(Very lengthy response below.....delete now if the music biz is a big snore for you....)
On 21 Feb 2002 at 23:25, Kakki wrote: > Brenda wrote: > What is he doing? So we can expect the like of Clear Channel to own > all the TV and cable outlets - eeek! Then what do we do?! > "He claims he's just following Congress' initiative," says Kimmelman, who testified at the Senate hearing against any further media consolidation. "But the senator pointed out that chairman Powell quite obviously has a strong predisposition towards deregulation and has shown a certain disregard for legislative directives from Congress. Perhaps he needs to go back to the drawing board and clarify his approach." (Powell was not available to be interviewed for this article.) Just a few days after the Senate hearing, Powell did just that -- he made his priorities perfectly clear. Voting along party lines, commissioners granted a waiver allowing Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to purchase 10 Chris-Craft Industries television stations for $4.4 billion -- making Murdoch's Fox television group the most powerful in the nation. The waiver was needed because the purchase violated three separate ownership and cross-ownership laws. " http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/06/powell/index1.html There are actually a lot of articles out there about Powell and his views on media ownership. > This is great. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think a lot of people > across the board know about these companies or their music. It's good > that alternatives are thriving but it seems like they are limited in > target to specialized markets. Alot of people didn't know about Virgin Records when they were operating out of a basement studio apartment in New York and put out that crazy "Tubular Bells" album by Mike Oldfield in the early 70's. Or how about Jive Records which started out as a niche label (rap) and has now become one of the most powerful pop labels around. The word "electronica" wasn't even in the general music vocabulary 15 years ago and now the music is all over commercial TV. Extreme sports and its culture and music weren't on the radar 20 years ago - now Sno-Core and X Games get broadcast television coverage. Maybe it just doesn't appear to be happening in a resonant way for most of us because we're not 17. I liked it better when it was ALL > being put out there through the simple medium of radio. Although I > can see the other side that certain genres or segments of the market > are benefiting by getting more personal care and attention. I'm glad that it's no longer the simple medium of radio. I've found more new music because of it. Those days are long gone and I say good riddance, especially if the new channels can remain competitive. > > As for the problems with the majors being run by accountants - I think > it's gone way beyond that. It doesn't go far beyond that on a daily basis. The conversations in A&R and marketing meetings at major labels have changed because of the way the businesses are run. I watched the change first-hand at Virgin as an accountant (who knew jack about music) achieved more power by manipulating balance sheets and gaining favor in the eyes of the board and the majority stockholders. The fact that he was not and is not a music guy has more to do with Virgin's current demise then the acquisition of the company by EMI. Huge corporations that have never been in > the music business have been buying up and then flipping these > companies for a number of years now. It's almost like corporate > raiding. It seems like the businesses get so gutted and destabilized > after numerous ownership and management changeovers every few years > that it is easy to see how they've devolved into mediocracy. I don't think this categorization is entirely correct. Sony's management has been stable for more than 10 years. Warners had been stable for nearly two decades until recently (and the AOL acquisition was not the reason for changes - poor results was the cause). EMI ditched Fifield and Koppleman because they were fiscally reckless (how about having your Bentley shipped from one coast to another to follow your itinerary - quite an executive perk). I don't disagree that huge corporations with no music biz knowledge have been buying companies but other than Edgar Bronfman trying to realize his rock 'n' roll fantasy, most of the label management was left intact to do what they do. And the companies have not been broken up and sold for parts. The trouble is that the financial guys saw an opportunity to rise in the ranks once these acquisitions happened, knowing that they new owners really only know financial results. These guys used that weakness to shift the companies so they would be run by the numbers instead of by the music. So now labels don't have time for artist development. They have to achieve sales results in the same fiscal year (or same quarter) that they commit the marketing spend. It's the reason why most charttopping records now debut high and then fall down the chart instead of entering lower and rising to the top. IMO, the best thing that can happen is that the CD and hard goods distribution become increasingly irrelevant. It unsettles the power base of the majors and increases opportunities for independents who will super serve their market and eventually rise to the mainstream. Brenda n.p.: Groovetech/Seattle
