Live Nation Spins a Yarn
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The big news in the record business this week is that Live Nation announced they were taking on the high price of concert tickets. The LA Times reported that Michael Rapino, the 40 year old chief executive of Live Nation has vowed to drive down ticket prices... Aired Wednesday, September 27, 2006. [MORE]
Zune
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The record business may feel like it continues into darkness, but the digital download business is looking pretty bright. Now that Apple is the clear market leader for portable music players, with over 70 percent of market penetration, it’s not surprising that others are seriously trying to hone in on the business. Though Steve Jobs announced a few years ago that his music division was simply a loss leader for Ipod sales, but it really wasn’t. With over 1 billion tracks downloaded, Apple nets a cool 90 million dollars after royalties just through ITunes. Add to that profits from the sales of Ipods and you can see how a little music has made Apple Computers sing...
Aired Wednesday, September 20, 2006. [MORE]
Christgau, WOXY, New Orleans, 4th Quarter Blitz
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I believe in giving credit, where credit is due. August 31, the owners of New York's weekly newspaper, The Village Voice, fired longtime music critic Robert Christgau. For 37 years, Bob Christgau had been covering music for the Voice, raising the bar of music journalism for all of us to marvel. Love him or hate him, the self-appointed Dean of American Rock Critics brilliantly, reveals his wit and wisdom on the page, with an appetite that rivals any 20 year old blogger, and the mind of a Joycean scholar on speed. Christgau is always entertaining insightful and intrepid. He's never played his audience, avoiding all the trappings of the record business bling with its quid pro quo glad-handing. He is a purist, a street wise intellectual, full of integrity and unapologetic about his findings. Christgau sits along side a couple of other great music critics, most notably Lester Bangs. He'll be sorely missed at the Voice, and I hope we'll be hearing a lot more from him in the future...
Aired Wednesday, September 13, 2006. [MORE]
Where is Albert Einstein When You Need Him?
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Yesterday, the music news headlines were cluttered with the announcement that a small music download company called SpiralFrog had inked a deal with the giant Universal Music to offer free downloads of the Universal catalog to consumers...
Aired Wednesday, August 30, 2006. [MORE]
Summer Sign-Up 2006
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Aired Wednesday, August 16, 2006. [MORE]
How to Stop Record Stores from Closing
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Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that Universal Music, Warner Bros Music, EMI and Sony BMG, all suspended CD shipments to the Tower Records retail chain for non-payment. Tower is an eighty-seven store chain based in Sacramento. It s not the first time the beloved retailer was put on a purchasing hold. Financial problems have plagued the institution for years...
Aired Wednesday, August 9, 2006. [MORE]
Getting Ampd
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As the digital world continues to unfold before our eyes, it's becoming increasingly apparent to the record business that we're not in Kansas anymore. The subsequent implications of living in the digital age have had enormous and far reaching consequences for a business previously built on controlling the artists' spin and staying on message...
Aired Wednesday, August 2, 2006. [MORE]
Satellite Radio & The Perform Act
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The real dogfight in the music business these days is not the fight over the number one record, but rather the fight over S. 2644. S.2644 is the bill currently in the hands of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s also called The Perform Act. Tomorrow, the Committee may choose to vote on The Perform Act, which if passed, would enact new standards for radio streaming. The bill is being sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Lindsay Graham, and Bill Frist and supported by The RIAA...
Aired Wednesday, July 26, 2006. [MORE]
To Be A Merger or Not To Be - The Crisis of Sony Music and BMG
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Is it Annulment Time? The Crisis between Sony & BMG. The era of the supersized record business may soon be over...
Aired Wednesday, July 19, 2006. [MORE]
Rethinking Everything: How The Long Tail Changed the Record Business
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In 2004, Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired magazine, wrote an important article about the changing business models in the digital age, from a hits economy towards a robust niche market. The article was called "The Long Tail," and most of the players in the music business paid careful attention. Mr. Anderson was, in fact, identifying the current trends in the music business though no one was publicly acknowledging it. Aired Wednesday, July 12, 2006. [MORE]
My Space
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The ratings organization, Nielsen, list MySpace as the number one social networking site in America. The site also ranks high in repeated viewings. More than 67% of all the visitors to MySpace in March, returned in April. Not only that, compared to some of the other popular sites on the web, MySpace boasts a phenomenal retention time, with members logging well over an hour of use each time...
Aired Wednesday, July 5, 2006. [MORE]
Arif Mardin
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It's important to remember where you came from, and who brought you there. My road into adulthood was carried by many of the songs that Arif Mardin helped create. He was the longtime in-house producer at Atlantic Records and his gift for recognizing talent, and nurturing the purest sound is legendary. Arif Mardin died on Sunday at the age of 74...
Aired Wednesday, June 28, 2006. [MORE]
The big news in the record business this week is that Live Nation announced they were taking on the high price of concert tickets. The LA Times reported that Michael Rapino, the 40 year-old chief executive of Live Nation has vowed to drive down ticket prices. He cites the average concert fan only attends two shows a year, and the average cost for each show is $57...
Aired Tuesday, June 27, 2006. [MORE]
New Orleans Calling
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Last week, I visited New Orleans. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the city has changed dramatically. The historic French Quarter, which is the cultural heart of the city, is intact and ready for business. Surrounded by beautiful architecture, interesting cuisine, art galleries, antique stores, and boutiques, standing in the Quarter still has an eerie feeling. The feeling of a city abandoned.
Aired Wednesday, June 14, 2006. [MORE]