Morris & Grainge set to square off. The house takes Grainge
The wheels started turning at Sony Music yesterday when CEO Rolf What’s-His -Name announced that on April 1 he will become a partner in TeVeo, a Hamburg-based pay platform.
In making the announcement, Rolfie said “TeVeo has realized the signs of time and plays a key role in the hybrid-TV-technology. I see enormous growth for TeVeo’s pay-platform TV-ID, not only in Germany, but for the whole European market.” Mazel tov.
So now you can expect the announcement of Doug Morris as the new Sony CEO any minute. You can also expect Morris doppelgänger Mel Lewinter to be joining him on the 32nd floor at 550 Madison.
How exciting. I can’t wait to see how they totally revolutionize the music industry and restore Sony Music to its rightful place as the industry trailblazer. It just sends chills down my spine.
At first Lewinter was said to be unsure about going with Doug to Sony, preferring to devote more attention to his side business of building hotels. But Morris supposedly can’t make a move without Lewinter so I’m sure that he sold Sony a bill of goods and got them to pull out the checkbook. And you know that Morris will probably be pulling down an eight figure annual salary. Same old deck chairs, new address. A complete waste of money. But Sony is used to it by now. In fact, they’re really good at it.
Sources say that Morris was very miffed at the way his UMG successor was treating him. I hear that new CEO Lucien Grainge couldn’t wait to get him out the door. Grainge has the reputation of being one tough, hard-nosed SOB and didn’t want Morris hanging around like a bad case of flu.
Now what can you expect to see at the new Sony Music? Well, you can certainly expect to see more of Morris’s cronies coming over, or at least those that Grainge wouldn’t mind being rid of.
Expect Morris to do what he did at UMG—basically buy revenue. Most labels are doing just that—entering joint ventures, merging or buying smaller labels with a hot act or two and some revenues.
Grainge, conversely, is focusing on signing and developing recording artists, the core product of the music industry.
So now the stage is set for what will be a fun new chapter in the ongoing grudge match between the two labels. Sony only cares about what UMG does and vice versa. Neither company even acknowledges the existence of EMI or Warner.
But there’s more fun to be had. To make this a complete three-ring circus, the Morris move will probably make Jr. Bronfman absolutely schizoid. Heretofore, Jr. has been obsessed with UMG. Now Sony will join Universal as the object of that obsession. I can just see him waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat wondering if Sony got more advance money out of Spotify than he did.
All we need is Vince McMahon and we’ll be ready to party!
© 2011, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.
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