s CEO Interview
The Chairman & CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, recently gave an interview with Billboard. It is a fascinating interview that really shows the point of view of the labels. I know in my blog, I often rag on the labels, but reading this interview really helped me see that though they may be [...]
Latin American Media Partnership
Three Latin American media companies are joining forces to exploit their respective expertise in entertainment, music, and distribution. The Cris Morena Group and its partner, media company RGB Entertainment, both out of Argentina, have signed a deal with Televisa out of Mexico. The deal will last for 3 years. The three companies will collaborate on [...]
Music Site Start-Ups
There have been a number of music-related start up companies that have secured 1st & 2nd round venture capital. As the name signifies, first round funding is generally the first amount of money a company receives after exhausting friends, family, and angel investors. Angel investors are high net-worth individuals looking to invest in new companies [...]
